NYC BEFORE NEW YEARS

So we're in the second half of January, and I'm finally around to posting about my time in NYC before New Years... Oh yes. 

After spending Christmastime in the Adirondacks, I headed back to NYC to celebrate New Year's with Joe and the rest of our college friends (and also hangout for a few days too)!

So the day I got into NYC, I had a long travel day. Dan and I drove home from the Adirondacks together through snow, ice, and rain, and then took the train into the city. Being back at Grand Central was so weird. When I worked in NYC I was there at least twice a week, if not twice a day.

Before heading to Brooklyn I decided I needed to go to my favorite chain of wonderful cheap NYC threading salons to get my eyebrows threaded because I hadn't done that since before the trail :x and then I headed to Brooklyn.

I was actually the last of my friends to get in and since everyone had grabbed lunch a few hours before, I stopped for a few dollar slices. Of all the things I miss about NYC, dollar slices of pizza are near the top of the list.

 Even though I missed lunch with everyone, I arrived just in time for sunset. (Whoa).

After sunset, we headed out. And by we, I mean everyone except Joe :(. He had actually come down with a 24 hour bug and stayed in. It was really sad. He just wanted to sleep and told me I should go out, so that's what I did, but it was hard being out with everyone knowing he wasn't feeling well and wasn't with us. That being said, It was good to catch up with my favorite college people. We went out for dinner and then did a little bar hopping after dinner including this place with the most beautiful views of the Empire State Building. It also had igloos for the cold weather. They were all filled, but I guess we now know for next year!

The next day, Joe was feeling better! We all hung out in the morning and ate everything bagels and played this game (pictured above). I don't even remember what it was called, but it was so funny to watch. I was super good at it too and never got whip creamed in the face!

After breakfast, we headed out to Bryant Park. We wanted to ice skate like we did last year, but when we found out the line was 2.5 hours we passed and went to the New York Public Library.

Later in the afternoon, we went down to The Oculus and the Freedom Tower. I never actually went down there when I lived in NYC and hadn't been down that way since shortly after 9/11 so it was an odd feeling to be back fifteen years later.

 For dinner, we headed to Ippudo making it the third year in a row we've gone. (Yay traditions!) I got my favorite wasabi vegetarian ramen, which is my favorite ramen of anywhere ever, and was so happy.

After dinner, we headed to a bar so Maggie could watch the U of M football game. None of us were particularly interested in the game besides Maggie, so we played games at the table and took advantage of the $3 happy hour specials and ordered a lot of drinks upfront so we didn't have to pay for $8 drinks later lol.

Another fun thing was that Laura and her boyfriend David met up with us! I was slightly worried that the college friends all together at once with our gazillion inside jokes would be a little bit much for them, but they jumped right in and really hit it off with everyone. They even came back to Brooklyn with us for more games and drinks after the U of M game was over!

Anyway, that's it for pre-New Year's in NYC. Tune in tomorrow (probably) for a recap of New Year's Eve in NYC!

xo