Eight

Our second Friday in New York was interesting.

Our metro cards were out of money, and our city card was finished. So we were off to do things we hadn’t taken time to do before.

For example, I finally took a picture out of our hotel Window. We stayed a a Comfort Inn on 39th and 8th Ave. We were on the 18th floor. It was a TALL SKINNY SQUARE building 22 storied up, that seemed small compared to other buildings around it.

Here is a panoramic view:

That building right there is the New York Times new building

The billboards a block away are spillover from time square, that is how close we were!

That seemingly huge parking structure is the Port Authority Bus station.

That weird green building, is a publishing company…I can’t read the sign right now.

Our view down, my knee.

In preparation to our trip we watched tons of New York shows and movies to know what to look out for. This is a place that I wouldn’t have thought about if it weren’t for Ghost Busters.

The New York City Public Library.

Also highlighted in Breakfast at Tiffany’s

Also, it is in Bryant Park, where fashion week takes place. And Project Runway.

Lion.

I was continually tripping because all I could do was look up. The skyline, and things happening in front of me were so captivating.

We found an Urban Outfitters while we were looking around in that area. I bought $10 worth of nail polish. It was cool to find another store that sold Toms, but there weren’t any that I liked, so we moved on.

You can see a low lying building coming up in the distance.

This is the ceiling of the this building:

Constellations and stars and astrology paintings.

What is it?

Grand Central Station:

It was really dark in there, and difficult to take pictures.

We actually went in to jump on a subway.

You see it was noon, and we had still not had any food.

I found the address of a place I wanted to eat, but it was all the way across town, and I was getting crancky. We found this food cart that sold falafel. I had really wanted to try them, so on our way to lunch we stopped for some sustenance .

Karl says this is the best food cart in Manhattan.

I agree, this falafel warp was SOOOO good. Karl got a Gyro. Which he said it was the best Gyro that he had ever had before.

(Random info: See the tag that this man is wearing? All the vendors have to wear these permits. You can’t just start selling food on the street. Which I thought was cool. They have to answer to help codes and inspectors and everything.

After eating, we finally found the place we were looking for.

One of the things I really wanted to do while we were in the city was eat Albanian food. Albanian’s have their style of Gyro, Suflace, which is good, and not quite the same as a Gyro. The one thing that I miss so much is Byrek. So we found this place that we called ahead and everything.

We checked out the menu, and something caught my eye.

We ordered Spinach and Beef Byreck. I got a glass of Yogurt, which was called dhal, in Albania. Karl also order a sandwich, Boringly

Appetizers were peta bread hummus dipping sauce.

The place was really cool. It was just as much a wine bar as anything.

Karl made sure to find a seat right under the vent.

The Dhal came.

I made Karl try some.

We started on our appetizer. And the Byrek came:

I was so freaking excited!

I had a really great food.

And I was happy.

More Dhal.

And more…

I was getting really full, and that glass was HUGE! This was actually one of the best glasses I ever had. In Albania it was always warmer, and more sour tasting. This was very “tart” as karl described it.

We finished dinner and went out to continue to explore the city.

We found this sweet bike shop on the West side.

We shopped around, and just wandered.

The sky got dark really quickly, and we were forced into this TINY dollar store for a bit of shelter.

We were both soaking wet. We bought a cheap umbrella, and ran back to the hotel. We napped and showered and dried off.

By the time we woke up, you guessed it, we were hungry again.

At the begining of our trip we found this sweet little bodega around the corner, and we ate here a few times.