Life Highlights: Day 1 with the Snake

Snake being a model while we listened to some cool music and spied on one of (many) wedding photo shoots

Today was a nice quiet day out! Manar didn't wake up until 11 (jet lag is a killer), so we left around noon for Central Park! We hadn't seen it properly last time (in -6°F weather and snow), so this was a great chance to do it again, properly! Not to mention the weather today was beautiful.

Beautiful day in Central Park!

We went down to 77th street so we could see more things and grab an all-important hot dog. We ended up seeing a random Alice in Wonderland statue and a pretty model sail boat pond before going to The Lake.

The random Alice in Wonderland statue. Love the books/movies/spinoffs/franchises, confused about this.

There, we took pictures of the boat house as we rowed across the water! We decided to rent a boat for an hour, and as I asked Manar if she had ever rowed before and she said no, I decided to be the rower.

I'm on a boat...

My hidden talent, by the way, is that I am an excellent rower. I love canoeing, kayaking, funyaking, the whole nine yards, but I had never done a row boat before. However, luckily, despite being almost ten years out of practice, the mechanics were basically the same and soon muscle memory took over. I was doing even better than some of the guys taking their ladies out on the water and certainly better than the other all female boats. I remembered how to steer, power, and generally "rock" (the boat). I also remembered how much I enjoy boating (generally). I wish I had more opportunities to do such a water activity!

The skyline from the boat was gorgeous!

And while we were out on the boat it was a great chance for us to sight see the park without walking as well as people watch in general. My favourite fellow boat-er was of an older woman who brought her own photography team with her on the boat (a shiny and everything!), while seeing the bridges and turtles were my favourite of the park (they reminded me of punting at Cambridge!).

When you look like an adult but eat like a child (Manar suggested getting popsicles to beat the heat and get some childhood nostalgia! She got a rainbow flavour while I took the sour one. My was superior because my stick came with a joke about why a song was so good on the exam [he had lots of notes])

Then we decided to head out to see the Brooklyn Bridge since that was another thing we hadn't done the first time around. We got a little lost cutting through Central Park, but we got there eventually. Then we took the C train downtown for the photo op. It was pretty crowded and extremely hot -not to mention the pedestrian walkway is partially made out of wood (I was terrified)! But we made it before going up to the East Village for some coffee at a place on 5th called Coffee Project New York. I had an interesting chive and cheese scone while Manar had some sort of coffee concoction and small pastry.

Me on the Brooklyn Bridge

Finally we decided to head back to my flat for dinner (because we are economical), but not before stopping at 77th again to see if we could buy some glasses (which we didn't end up getting) and looking at a vintage shop (where we also looked at some boots we didn't end up getting). Then after a bite to eat we decided to relax and watch some cable.

Our Snapchat game is strong #goals

We had tentative plans to go back out, but honestly Manar is exhausted (and a little sick and a lot jetlagged) and I am a morning person so as young twenty-somethings in the Big Apple we have made the smart choice and have been in bed since 19:30 rather than partying the night away.

Tomorrow we plan on a longer day in SoHo filled with art, shopping, wine and cheese tasting, and general culture/fun. But all in all today was a pretty nice, restful Wednesday!

And, a quick postscript, pre-snake day I made a VERY IMPORTANT PURCHASE today and after four years I have finally come into possession of a DAVID BOWIE IS TICKET!!! New York is the last stop on the world tour, and I have mine for the opening day on March 2nd! Already prepared a blow-by-blow account for the blog!