Last month, when the glow of the 4th had faded and the month stretched out in front of us, we traveled for five days to New York City.
I really don’t want to be dramatic, but it was pretty much a completely perfect vacation.
Yes - it was completely hot and sweaty the entire week. Yes - we got downpour rained-upon while leaving the MoMA and had to walk home absolutely soaked. Yes - I sprained my ankle on the fourth day walking home after dinner in clogs. Yes - one of my rolling suitcase wheels gave up on me on our last day of travel. Yes - it turns out that decriminalizing marijuana plus the summer heat leads to some STINKY neighborhoods, as it turns out.
But man. It really was perfect. We were absolutely so jazzed to be traveling, to be in a beautiful, big place and feel so safe (thank you, thank you, thank you vaccines), and to be together celebrating my husband’s incredible achievement of finishing his medical training. What a guy. He’s the hardest working person I know. I can only think of one time the entire week where we even got a little miffed with one another, and almost everything we wanted to see or do was open (except for, sadly for me, Purl Soho). I did, however, spend an absolutely wonderful hour making a return visit to the Brooklyn General Store and managed to completely treat myself, so don’t worry.
The last time we were together in NYC was over five years ago (when we were celebrating his match into residency!). This time around we stayed in the East Village in Manhattan, had the world’s best cocktails, bopped around to several museums and art experiences, walked around everywhere, and ate as many carbs as we wanted. I’m still dreaming about the blue crab pasta I ate for lunch in Brooklyn at Frankie’s 457 Spuntino. Life changing, I tell you. We spent an hour sitting and listening to jazz in Central Park, and spent a morning at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens where summer was in full swing. We walked around The Battery and saw the Statue of Liberty through a bed of blooming coneflower and drank so much water and iced coffee. We sat and read books and knit in coffee shops and in our tiny studio apartment that we rented and just spent some amazing days together.
In my mind, most of my ideal vacations are to the countryside. My favorite part of our trip to Montreal was the day we drove out of the city and saw all of the tiny ski villages and mountains, and I miss my summers hiking in Colorado so much. But I absolutely loved this trip to New York in all of its stinky, crowded glory. We are already looking forward to the next time we’ll be able to go back (and perhaps this time, in the fall, when we can trade our shorts for peacoats and our sunglasses for scarves). We’ll be riding the high of this amazing vacation for a long time though, that much I can tell you.
I love you, B.