#44 New York N°2 – A special birthday

On April 15^th, the day after Washington DC, Bruna and the two of us went back to New York in order to celebrate Barbara’s birthday that was coming up. We wandered around the East Village, got a few drinks and went to a nice Sushi restaurant for dinner. Afterwards, we made our way down to Greenwich Village and had a couple more drinks, until it was time to cheer because Barbara’s age count just clocked up by one. By then we were in a pretty good mood. When the bartender started to become really friendly we figured it was time to call it a night.

East Village

East Village

I think somebody just got older!

In the late morning, we went to Junior’s near Times Square for brunch. The aim was to get a nice piece of Cheesecake for dessert but nobody managed to eat another bite after the mains, even though Bruna and Barbara shared theirs.

Brunch at Junior’s

Pastramy Reuben – what a treat

From there, Bruna had to catch a bus back to Baltimore. Barbara had a special thing planned for the rest of our day: We would take a train and head up to Chappaqua in Westchester County to visit her host-family from when she was an au pair. They were so kind and invited us to their home. After eleven years, it was quite a reunion, especially when Barbara got to see Evan, the once two-year-old she took care of and who is now in his prime teenage years.
Ira and Alyzza prepared champagne, fingerfood and even a birthday cake. They were so lovely that even though Barbara had not seen them in such a long time and I had just met them, we felt extremely welcome and had a great afternoon and evening together. We even received wedding presents. Additionally, we also got to meet the family’s good friend Alan, a renowned painter and quite a character.

Babs, Alyzza, Evan, Alan, Ira (FLTR)

Birthday celebration

The extended aperitif was followed by a first-class barbecue. Time passed way too quickly and if we had the chance, we would have loved to chat well into the night. But unfortunately, we needed to head back to New York.

On our last day in NYC, Barbara and I had some time to ourselves again. We went our own ways for the day, did some sightseeing and some much needed shopping – I really needed some new boxers and a pair of trainers as the sole started peeling off my old ones. And of course there was some more sightseeing.

Strolling through Central Park

Lincoln Center

High Line Park

One World Trade Center and Ground Zero

Flat Iron Building

In the evening we packed the bags for our flight to Vietnam the next day and thanks to Alyzza and Ira we had a pretty classy champagne dinner in our hotel room. Southeast Asia might be slightly different from New York…

Sponsored Champagne and ordered Pizza

The feast