Reaching Beyond Mediocrity: Revisiting our Spot: NYC 2016

We spent this weekend in New York City!

Almost one year ago Alex proposed to me in Central Park.

We wanted to go back to revisit our spot.

We thought it'd be neat to take along a friend who hasn't ever had the chance to visit the city, so our plans were wide open so that we could do whatever he wanted.

Unfortunately, he wasn't able to make it at the last minute, so we had a clean open slate.

We did what we normally do and drove to Staten Island on Friday night and spent the night.

The next morning we got ready, drove to the ferry and took it across to Manhattan.

It is so simple for us to drive into Staten Island, spend the night and then just drive down to the ferry.

We do that every time, but sometime we would actually like to stay in the city.

My sister-in-law lives in Brooklyn.

So, we went to visit her and her boyfriend on Saturday morning.

Then, we took the subway to Little Italy for some lunch.

Da Nico

We always find the best food in Little Italy.

We walk up and down the street looking for lunch specials and pop into whatever place catches our eye.

Complimentary fried dough for dessert. Yum!

Alex's family is Italian and his great grandma used to make fried dough all of the time; however, she's a bit too old for that now. This reminded him so much of hers.

They were delicious!

Just up the street is this Christmas store.

I never seem to forget it, and even though I feel like the same stuff is in it year after year, I love it!

Who doesn't love a Christmas store?!

After Little Italy and some browsing down China Town we took the subway up to Central Park.

1st stop- Visit Kelly!

Or so I wish.

I have always loved

Live with Regis and Kelly

Live with Kelly and Michael

Live with Kelly

She makes me laugh, and I enjoy getting to start my mornings with her in the summertime.

I really wonder what her house looks like inside.

If only she were coming out we could have visited, chatted, went for a stroll through Central Park...

if only!

From there we went across to the park and did some strolling...

Up next, a walk to Serendipity 3, which had too long of a wait list, so we went to Magnolia Bakery.

We did some more walking when we ended up taking a rest just down from Trump Tower.

We didn't realize we were so close until we heard all of the chanting and protesting.

We took a look at what was going on, and then tried to make our way out of that area, but we got trapped in.

For some reason, they were only letting a few people at a time out onto 5th Avenue. Everything was bariccaded in front of the tower, and we were actually trying to go in the opposite direction, but they cut it off right at us.

Now, I have a long history with the NYPD.

It's all good.

A few years back we spent NYE in NYC.

If you've ever been, they barricade you into your city block, and you can't get out until the ball drops.

I had to go to the bathroom, like majorly couldn't wait, so I begged a police officer to let me out to go to the bathroom, and then begged a different one to let me back in my corral, as the previous one had already changed positions.

I looked at that sweet police officer and said "Can we go, please?"

I was a bit freaked out with the protesting and just wanted away from it.

She literally looked at me and smiled.

I'm sure she was thinking "Your're a grown woman, get it together!!"

She was sweet and said just a few minutes.

And only a few minutes later we were one of very few people back on the street.

We managed to finally get out of the barricaded areas after two more encounters with the police.

They really had everything blocked off!

We went down by Times Square before a group of protesters took over the street and milled there way through traffic, making it come to a complete stop.

We grabbed some dinner and headed to The Radio City Music Hall to catch the Rockettes!