Appreciating what you have is the key to happiness. Its very easy to get caught up in a materialistic lifestyle in NYC or envying those with the money to provide a more comfortable lifestyle. If you look around you and say "man I'm lucky I get to experience all this culture in one place" instead of "I wish there weren't so many people crowding me everywhere I go" then ultimately you'll be happier. Everyone I know is guilty of this including me so I'm definitely making that one of my goals while I'm here. Its very easy to idealize an old lifestyle saying, "oh remember when I used to be able to drive everywhere I went? But the truth is you (and I) moved out of that old lifestyle for a reason - you weren't satisfied, so looking to the future is the best thing to do. I'm definitely adapting to the NYC lifestyle and finding it a lot easier to do so now that there isn't a wind chill of -18 degrees. There are so many amazing things to experience here that the only dilemma you should have is choosing which event to go to. Being present in the moment is what its all about and right now this is my circumstance. I intend to get everything I can out of it so I don't look back and think "oh I should have appreciated this or that when I was able to." Sure are PLENTY o' things that frustrate me about living here every week but choosing to focus on the opportunities rather than the downfalls is a hell of a lot more productive.
This weekend we spent Friday evening in Manhattan, Saturday in Queens, and Sunday a combination of both. Friday evening was a typical New York TGIF kind of night. We hopped into Eataly (your one stop gourmet shop for all things high class Italian) where we purchased some asparagus creme and artichoke spread. See pictures below of this gem of an establishment. We grabbed dinner in midtown via groupon, walked to a street festival in the flat iron district where we sampled local beer chocolate (who knew they made such a slice of heaven), and grabbed a beer at an oyster bar before heading back on the E train.
Saturday was a great day to explore some more of Forest Hills, Queens. We meandered around Austin Street and had brunch at Banter- an Irish pub we've been wanting to go to for some time. We opted to watch the Kentucky derby at the apartment while we placed our bets and made our first ever mint juleps which turned out pretty well. Good thing we like bourbon because thats pretty much the only thing in them besides sugar and mint. Oh! which reminds me, we've got a small herb garden growing in our window seat - only including mint and basil so far but I'll be adding more once I make a window box for them to go in.
Onto the real adventure of Sunday. After some chores and a nice homemade omelette & smoothie we drove to Manhattan (Parking is free on Sundays - yay!) On the way we passed the 5 borough bike event where thousands of bikers started in the LES and rode through all 5 boroughs on a set course. These are the kind of events I need to keep up with instead of only hearing about them the day of the event. Anyway, in Manhattan we visited the American Museum of Natural History. Mike had been wanting to check it out for a while and after our visit I can see why! If you are in NYC for a couple days I definitely recommend checking it out. First of all - you will never see this much indoor open space anywhere else in Manhattan. Second - we were there for several hours and only got through about half the museum. All of the exhibits were beautifully done but I loved seeing the dinosaurs, sea life, beetles, and mineral exhibits.
Could my next job be doing the display for museums?
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After the museum it was such a nice day that we decided to check out an antique store and the local flea market where we sampled horseradish jam, considered some old cigar boxes, and purchased a pair of aviator sunglasses & a chocolate chip cookie. After listening to some church via rock city, and making quesadillas for dinner I'm having a quiet evening at home. We popped in "Night at the Museum" because it was filmed at the Natural History Museum and I just saw about a dozen more exhibits I need to check out there. Evening all!
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