New York (day 1)
We wake up regretting our late night eats and vow not to do it again. We drop off our laundry and then wander around Brooklyn until we find a trendy looking Cafe. Trendy looking usually means good coffee. The coffee doesn't disappoint and neither does the turkey and swiss crossiant they bake on site.
Our plan today is to check out lower Manhattan and meet up with some fellow traveler friends of ours who are on a year long world trip and currently in New York. We jump on the subway and hop off a short time later in the financial district. It's a clear sunny winters day, which means it's freaking freezing. Complete with a chilly wind. Brrr. We check out Wall Street and walk past the Stock Exchange and also the charging bull. We're not really sure what's going on but it seems its good luck have a photo taken with your hand on the bulls nads. We're feeling lucky enough so we don't bother.
We meet up with our friends, Caleb and Johanna a short time later. Hugs and squeals all round. We walk past the supreme court house which features heavily in Law and Order SVU, Courts is just as taken by it as last time. She's a beauty.
We move on to wandering around Chinatown catching up and sharing travel stories. It's getting colder so we head on into one of the many Chinese restaurants and have a bite to eat. Pretty standard Chinese fare, we leave feeling full and sufficiently MSG'd.
We continue wandering around lower Manhattan chatting, stopping for coffee and checking out the surrounding neighborhoods. There's a park every few blocks it seems, with plenty of activity going on - like a pretty legit game of soccer with coaches on the side lines and all. Nice astro-turf 3qtr pitch.
It's starting to get even colder and we've clocked up a stack of kms so we decide we've deserved a beer or 4. We head to a bar our friends have previously been to and settle in for a couple of pints and a new card game they've learnt.
After a few hours of cards, drinks and food we head to a comedy club next which we've got tickets to. We're seated straight away and order some drinks. The show goes for about an hour and half and we see 5 comedians in total. They're all pretty funny, some more than others. Almost all of them touch on politics and racism at some point in their act.
We're all feeling relatively merry and not ready for the night to end so we head to a bar and play a few games of shuffle board. We keep losing count of the points, so we head to another bar for drinks and cards until the bar calls last drink and kicks us out. We do a late night Maccas run (I know, I know) before going our separate ways on the subway, all well and truly ready for bed after a huge day.