New York: Day 1

Been looking forward to this trip for a very long time. It was actually planned pre-pandemic. We and four other friends got tickets to see the Pet Shop Boys and New Order. We originally found a great AirBnb that was unfortunately canceled on us somewhat last minute. We did find a decent hotel for not much more soon after, so crisis averted. We stayed in the Financial District, which some NYC friends said was a boring area, but boring means less cost and everything is a $2.75 train ride away. So boring worked really well for this trip.

Woke up pretty early and made coffee immediately. No surprise there. Had everything packed but the tooth brushes. Robbie and Ryan picked us up at 9:00am. We made it to the airport on time. Security wasn’t bad. It actually went fairly quick. I, however, made the mistake of wearing boots. Other than that everything was fine. I had a window seat, which I enjoyed. I don’t fly a lot, but I’ve never had a window seat and was really looking forward to seeing the city as we flew in. It was fairly cloudy, but cleared up before we landed.

Blew my entire budget on a chicken sandwich at the airport.

The cab ride from the airport to the hotel wasn’t terrible. Biden was in town so traffic was apparently twice as bad as usual, but I expected worse. We made it to the hotel which was nice. The rooms were kinda small, but not an issue.

Everyone else went to see Wicked on broadway, but we passed. I have a friend that’s been living in Brooklyn for many years at this point and he invited us to Paragon, a club he runs (another friend of ours owns it and another club that is reopening soon.) They were filming a Boiler Room set, so we thought that’d be interesting to witness. I have no idea why the Boiler Room site says October 22, we were definitely there and it was definitely September.

We were very hungry and thought grabbing a bite near the club was the best idea, so I asked Sherb for some recommendations and landed on Rosie Pizza Bar, which was delicious. Even though I’m pretty sure the order was wrong.

The club is killer. I highly recommend it if you’re in town. I was very happy to see some old friends that I hadn’t seen in years. We talked for a couple of hours before hitting the train back to the hotel. We may have went the wrong direction first. 🙃