not bike content, but this is my blog, not yours!😉 so to celebrate another year of making bags and bikes, Arya and I planned an end of the year city visit, if only to do something different than paddling our canoe across the CT river for “city life” in the humble “Paris of Nutmeg Country”, Chester CT (pop. 3,740). Having both grown up in this area — 2 hours north to Boston, 2 hrs south to NYC, I will say that we don’t take advantage of our major urban proximity very often… usually only once every 3 years or so is generally enough.
I have lived in cities before — mostly just Austin TX and kinda Tucson, but always considered those cities to feel more like towns. NYC however, has always felt like a claustrophobic trash storm to me … but something there has been tugging at me lately, and I must admit I was quite excited for this 24 hr visit.
last time we were here together was summer of 2019 to see Uncle Acid / King Diamond live, and we slept in our van parked somewhere in Brooklyn. seemed like a good hack, and it was! but this time, since then a lot has happened in our lives …. i wanted to go for something a bit more luxurious (can only go up from the back of a van!). so we stayed at a nice place in Greenpoint.
I love walking. walking in cities in particular. if you follow my strava (what you don’t???), you might have noticed I do all day photo and food walks a few times a year in my travels. a good pair of shoes/sandals, a bag (in this case a performance purse), a camera (in this case a Ricoh GRIIIx), a water bottle, a few joints, and warm clothes (it was 33 degrees) does the trick for a good urban march.
we plotted out to do a long one over our fancy hotel breakfast —visiting coffee shops, bakeries, pizzerias, and the holiday market at Bryant Park before taking the ferry back to Greenpoint for a fancy, well earned dinner.
we left our hotel and were instantly enthralled with the architecture surrounding us. I was struck by how diverse and texture rich the buildings in NYC are … truly what helps to make this such a great city. everywhere I looked I had a wow moment. I could not help but imagine this all being some sort of man made canyon land … man made, but awe inspiring none the less. I was finding beauty in places I didn’t expect — and I had access to a restroom… what else could i ask for?
after a nice coffee at Devoción we crossed the Brooklyn bridge to the sound of “Empire State of Mind” on loop — a prolific tourist hustle on the bridge —we stopped a few times to watch families get on the rotating pedestals with 360 cameras capturing them throwing peace signs with Jay Z and Alisha Keys blaring in the background. so fun in a fun sorta way … just wonder what that chorus on repeat day after day after day does to someone’s head … meh, there are worse songs, but not sure if that matters after a while.
once onto Manhattan, the buildings changed again. we walked through several neighborhoods that could have been different countries unto themselves … a New York experience.
walk walk walk walk …. see see see, the crowds got bigger and bigger as we got closer to midtown. it was mile 8, and Arya, on her rookie march, had some barking dogs for feet! well, when in the city you are never far from retail rescue. we entered a boutique sneaker shop within minutes of looking for one, and Arya had a fresh pair of Reeboks.
fresh shoes bought us another 8 miles or so, and we still needed to get to Bryant Park …
we got outa there instead of pushing north to Rockefeller center, we went east to the ferry terminal to get us back to Brooklyn.
but first passed these weird instalations. I had to get pretty close to make sure this was not a real person. never know out here!
loaded onto the ferry and the ferryman rides their bike to work and knew who we were! oh how it is nice to feel popular in the big apple. have I really made it in this city??? or would it spit me out like the pumpkin seed I am?
not today city! this backwoods bimbo is on a roll — we ended our walk at a Michelin star Eater written up restaurant without a reservation on a friday 😎. ”Come in and have a seat Mr Romance… you can sit anywhere, it’s only 5:15″. we delectably replenished the calories from our 16 mile Manhattan march before holding my eyelids open with toothpicks for the relatively eventless 2 hr drive back to Hadlyme… the second I turned the car off, the velvety quiet of our home washed over me. what a world we live in. the country pumpkin was back from the big apple.
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