Freyja and Simon's Excellent Adventure

Oh I wish that we had more money. If we did I would have certainly organised a more dignified and fancy way to transport Freyja and Simon from JFK airport to our apartment. As it were, we are broke, so subway it was. Unfortunately it took an eternity and at midnight, after a long international flight, the last thing you want to do is share a New York subway with crazies and nightcrawlers. Sorry Freyja and Simon!

I tried to make up for it with mozzarella sticks and cat cuddles which I think worked for the most part. We started Saturday with the traditional Julia walking tour of the city, starting on Broadway, taking in Columbus Circle, the bottom of Central Park, The Plaza hotel, 5th Avenue and some east side treasures. A couple of new spots have been added to the tour, including the Serendipity cafe from the film Serendipity and the view of the Queensboro Bridge from Woody Allen's film Manhattan. We lunched at the Moonstruck Diner where we take most of our guests although I'm not sure why - the food is pretty gross. It's nostalgic for being one of the first diner's Timon and I ate in during our stint living in the Pod Hotel. We then walked by Bloomingdale's and the Marilyn Monroe grate to catch a glimpse of my number 2 favourite NY landmark - the Chrysler Building. We cruised through the over-heated Grand Central Station and gazed upon the roof for 20 minutes, then ducked into the HBO store before heading home.

On Sunday night we made the trek to the Bronx after walking the High-Line and downing some coffee at Kava. Scott prepared his famous mojitos and we sat around gas-bagging in the kitchen, getting progressively drunker, louder and on my part, quite obnoxious. Freyja, Scott and I went on a 7/11 snack run and ended up with the dreaded Four Lokos which made things even worse. I chatted with some cops about the merit of Funyans and they diplomatically edged their way away from the drunk girl and out of the store. The rest of the night is a bit of a blur but luckily (or perhaps unluckily) there are a zillion photos to document my descent. I nursed a pretty heinous hangover the next day.

The next few days were spent looking at things, going places and having fun. And drinking. We perused Greenwich Village and ate at the excitingly named by disappointingly not related to the TV series "Quantum Leap Vegetarian Restaurant". We ate the BAD Burger 24 hour diner with vegetarian everything. That exhausted my research of vegetarian eateries. We drank aplenty at the Library, a dive bar in the LES that offers 2 for 1 drinks and ferried across to Staten Island to glimpse the Statue of Liberty for free. Freyja found an awesome trivia night in Brooklyn that included free hotdogs, free pretzels, free candy and free skee-ball which made for a great night. F & S went on a walking tour that couldn't have been anywhere near as good as mine and we basked in the glow of late-night Times Square.

And then comes my birthday......