New York - part 2

What a difference a day makes! Or in this case a night and a handful of nonprescription drugs. True to my habit i woke up early and decided to get out for some coffee while M was sleeping. It is an extraordinary event to wake up for the first time in a new place and explore your surroundings for the first time. We had deliberatily chosen to stay in Brooklyn over Manhattan this time since we wanted to explore what's beyond Bedford avenue. This day, the neighbourhood presented itself in it's finest outfit - a radiant sun. I started walkin at random in a kind of search pattern, expanding the area from Conselyea street and in an outwards going circle, looking for that so important first cup of joe. My first thought was to find a Starbucks. I know there are issues with multicorporations as such but they serve a decent cup of coffee, which according to my high scandinavian coffe standards is hard to find in the U.S. Stabucks also provides free wifi and they also have clean, free-to-use toilets which make them lifesavers in areas like Manhattan.

My first impressions of Brooklyn this early saturday morning were that it is definetly nothing like Manhattan. In manhattan every thing is at your fingertips while in Brooklyn you have to look a little further. Not necessarily a bad thing. After awhile i gave up on finding a Starbucks in the nearby area and chose a place on Metropolitan ave called Bagel smith. I got myself a black iced coffe due to the heat and M's standard skim milk latte and headed back home to get ready for some serious shopping. First stop was Manhattan. The L train drops us off right at union square which seemed perfect for starting the day. There's a huge Forever 21 right there which is like a cheap alternative to H&M. We shopped away for awhile and decided to have breakfast. Convenient for us Whole Foods is located just next door so we made quite a bargain in a city where cheap healthy meals are not easily found. They have an amazing variety of packed ready-to-eat items and a sallad buffet to die for, although a bit more pricy. We enjoyed our breakfast in the sun on the stairs of union square.

From this location we headed towards Broadway for the well planned shopping. A horrible place on earth but every major chain has a store on it. Before joining the consumer driven crowd we took a short stop at Strands book store. Located on Broadway on 12th this is by far the best used book store I've been to. I stop here everytime in New York and I always find something good for my growing collection on Americana. Shopping was a timeful task but thanks to M's exact planning and shopping skills it wasn't to bad.

Every successful shopping day requires after shopping cocktails. We headed to another favorite from last year on Spring street, Sweet and Vicious. Mikael met up with us there and we worked ourself through a few rounds of their signature drink, a frozen margarita served in a glass jar. As a bartender I shold probably frown upon such drinks made by chemical induced mixers but it goes down so smooth. Next phase of the day will be referred to as slightly-drunk-shopping-spree. For some reason a few coktails really help with my shopping decisions. Only drawback is that I ended up buying two left foot flip flops from Converse.

After this some bar hopping accured with the goal to get us back to Brooklyn. For some reason there always seemed to be another bar in the way that needed our attention. As pure professionals in the industry we took it upon ourselves to sample them all. The day finally ended at Kelloggs diner back in Brooklyn. It was an early night since we were still struggling with jet lag. No worries though. We've made up for it by now. More on that next time!