NewYork - part 3

When i was younger I had a history book, that had an old black and white picture of a parade in New York. Our teacher would always read the text out loud and me getting bored with how slow the reading was, would flip through the pages and day dream. Growing up in a small town in Sweden, that picture had a huge impact on me and I remember thinking how marvelous such a place must be where there are so many people and everyone is happy. I've seen many pictures of parades in New York since then and I've always had the feeling that New Yorkers love their parades. For the second year in a row we managed to time our visit to New York with the pride parade. A lucky coincidence that ment we were in for great party as the whole of Manhattan gathers to celebrate the simple idea, that love no matter what form it takes is something we all should be free to explore, express and enjoy.

Our day started early since we took an early night the night before. Again we picked up some coffee at the Bagel smith and started walking towards Bedford ave. Our goal was to visit the Brooklyn Flea Market. It was such a great, besutiful day to casually walk through Williamsburg. Bedford ave is the heart of Williamsburg and cram packed with trendy, cosy coffeeshops and restaurants. We arrived at the market to realize it was hand craft only. Something that mostly gives me shivers down my spine. Didn't really matter though cause the main reason to go down there was to view the Manhattan skyline from across the river. We threw a lazy eye on some of the various hand crafted items at sale, but decided we were more interested in getting some breakfast. We chose a quiet little polish cafe on Bedford ave, which seemed fitting since the area around there is an old polish area.

Mikael texted us and said he was on the way so we hooked up before leaving for the pride parade. Our strategy was to take the train to 8th ave to avoid being caught on the wrong side of the parade. Since we were so close to Chelsea market, Mikael and M ran in to grab a coffee at Ninth street espresso reknowned for their great tasting coffee. Myself I was stoked to get my hands on my first Starbucks coffee. Not because it's the best coffee in the world cause it most definetly is not. But because it makes me so nostalgic. After filling up on caffeine we walked down towards The Village to find us a spot to see the parade from. By pure luck we found an empty spot by the fence in a perfect corner. Some guys across the street had a party on the second floor and as soon as the dykes-on-bikes, who mark the beginning of the parade arrived, started firing of these confetti fire crackers that sprayed the street below with glittering confetti. When the parade passed by people cheered in a way that made it clear that New York is proud of all it's citizens. One of the highlights for me was that my childhood idol Cyndi Lauper was in the parade. Pretty cool.

Every parade needs an after parade drink. We hooked up with a friend of Mikael and headed to the first pub available for some pints in the sun. Mikaels frien tipped us about a great restaurant down the street called The Meatball Shop. We were pretty hungry by now so we decided to try it out. We said goodbye to Mikaels friend and grabbed a table inside. Their menu system is kinda fun and smart where you mark with a magic marker on the menu what type of meatballs, type of sauce and sideorders you want. Me and M had the veggie balls on a garden salad. I went for the parmesan cream sauce and M had the marinara sauce. It was excellent. We shared a pitcher of their specialty Bitches Brew which is fruit punch mixed with pale lager. It was surprisingly good.

After eating we took off to a The Sky Room. A roof top bar also recommended by Mikaels friend. It was quite a walk which was nice after stuffing ourselves with meatballs. The view was pretty fabolous but we needed to get back to Brooklyn to get ready for a night on town. A few cold ones later we found ourselves on the subway back home. This time we only took a short nap and met up with Mikael again at a place down the street from us called Union Pool. My favorite bar so far located in an old swimming pool supply store made into a bar. It has a really spacy outdoor patio with a taco truck. From there we went back to the city for some serious pride partying. I'm not gonna share the details of our night on town, only that it lasted til bout six in the morning. But thats what you gotta expect on a night out in New York.

 

Now I gotta get ready for our last night in New York. Hopefully I will post something else when we've landed in Tampa. Still a few days in New York that havent manage to get up here yet. See ya all soon!