Lots of Recommendations!

We had a bit of a later start today since we were out late last night. Julie really wanted to have lunch at Carnegie Deli (recommended by her mom), known for its large portions and surly waiters. Both of those were true. 

Julie and Sean split the Woody Allen, a corned beef and pastrami sandwich. It was $18, so you can imagine how big it was.

Andrew opted for the “smaller” turkey sandwich. He used his phone as a way to show just how big it was!

I ordered the potato pancakes and was only able to eat 1!

The main thing we had on the agenda for the day was the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Met). Since it was a Saturday, it was incredibly busy. The price to get in was $25, which was listed as a suggested donation. When I asked if they offered a teacher discount, the girl said we could pay whatever. We chose to pay $20 for the 2 of us. Obviously, they want you to pay the suggested amount, but we didn’t feel too bad when the woman in front of us paid $1!!

Julie and I had heard about an Alexander McQueen exhibit, which we thought could be fun. Unfortunately, we found out the wait was 1½ hours. We later saw the line going in and out of the different rooms in the museum. The line would start in one room, then some people would be ushered into another line in another room, and so on. We decided it wasn’t worth it!

After a lot of walking through the museum, we decided to walk to the Guggenheim, just for a picture in the front.

As we were walking, I spotted a food cart with a Belgian flag hanging from it, soon to find out that it was a waffle stand!! I hadn’t had Liege waffles since I studied abroad in Belgium, so you can only imagine my excitement. There was a line and most of the people were ordering theirs with toppings like ice cream, chocolate sauce, and strawberries. When it was my turn, I ordered my waffle plain (as they do in Belgium). The vendor’s response was, “Are you Belgian?” That totally made my day!! I told him no, to which he asked if I lived there and we started a conversation.

The waffle wasn’t as good as the ones I had when I lived there, but the whole experience was definitely worth $5! J

Sean had a bar recommendation that he wanted to try, so we walked through the Upper East Side on the way. This is a look down Park Avenue.

Our next destination was dinner. The couple at the Detroit Tigers’ game had recommended a place called Max Restaurant in East Village near NYU. We took the subway, which was quite a debacle. The line we got on made an announcement after we got on that the train would not continue to our stop. This was the second time that day that we got on a train only to find out we could not reach our destination. It was all due to construction. We ended up getting off and taking a cab. But before finding a cab, we picked up a snack before dinner—pizza at Famous Original Ray’s Pizza.

Sean and I decided this pizza was better than Joe’s Pizza, so I guess the subway confusion was a good thing!

We made it to Max Restaurant, which appeared to be closed, and if we didn’t know it was there, would have walked right past it. It turned out to be a good recommendation. Very quaint, but good food and wine.

The boys wanted to go out to some local bars and make it a later night. Another recommendation from one of Sean’s friends led us to McSorley’s Old Ale House, the oldest bar in New York. It was established in 1854 and didn’t allow women until 1970. It was quite an interesting place. We walked in and could order either McSorley’s light or dark beer, $2.50 each.

We ordered 4 beers, and the bartender brought us 8. When Andrew told him he only ordered 4, he responded, “Everyone gets 2 here”.  The bar has some great history. The bartender pointed out a chair that Abraham Lincoln sat in, a newspaper article from Lincoln’s assassination, and a wanted poster for John Wilkes Booth.

We made a stop at a sports’ bar, and then Sean wanted to go to another recommended bar called Angel Share. After circling the block where we thought it was twice, we decided to ask someone. He knew exactly what bar we were talking about and pointed to the second floor of the building we standing right in front of! This was quite a pretentious place if they didn’t even need a sign! When we got upstairs, the hostess told us it would be 20 minutes just to get a drink, even though the bar was right in front of us!! We decided to leave.

The last bar was Andrew’s pick. He chose a hookah bar! Julie and I enjoyed sorbet while the boys enjoyed cherry and watermelon hookah.

Julie and I did take a couple puffs!

We got back to the hotel around 2, which explains why I didn’t post that night!