I’ll continue telling you about our recent trip to New York and other parts of the East.

St Louis to Manhattan to Brooklyn

Carrie had some appointments and rehearsals the second day we were visiting her, and it was storming that morning as well. Louie and I slept in a bit (we were both still recovering from the school year at that point, and it was frankly, glorious. I was and still am amazed every morning I don’t have to wake up before 6 am!)

We had mentioned to Carrie that we had not had “New York Bagels” so after she had her morning appointment and the rain let up, we headed to her favorite closest place called Bagel Pub. I had a pumpernickel everything bagel with smoked salmon cream cheese, and it was tasty! We learned how much Brooklyn is like a small town as well by Carrie running into someone she knew (this was a common occurrence). I am always struck by this sort of thing–I grew up in a small town and assumed that big cities were more anonymous and you would walk around and wouldn’t know anyone, and truthfully, you will run into people you know all over the place. Cities are more pockets of various communities, like a small town on every few blocks.

After our bagels, Louie and I headed to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens for the afternoon. We weren’t sure if it would rain, but overall we did get lucky and it only rained a little bit for a short time.

The gardens were smaller overall than we realized, but they were well laid out and really enjoyable. It wasn’t too busy either, which was nice amidst the hustle and bustle outside.

We saw this turtle, just hanging out.

After we finished at the Botanical Gardens, we walked to get coffee nearby, and then walked all the way back to Carrie’s (probably about an hour at that point!). We took a little break, and then caught the train to meet our friend Lauren for dinner in Greenpoint. We went to a Polish restaurant called Karczma and ate entirely too much delicious food (pierogies and stuffed cabbage, but somehow no photos), and then headed to a concert Carrie and her quartet, The Rhythm Method, were putting on.

It was in a super cool venue, sort of in an industrial area, and you wouldn’t even expect a concert there. It felt very “New York”, haha.

It was a great concert, super interesting and thought provoking, and I really enjoyed watching Carrie and her group perform, along with the other guest performers on the concert. Louie and Lauren didn’t stay the whole time and instead went out somewhere in the area, but I stayed till the end, and then Carrie and I took a Lyft (what, no walking?) and hung out at her place until we were exhausted, and Louie came home later.

The next day we did laundry at the apartment and ate leftover Polish food for breakfast, then headed back into Manhattan to meet up with another aunt and uncle of Louie’s. We had lunch first at a place called Simply Noodles (can you guess what we ate?) and then met up with Ralph and Susie at their apartment.

We went to the Met Museum with them, walking through Central Park to get there. New Yorkers get “pay what you want” admission so it isn’t too big of a deal just to go for a short time. Susie wanted to check out the rooftop art, so that was the plan.

We wandered around the museum for a short while, but then headed back to their apartment and enjoyed wine and cheese up on the rooftop until we needed to catch a train back to Brooklyn for our next event.

Carrie had asked awhile back if Louie and I wanted to do a “float”, which was a silent disco: we would all wear headphones and hear the same music, and follow a prescribed route with the group while dancing. It was not at all the sort of thing we do in our normal lives, but Louie and I wanted to experience what Carrie does and also push our own boundaries, so we agreed. We met up with the float people at a brewery, where we ate dinner first (impossible smash burgers, quite tasty).

It was a fun evening, especially as we had no idea what to expect. We were surrounded by many Juilliard musicians (ha!) but also random people, and would go down streets dancing, stop in random parking lots to dance, and it was a lot of fun. We were probably some of the oldest people there, but somebody has to be, right?

We were exhausted after a few hours (they do take breaks) and decided to skip the last segment since we were all traveling the next day. We did stop at a German bar near Carrie’s house to unwind before bed though. And it is worth noting that when I turned in our headphones to the float person, apparently I said that it was fun but it was “really late”. It was like 10:45 pm and Louie said that definitely cemented our status as “old” within the group. Haha!

The next morning Louie and I had a train to catch so we were up early. Our train would leave Penn Station at 9:09 am and we were in Brooklyn, which meant about 30-40 minutes of train rides away, so we left by 7:45 am in order to have time to grab a coffee and breakfast at the station. We had no trouble getting there, and got some nice pastries and coffee and relaxed in the lounge for a bit.

We were disappointed to learn that our train didn’t have a cafe car though, so the coffee we had was all the coffee we would have! We were en route to Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, usually just called E-town, to visit some relatives of mine and stay with my aunt Connie that night.

The train ride. Once we got to Philadelphia, we were told we actually had to switch trains to continue our trip. This was actually a good thing as we had been seated moving backwards, and then we chose seats moving forward, win! We also got to pick our new seats before they allowed the general boarding from Philadelphia to board, so it was no big deal.

The train ride was just over 3 hours, and uneventful. However, that seems like a good time to end this blog post, haha. Next time: E-town, Lititz, and then the train back to Philadelphia.