Spring Break 2014: South of the Border in Nueva York

March 14, 2014

They warned us about the Vermont winters. We didn't listen. Due to our arrogance, perhaps even outright cockiness, we scoffed at the threat of these harsh Vermont winters. We're Midwesterners, we boasted. We don't have the luxury of mountains and trees to block 60 mile an hour wind gusts in Iowa. We have white outs, blowing and drifting snow that makes it impossible to drive, and bitterly dangerous wind chills. So we puffed out our chests and said, “Vermont, do your worst.”

Vermont did its worst.

It's not that it's so much colder than the Midwest. It was cold everywhere


Norm seemed to be the only one
who loved this long winter

this winter. The thing is, it never ends. As I write this, it's 37 degrees and it's snowing. For comparison, the high in Minneapolis today is 73 degrees. Before this past Monday, it had not reached 60 degrees in over 140 days. And it lasted one day. Burlington is also further north than Des Moines, which means the days were darker for longer. I think we both got cabin fever. We decided to go where it's warm.

The beautiful, sunny, subtropical New York City, the French Riviera of the Hudson River.

Save for two separate trips back to Iowa around the holidays, Tori and I had not left the Burlington area since our getaway to Salem in October. With no end to winter in sight, we decided we had to head south before we started to reenact scenes from The Shining. While New York doesn't immediately strike one as a warm and sunny Spring Break destination, compared to Vermont, it was practically Cancun. Even though it's less than a six hour drive south of Burlington, New York seems a world away. When we left Burlington it was 28 degrees and snowing. That Saturday in New York, it was 64 degrees without a single trace of snow.

Tori with her Luther friend Jake

We arrived on a Friday, the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament. We met up with my old buddy Nate, ate some falafel, and went out for drinks at The Turkey's Nest in Brooklyn. We watched his Gonzaga Bulldogs play while drinking Budweiser from 32oz styrofoam cups. Tori left us to our beer and basketball to go meet up with an old Luther College friend. In a weird twist of fate, her friend lives three blocks from my friend Nate, where we were staying for the weekend. Nate and I watched Iowa State win their first round game before calling it a night.

The next day was the perfect day. Tori and I got up early and headed to the Upper West Side in Manhattan. We found a French bistro with prix fixe brunch. Tori ate pancakes and I had boudin sausage with eggs. It was delicious. We drank coffee and mimosas. Tori attempted to speak French to our waiter, but just ended up embarrassing the both of us.

After brunch we killed time by walking over to Riverside Park and we daydreamed about living

there. Always a dangerous side effect of our trips to New York. We walked up to West 115th and met up with one of my professors from USC who lives near Columbia University. Her husband, an actor, joined us and the four of us went to the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. We walked around inside, admiring the architecture, the stained glass windows, and the tapestries. We looked at the albino peacock outside in the churchyard. It was a wonderful experience.
 

Stroll through Central Park

We bid farewell to our new friends and made our way to Central Park. We walked around the park for awhile until Tori had to catch the subway to Midtown. Her big spring break splurge was on a ticket to the Broadway show and Tony Award winner Kinky Boots. I will let her tell you about it. (Tori, here. It was amazing! Go see it!)

I crossed the park over to my old neighborhood, the Upper East Side. It was a weird feeling. So many things were different. Some not surprising, the old Blockbuster Video is closed and in its place is a bank. So many bars and pizza places were closed that I used to frequent, perhaps I was keeping them open? I walked by my old apartment. It had gotten a facelift, no more piles of garbage with rats out front, which means I probably couldn't afford to live there now. It even had an awning, so fancy. They were building a huge, ugly high-rise apartment building right next to it. It looked completely out of place next to the 5 story prewar walkups that line the street. There was a new fancy craft beer store across from my old apartment, which I am very thankful did not exist when I lived there, or else I would have been even more broke than I was. Some things had not changed, including the greasy Chinese take out place I always ordered from.

 I made my way to Papaya King on East 86^th and 3^rd Ave. Even though I lived 10 blocks away from it for two years, I never made it there. I kept putting it off, taking it for granted. Not anymore. I got two New York hot dogs, one with relish, onions, and spicy mustard, and one with sauerkraut and spicy mustard. Filled with frankfurters and satisfaction, I took the train back to Nate's in Brooklyn. It was a fun afternoon stroll down memory lane.

After her show, Tori took a train to Cobble Hill in Brooklyn and found a coffee shop to sit outside at

while she read and drank a latte. Again, it was sunny and 64 degrees. I think she could have stayed there all night. Instead I met up with her, along with Nate and his special lady Becky, and the four of us went out for dinner and cocktails at Char No. 4, one of those hip new places that makes expensive southern and soul food. It had over 300 whiskeys. We ate fried pimento cheese, braised collard greens with bacon, shrimp and grits, and pulled pork. Nate and I drank whiskey. It was a wonderful end to one of the best days either of us have ever had in New York.

We did

On Sunday, we headed to Bay Ridge, Brooklyn (Saturday Night Fever), for their annual St. Patrick's Day Parade. It's been going on since the 1990s and is always held on the Sunday after St. Patrick's Day. I went for the first time last year when my friend Matt Baird, who is a DC Firefighter, marched with the pipe and drums band in the parade. I have never been a St. Patrick's Day person, but I had such a blast last year that I had to go again and this time bring my proud Irish wife. Tori loved it. We're going back again next year. The whole day was great. Tori had three food goals for our trip to New York. She wanted to get slices of pizza, order Chinese takeout, and eat greasy diner food. After the parade, we got Tori a slice of pizza. She liked it so much we went back two hours later for more pizza, and some garlic knots. At one bar, Tori made friends with some middle aged neighborhood gals who talked to Tori as if they were old friends. They were selling Irish-themed breast cancer t-shirts to raise money for their friend who had breast cancer. Tori bought one. It has pink shamrocks where one's nipples would be. It's pretty neat.

But the highlight of the day was when we ended up at O'Sullivan's, a corner Irish bar that Baird and I

spent hours at last year. It's definitely the most old school, townie kind of bar compared to the rest of the bars with younger clientele in the neighborhood. We found a spot at the end of the bar and stayed for close to five hours. In that time, Tori sang “Little Willy Willy Won't Go Home,” with a man dressed head to toe in denim, including an American flag embroidered jean jacket, she met a widow who shared with her that she has not had sex since her husband died and that she is, “OK with that,” and we watched Iowa State beat North Carolina in a weird, wild game. At the exact moment that the refs called the game, saying time had expired and declaring Iowa State the winner, a pipe and drums band walked into the bar and started playing. It was the perfect timing. At the moment, we thought they were playing for Iowa State! A guy next to me saw me cheering for Iowa State and mentioned he went to Dayton, so we took a shot together celebrating the two teams making the Sweet 16. Then I had a few more shots. Tori ended up ordering Chinese to our hotel room. I was...asleep.

That Monday morning, before hitting the road back to Vermont, we decided to fulfill Tori's final wish of greasy diner food at my favorite one, the Bridgeview Diner in Bay Ridge. It did not disappoint. The surly old Greek owner, the static-y radio station playing loudly, the cashier getting into a curse word-laden fight with a customer, and the very Brooklyn young mother in the booth next to us making her toddler take “flirty poses” with her phone. It was the perfect ending to a fun-filled, food-filled, sight-seeing, bar-hopping, Spring Break extravaganza in Nueva York. And it was exactly what we needed to get through the rest of the Vermont winter.

 

Daydreaming of warmer days

We love Vermont. We're just not in love with Vermont. At least not right now. I'm sure we will make up in time to go to the beach in June.