An NYC Friday

After a little sleep in, Prudence and I headed for the East Village for a mid morning brekkie at Green Square Tavern (http://www.greensquaretavern.com) and some exploring of the surrounding areas. We walked from the Flatiron Building (where we also happened to find a weird, oversized solid steel David Beckham statue....) and then onto Irving Place, where we found two very important things:

- Prue's future husband

- Pure Food and Wine - where we stopped for a lovely lunchtime juice in their outdoor courtyard. 

Prue's future husband, on the right.

A few blocks further on from this, we were at Union Square, and had a look around the surrounding shops (we both splurged on impulse buy Ray Bans!). Once again, by mid afternoon, Prue and I decided we'd proceed best in different directions. Prue continued toward lower Manhattan to check out more shops, while I caught the subway uptown. 

I got off near Bryant Park, where I found a lovely spot in the shade and sat there for around an hour, listening to tunes and enjoying the atmosphere of lunchtime jugglers, school groups on lunch time excursions, and solo people just like me (though to be fair, not near as hip and trendy as me), chilling out for a bit. Next, I walked around the corner to the New York public library, and grabbed a couple of hot dogs for lunch. Then I explored the massive library wings before relaxing (again) in the reading room to contemplate life. 

Among the days activities, i learned that Shannon Doherty is promoting online degrees here in the US. Did you know she's working on her liberal arts degree right now? You go girl. There really is life after 90210.

By 5:00pm it was time to head back to the hotel to get ready for the second Broadway show of the trip, Once. Based on the film, I had pretty high expectations. It didn't disappoint. It was different to any other show I've seen. All the actors play all the music themselves, while singing (no orchestra) and they incorporated really cool dancing and movement into all of the scenes. The two leads were so engaging - Steve Kazee particularly was outstanding. It doesn't pay to compare Once to Newsies, because they are on completely different levels. Both fantastic, but incomparable.

After the show, Prue and I headed for a late dinner at bar on West 46th street, near our hotel. Despite the loud music (grandpa Dave was not too impressed), the food and service was really good. Our waiter was on his first day and was only too eager to make sure we were looked after. After the 5th "how is everything going guys?? Are you enjoying it all??" I said to Prue "Oh he's too cute. Don't you just want to put him in your pocket??!" Prue didn't exactly share my enthusiasm, but she left a lovely note with the tip to thank him for the great service. 

After finishing my Brooklyn Beer it was time for bed! :)

Exploring the streets of the East Village.