visiting Nikki in CT and NYC

Over Memorial Day weekend i went to visit a good friend of mine, Nikki, in New Haven, Connecticut.  Her husband got a job with the Navy Band in D.C. and is off at basic training for 8 weeks. I arrived Friday evening and we ordered some pizza and watched a couple of episodes of Freaks and Geeks.  We ended up staying up till 2 AM talking.  Last time we saw each other was last August so it had been awhile!  The next day was a little chilly and rained all day long.  We walked around the corner to a little market and picked up a few fruits and vegetables and mailed off a few letters to her husband. We drove around town some and stopped off in an antique store. We headed back to Nikki's house and ate some lunch.  We hung around for a little while (remember it was cold and raining), but then went to go see The Great Gatsby.  I thought it was pretty good.

On Sunday we took the train in to New York City.  After the train, subway, and walking a little ways we made it to the Brooklyn Flea Market.  We were pretty hungry so we first decided to get some lunch.  I had an Asian hotdog.  I think it about killed me though later in the evening with all that spicy ketchup/mustard.  Sometimes i have bad acid reflux.  As soon as we finished our lunch there were police men telling us that we had to evacuate because the building next to us had some metal that was blowing off (as we were leaving someone trying to come in asked what was going on and the cop said that the building was going to collapse...we thought that was a little extreme, but maybe we didn't know all the details).  Next we walked to catch the ferry to Dumbo, where they have like a bunch of food stands set up.  We walked around there (pretty quickly...it was packed) and then looked for a place to get a little something sweet.  We stopped to look at a few little shops and got some dessert.  After our sweets we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge and made our way to Central Park.  It was a nice outside...a little chilly at times, but we found a spot in the sun and just plopped ourselves down in the grass to take a break.  After a little while we decided we should probably start to make our way to McGees Pub, where the tv show How I Met Your Mother was based off of.  So we walked through Central Park and got a little lost on the way, but found our way at McGees just in time for our reservation.  It was starting to get late and we were getting tired, so we started to look for the subway to take us back to Grand Central Station.  It took awhile to find (bless Nikki, she did most of the navigating and i was just about to keel over from my heartburn.  Plus i thought i was about to throw up while we were down in the subway and had to make a quick exit to get some fresh air (it wasn't really all that fresh either ;) We found a pharmacy and i got some Tums and then we ended up walking the rest to the train station.  We had a good day in NYC.  A few set backs with all the traveling around and other things, but that's what makes memories and stories to tell. 

On Monday we walked around Yale.  Tim, Nikki's husband, got a full scholarship to go there on their music program.  He's a trombone player.  I couldn't tell what was part of the campus....it all looked like a castle or a church.  Fancy.  We walked over and got some corn dogs at the Shake Shack and walked around some more.  Stopped off in some shops and just took it easy for the rest of the day.

I flew out the next afternoon (5pm), but had to get to the airport early (9am) since Nikki had to be at work and the airport is an hour away.  Waiting wasn't as bad as i thought it was going to be.  It went by pretty fast.  When i got to Chicago though i had an hour lay over, but then a 2 hour delay due to weather.  I finally got home at around 1AM.  It was a long day!

Over all it was a great trip.  It's always nice to see friends and talk for hours.  Especially since i don't really have any friends here in STL and sometimes it's just nice to talk to your girlfriends about stuff rather than your husband ;).  They'll be moving to DC soon so who knows, we may have to make a trip over that way at some point.  Thanks, Nikki, for having me and hopefully i'll see you again soon!