Union Square and the Apartment Hunt

Sunday morning in Manhattan seems to move just as fast as any other day. We began to make appointments to see apartments while we were still in the Tampa airport. For weeks, we had scoured Craig's List to find scam artists at it and real apartments come and go faster than you would ever imagine. Finally, Sunday morning we had a real stroke of apartment hunter's luck. I had called and left a message regarding an apartment and within ten minutes we had received a call back and were out the door on the way to Brooklyn. We viewed a number of apartments, but ultimately the one we fell in love with was the first apartment we ever went to in New York. We sign the lease tomorrow. That's it. Bang. Just like that. We had been in New York for less than twenty-four hours, and we had an apartment by 11:00 in the morning. You can check out some pictures we took here.

By noon we were starving, but we still wanted to walk the area a bit. We stepped into a local deli/grocery/convenience store and bought a sub. New York lesson #2: Real spicy mustard requires accompanying beverage. (In case you missed it, probably because it was only inferred, New York lesson #1 was: always have your umbrella handy.) Back to the hotel we rode. Back over the Williamsburg bridge and through the bowels of the city subway. We emerged at Lexington and 49th street greeted by the sight of The Barclay a block away. Now we wanted to celebrate our good fortune. We headed down to Union Square, via Subway of course. Have I mentioned how much I've enjoyed the walking and mass transit? I've even gotten used to the speed with which you are required to dart through traffic in order to continue on your way. We spent some time in the park at Union Square shopping the street vendors and listening to the street performers play. I bought a pair of shades from a lady for $5.00. The nose bridge piece disappeared somewhere around an hour later. He he. Oh, and there's three giant shoe stores and a Forever XXI we had to visit (obviously not for me on this one). We learned that New York lesson #3 was to have comfortable walking shoes. Steph traded in her flip flops for this cute, yet functional pair of tennis shoes. Once again, we were starving. We at at a little paneraesque restaurant where everything was served on foccocia. Not really what I'd had in mind for my first New York pizza, but it was still pretty good. We'll go to Ray's (as seen in Iron Man) later this week. Steph indulged me and we went to The Strand across the street. I have never seen so many books, and I work in a bookstore. I think Sinatra put it best, "I'm in heaven..." A few bargain book purchases and an hour later, we headed out past the movies where we were dismayed to see tickets went for $11.50 a person. We can't even pretend to be students as our student IDs are from Florida State. Oh well, you win some you lose some. Now I'll have to watch all of my movies illegally online. Just kidding.

We headed back to Brooklyn to walk the neighborhood again, this time at night. Our street was really safe and quiet; snug would be the word. We walked for about thirty blocks and took the G line back to the city. Someone was really looking out for us today.

Us in Union Square.

Rocking my new aviators.