Sunshine Again!

After cold, windy, rainy days Wednesday and Thursday, we were so very excited to see the sun again yesterday morning. It's so much easier to get around without having to dodge hundreds of umbrellas while walking down the street.

We started our day Friday with another $8 spent at Starbucks. We've made a small investment to that company this week, but when it's 30* outside and 15 mph winds are blowing straight at your face, a skinny French Vanilla (or caramel) latte hits the spot every single time! We walked down a few blocks to the Empire State Building, waited in line, went through security, waited in line again a few more times before getting to the 86th floor observatory. They've got that line thing down to an art, though so we were up within a matter of 30 minutes or so. Got some spectacular views of the city, with 30* 15 mph still blowing in our faces...only much more intense up there!

We then took the train to lower Manhattan and walked the 1.2 miles across the Brooklyn Bridge. Luckily, it was mostly in the sun so we actually warmed up quite a bit. It's pretty amazing to know you're trusting something that's almost 140 years old to hold up another 20 minutes until you get across! Once in Brooklyn, we rode the train further in to Midwood, a very dense Jewish community. What's there you ask? NYC's "best" pizzeria. It was pretty much all the yummy goodness I expected. Dom DeMarco is the only person that makes pizza in this joint and one of his daughters is always there to help out. This review says it all: http://www.foodinmouth.com/restaurant-reviews/2008/09/difaras-is-pizza-heaven.html

We came back to Manhattan and stopped in at Grand Central. That's probably one of my favorite indoor places in the city thus far. Granted, we didn't go cathedral-hopping this week so I don't have much to compare it with except restaurants, retail stores and theaters. They were having an indoor Christmas market so of course, we did some shopping. After Grand Central, we ventured back up to Central Park for their outdoor Christmas market. We then opted for warmth again and headed in to the nearest mall where the huge glass stars change colors and it snows tiny bubble clusters every so often. After a walk down 9th for dinner, we turned in very early at 9:30 PM. It was glorious! :)