The weekend of May 25th was a long one – it’s Memorial Day on the 27th so we got an extra day off, yei!
It is not too difficult to guess what our plan for the long weekend was – get on the bikes and ride somewhere upstate New York to enjoy some nature. In the end not exactly what we did, but let’s start from the beginning.
We kicked of the Saturday with a short introduction to our garage. Alex did some research on parking bikes in NYC: Street parking was no option. Not only because of potential theft and vandalism, but mainly due to the requirement to remove all vehicles for a period of approx. 2 hours twice a week for street cleaning. Since we are mostly travelling during the week, we needed a proper garage.
After doing some online research, Alex found a place called Rising Wolf garage. The place is more than only a motorcycle garage. It feels more like a gateway for motorcycle lovers. It is created by two motorcycle enthusiasts – Nuri and Michael Wernick. They basically turned their passion into a business and ironically, they only met because of motorcycles. Many years ago, Nuri sold Michael a motorcycle when she was managing a dealership. Visit their website to read more about them!
After the introduction to the garage, Alex had to go back to Triumph Brooklyn to get his bike fixed. Long story short, the guys at Triumph were not able to fix the issue. They tried twice, sent Alex back home with a supposedly fixed issue once, just to find out that the issue was still there when almost back home, and in the end, Alex left the bike at the shop and came back home using the New York subway after waiting at the shop for almost four hours. Besides being not treated as a customer the main issue with the shop seems to be the lack of technical know-how.
Anyways, we decided to pivot our plans instead of being frustrated by Triumph Brooklyn. It was perfect weather, so we strolled a bit around in the East Village, Soho and had some delicious Tacos at Rosie’s. Looking at the streets of NYC, it seems many people used the weekend to get actually out of the city.
On Sunday, we were really craving for some nature, so we went to one of New York’s Botanical Gardens. We decided for the one located in the Bronx, which was about an hour on the Subway for us. The Garden itself is very spacious, you can easily spend the whole day there. Some people even brought blankets and had a picnic. The Garden also offers some cafés and food.
Walking through the gardens and the various exhibitions was great fun and once again highlighted how beautiful and complex some plants and flowers are.
On our way back home, we had a small sandwich from a local deli shop and just ended the evening with some healthy cooking at home. Overall, we can really recommend the Garden. It is a bit pricey (what isn’t in New York), but a lovely getaway from the city and an opportunity to explore and learn.
On our free Monday we first read a couple more pages of our books in the park and then went a bit further east back to Soho. We kind of stumbled into Chinatown and explored it a bit more in depth than before. It really feels like a mini vacation, since it’s such a different vibe and culture all around. That is one thing we have quickly learned to love about New York – each international neighborhood is truly authentic and a place for natives to come back home while being so far away.
After an interesting afternoon we visited Alex’s friend Fabian who lives on the Upper West Side and had a fun BBQ on the terrace of his building.
