On the last Monday of the year, we drove back from Upstate to Manhattan. Luckily, this time without any technical issues with the car. For New Years, we met up with friends – Marlene and Hendrik. Marlene is also a colleague of ours and they have moved to NYC just recently. Specifically, they found a nice place in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Before heading over to the meeting location, we had a beer at our regular bar Spiegel and met with our friend Shmulik.
Afterwards, we headed over to the wine bar The Ten Bells to meet Marlene an Hendrik and spend our New Years Eve together. After some drinks and a bottle of not so good sparkling wine, we headed over to our friend Gino’s restaurant Tre for dinner. We shared delicious starters (e.g. grilled aubergine and burrata) and had some flavorful pasta and, steak and seafood as entrees. We stayed here until after midnight and welcomed the new year together – 2020, how crazy! Our last stop was the Public Arts club in the basement of the Public Hotel, where Alex’s friend Luka is the resident DJ. After some dancing and celebrating, we called it a night and walked home feeling good about 2020.
The first day in 2020
The 1st of January was only spent with sleeping, relaxing, eating and preparing for the visit of Alex’s brother Constantin and his girlfriend Charlotte. Visiting us in New York was the kick-off of a six month journey around the globe. Starting from NYC to Mexico, to Los Angeles, to Australia, and back home through Asia. They arrived safe and sound on Thursday and we were super happy to have family over – we prepared a Greek-style casserole for dinner, exchanged some late Christmas gifts, and caught up for the rest of the evening.
On Friday, Alex and I spent the day in the office while Con & Charly visited the Guggenheim Museum. This was a must see for Constantin, who is an architect in Germany. In the evening we had a classic East Village dinner at Veselka, a Ukrainian restaurant that has been around since 1954 and is open 24/7.
Exploring Manhattan and our Neighborhood
On Saturday we did our classic tour through the East Village, Nolita, China Town and Soho. Before heading over to the Financial District, we took a small break in Tribeca at Tiny’s – a cute location for a coffee and some pastry, but not the greatest service. Then we headed over to the 9/11 memorial, walked through The Oculus and then over to the Charging Bull on Wall Street. It was kind of funny to see a bunch of people lining up to take a picture between the bull’s legs touching his scrotum. From there we walked to Pier 17 to see the bridges connecting Manhattan and Brooklyn before heading home.
Day 2: From the West Village to Dumbo
On Sunday, we started the day with a coffee and tea stop at our friend Michael’s (the owner of our motorcycle garage) and then headed over to the Washington Square Park. We walked through the West Village before taking on the High Line to Hudson Yards. From there, we took the subway to Dumbo and had our lunch break at Shake Shack with some tasty Burgers and Milkshakes. We ended the day with a sunset walk across the Brooklyn bridge. This week Franzi already had to fly out Sunday night, so she was off to Madison, while the Con, Charly and Alex had a comfy evening at home.
