Miranda's NYC Trip- Day 5 & 6 - Central Perk, Football and Brooklyn

A couple weeks before Miranda got here, I saw a link online about a popup cafe based on The Central Perk, from the TV show friends.  Being a Friends fan, and knowing Miranda is too, I knew we absolutely had to go.  We had been by the building and the huge line once already, so we thought we would get their early.  On a Monday.  The line was still around the block.  Luckily it ended up going decently quickly and before we knew it we were getting a free macchiato and sitting on the actual couch from the series.  Pretty cool.  We snapped some pics of some of the props they had there from the show.

 

Some of the cast's clothes:

Joey's ceramic dog:

Ross and Monica's troll doll football trophy:

Some photos and signed scripts:

Us on the couch:

We wandered the streets for a while, until we turned the corner onto Spring Street.  For anyone that hasn't been here, Spring Street is the heart of Chinatown.  As soon as we rounded that corner we were bombarded with people asking us if we want watches, purses, jewelry, sunglasses etc.  Not gonna say we got any watches, purses or jewelry but if we did it would be really nice.  

We also found probably one of the most beautiful fire halls in the world:

We walked a lot that day, all the way down to 9/11 Memorial.  Honestly, I had been avoiding this a bit.  I knew it would be heartbreaking, and I would be a weepy mess.  We looked at the memorial and the waterfall outside, at ground zero and then went into the Tribute Center.  It is filled with photos and mementos from that horrific day and just as I predicted I was a total mess.  But it was completely worth it.

That evening, we made our way on the train to Metlife Stadium, home of the NY Giants and Jets to watch the Jets vs the Chicago Bears, Josh's favorite team.  We had booked the tickets a couple months ago and Miranda decided to join us since she was going to be here as well.  We met up with Josh's coworker and his wife grabbed some beer and settled in to enjoy the game.

The Bears ended up winning, and it was a great game.  It was both me and Miranda's first NFL game and the first time Josh had seen the Bears so it was really exciting for all of us.  Plus they had Shocktop Pumpkin Ale which is amazing!  It seemed like it took forever to get home on the train and was such a late night.  We are too old for that!

Since the night before was so late, we weren't in a huge rush to get out early on Tuesday morning.  we decided to take the subway into the city and walk into Brooklyn over the Brooklyn Bridge.  I had been to Brooklyn a few times, but never had actually walked over the bridge so this was pretty fun.  The bridge is actually almost 1.2 miles long, so it's huge and takes a decent amount of time to walk over.  It is a great walk though and we had such a gorgeous day!

After we got across we decided to wander around in the park under the bridge, as well as in DUMBO.  We had lunch at Shake Shake, a New York institution (and delicious).  After some more walking (and because of construction we were almost trapped in Brooklyn, seriously, does anyone know how to find a subway stop near the bridge right now with all the construction? yikes!) we decided to take the ferry back to Manhattan.  We bought our tickets, and the sign said we had a good 20 minutes before the next ferry so we sat down at the bar on the water for a beer.  Barely 5 minutes in, the next ferry came, we tried our best but couldn't quite make it. So, back to the bar for another beer!  This time even though the ferry was early again we managed to make it, even though Miranda temporarily lost her ticket ;).

We didn't stick around Manhattan, it had been a long night and we were pretty exhausted, not to mention the long days and walking was really starting to catch up with us.  We headed home for some TV and an early night!