Visits and the search for Key Lime Pie

Last week, my friend, Hilde, was in from Norway visiting. She knows the city well and has a much more passionate love affair with it than I'll ever have. While living here last spring, she fell hard for the big apple, resulting in her coming back to visit just 5 months after she last left. Walking around last week, she would point out all of the pretty and fun things about New York, things I tend to overlook. I guess I've been so busy trying to get settled in New York, that I forgot to look around and take in a lot of the great things about it. The visit was kind of like having a sleepover continuously for 12 days, of course with a whole bunch of food and fun and NYC mixed in.

Although there was a lot of great (and luckily cheap!) food involved in Hilde's visit, the best food day was last Monday when we went on an adventure with Alex Jones: on a quest in search of the allegedly best key lime pie in the city, possibly the world. Alex Jones had been talking about this pie for at least a month, and we had designated the day to find it.

New York Night

A couple weeks ago, I was hanging out with my friend, Tishon, looking through the Norwegian newspapers online, when I came across an article, "Verdens Beste Burger Finnes i New York" or "The World's Best Burger is in New York" directly translated. It was an article about Jean Luc Naret, the director of the famous Michelin guide, a company which is not just known for tires and big squishy marshmellow men, but also for awarding stars to the best restaurants in the world. He knows his stuff, in other words. The article goes over some of the things that are special about him, like that he can't cook, he eats out 365 days a year, he never eats on planes and that, yes, he does eat junkfood from time to time and finally names a place called "Burger Joint" in New York as the best burger in the world.

"The best burger in the world?" I said excitedly and told Tishon what the article said.

"I've eaten there!" he said, "It's the kind of place you need to know about to find. We should go."

And go we did.

Cheesecake and New York days

This weekend a few friends of mine from Boston came down to NYC to hang out. They know the city well, so it wasn't your typical try-to-see-as-much-of-the-city-as-possible-in-12-hours kind of trip. We thought we'd just walk around and enjoy New York and see what there was to see.

Unfortunately, the weather didn't agree with us. There was drizzling to downpour most of the day, and at points there were windtunnels that blew dresses, hair and umbrellas frantically in the air. Not exactly the kind of weather to promenade in.

Saturday Morning

On Saturday, I woke up and had a day ahead of me.

It was one of the first weekend days I'd had in New York without having planned it ahead of time. Usually when I'm met with free time, I do one of three things: 1) go for a walk/explore, 2) cook, or 3) freak out cause I have free time and don't know what to do with myself.

Tuscan Veggie Soup and Headaches

The other day my friend, Alex, and I were supposed to hang out after work. I didn't realize it til the end of the day, but a giant fist had been slowly closing in around my brain so that by the time I could stamp out of the office (which is ironic to say, since I'm still not getting paid), there was so much pressure on my head that I could barely stand up straight.

I met up with Alex outside of work, and I grunted in reply to everything he tried to talk about. All I could think about was my poor head. Luckily he realized the dire state I was in, and so we went back to my place for some rice krispies (with raisins! which apparently isn't that common, but I've always done it, so I didn't know), and massive amounts of sinus headache medicine.

After half an hour of me laying perfectly still in the dark while Alex played around with his iphone (yes, the same friend as before obsessed with the same iphone, although this time, he was hooked on a new game called taptap, which is a version of guitarhero for the iphone), the pills finally kicked in and I could slowly start to form sentences again.

And what were those sentences about? Food, duh.

Quiche

A few weeks ago, I was out at a clounge (a club/lounge), and I started talking to a few Britsh guys. Here's how meeting new people usually goes for me:

Me: Hey.
Them: Hey.
Me: I'm Natalya
Them: Hey Natalya, I'm George, where are you from?
(It's weird, absolutely EVERYONE I meet is named George. Such a coincidence)
Me: [pause] I always end up telling my life's story whenever anybody asks me this. Basically, I was born in Virginia, but I grew up in Norway.
Them (Or George, apparently): NORWAY, really?
Me: Yup, yup, Norway.
Them: Wow.
Me: Yup.

I basically blow their minds.

Park Slope

The day after the filmrace (here's what we managed in the 24 hours alotted! Sorry about YouTube's bad picture quality), I needed to relax, so I went out to Park Slope in Brooklyn to visit a friend of mine that lives out there. I had no idea it's such a nice area; it's city-ish, but quieter, prettier, calmer, happier than Manhattan. It was a beautiful autumn day and I almost felt like I wasn't smack dab in the middle of one of the world's busiest metropolitans, but rather in a place where people take their time, have space to walk on the sidewalk without being afraid that someone's going to run you over, and actually enjoy life.