Friday we got off early from work (since Monday is Labor Day) so we filled up the extra free time by having a Wii party at my place. I bought Wii Sports Resort and 3 extra MotionPlus controllers (damn you, Nintendo) so we can have proper 4-player matches. It was fun – it’s a good game to play with friends over. We finished the day with a small stroll around the neighborhood and dinner at Plaza Lounge.

I woke up pretty early on Saturday and because of that I found myself falling asleep after noon. Around 3 PM my nap was interrupted by the gentle sound of a drill-hammer right outside my window. A ConEd truck was parked in front of my building and the guys were breaking up the pavement (later I found out it was about replacing a leaking gas pipe, so I guess it’s a good thing they’re doing it). I took it as a sign to get out of the house and enjoy the rest of the day out.

My plan was to go to Central Park and do some reading, but first I took a quick detour to Chinatown for some bubble tea. There was a place I haven’t been in over a year that had some great mango tea and good, cheap food – even by local standards (there’s cheap, and then there’s Chinatown cheap). I ended up paying less than $10 for food that could have easily satisfied 2 people, plus my mango bubble tea.

The “quick” detour ended up to last about 2 hours, with me walking afterwards from Chinatown up to Union Square. There were a lot of street fairs along the way, on Spring street, Prince and a bigger one on 4th avenue. I left the latter with a corn on a cob, which for some reason reminds me of my childhood summers at my grandparent’s place.

Around 7 I finally got to the park and camped on a bench close to a cross-street. Which made for an interesting experience, since I could overhear the horse-and-carriage drivers telling NY stories to the tourists they were carrying. I learned a few things about the park’s history and some of the many movies it’s been in. I left a little after 8, since it got too dark for me to read.

Back home the ConEd workers were still there, still noisy. It looked like a good time to pay a visit to my cousin, who keeps asking me to come crash at his place in Jersey for a change (he comes to Astoria almost every weekend). So I packed some extra clothes and headed out.

In less than 3 weeks, a bunch of friends from Romania are coming to New York to visit me, and I couldn’t be happier. Earlier this year I had my parents over for a month or so, and while it was nice seeing them – and showing them I can handle my new life just fine, thank you very much – it still made me wish it had been someone closer to my age & interests. After all, there’s one New York you show to your parents, and quite another to your childhood buddies.

I already have a long list of places to take them to, from touristy spots to places I found and fell in love with. NY has so many of them! I’ll take them see a Broadway show – which I guess is a must for a first-time visit here – and while it won’t be my first choice (Avenue Q, which sadly will close its doors before they get here) it’ll still be one of the more successful ones (it’s Chicago, btw). We have set a trip to Six Flags – one of my favorite spots – and a one-day trip to Washington D.C. We’ll fill the rest with as much NY exploring as possible, strolling the city around the day and sampling it’s nightlife afterwards. At least that’s my plan, we’ll see how much they will want to hold on to it.

I also plan on stuffing them like turkeys, since I’ve been compiling a list of all the awesome food, dessert & drinks places I have found in the past 4 years and I want them to try as many of them as possible. This city is a melting pot of cuisines and it will be a pity to miss on many of them.

Yay, can’t wait!