New York, New York (July 2017)

Hey Everyone!!!!!

So, as most of you would know, I have been radio silent these past few months as I hunkered down to study for the California Bar Exam. Over three months, I prepared for this exam like it was a full-time job. The actual exam goes over two days and tests 15 subjects closed book. The first day was made up of three one-hour essays, a one hour lunch break then two one-hour essays and a 90 minute closed-universe essay. The second day was  100 multiple choice questions in three hours, a one hour lunch break then another 100 multiple choice questions over another three hours. I did my exam at the Oakland Convention Center and I think there were about 1500 of us at that location. Statistics show that about 10,000 people sat for the bar exam. I really really hope I passed although I’m prepared to fail because when they ran the exam in February of this year, the pass rate was only 35%. ANYWAY, let’s move on to happier topics. After the bar exam, Josh and I decided to treat ourselves by taking a quick trip to NEW YORK!!!

Our friends, Meagan and Ryan recently moved from Geelong to New York. So Josh and I decided to visit them and hang out for a couple of days.

Meagen and Ryan have the most amazing apartment. It’s right near Mt Sinai hospital which is where Meagan is working and only two blocks from Central Park. An amazing area. The apartment is quite cozy but Josh and I absolutely loved how the builders made use of space. In particular, check out the (angled) toilet!

Josh is in the toilet to provide a point of reference. Josh liked the layout of the toilet because it provided a place for leaning while one ponders life’s greatest questions.

We arrived Friday evening so only got a quick walk around the area. The area in Central Park which Meagan and Ryan lives closest to is the Jackie O Reservoir. This area is a favourite of joggers and was really pretty in the evening.

The next day, we all decided to check out Williamsburg which is part of Brooklyn. So for the first time, Josh and I rode the subway!

The subway was not great. We must have encountered the only un-air conditioned train in all of New York. I think we all dropped a dress size by the time we got off the train. Williamsburg was really nice, very eclectic. The first place we visited was a flea market.

Every thing was quite expensive but Josh and I still managed to buy a couple of cute things. From there we found a pier and were treated to some lovely views.

While we were taking pictures, a random guy insisted on taking a ‘family’ picture.

It was pretty funny. After this we had no idea where to go, so we all put our heads together to figure out our next stop.

We decide to visit the Brooklyn Brewery. So in classic New York fashion, we joined a line.

Once we got inside, we joined another line to get beer.

What can I say, New Yorkers love a good line. Meagan and Ryan told me that on Craig’s List, there are professional liners. These are people that will line up FOR you to buy what you want. The things people think of. The Brooklyn Brewery was ok, but inside wasn’t very nice and there weren’t that many places to sit. I would recommend skipping it and just buying the beer from a bottle-o. From there, we visited Rough Trade Records so that Josh and I could buy a record to add to our collection.

This place was pretty cool. It had its own musical venue out the back where we could hear that night’s band rehearsing. After all these lovely day adventures, it was time to start our Tapas Trawl. Credit to Meagan for naming the trawl. First, we started with wine.

We started off at a wine bar called the Immigrant. It was aptly named since we only heard foreign accents when we walked in. Although we had food and wine, I refuse to share pictures of the food because it was not good. We bought pepperoni poppers but all they were was some Coon cheese and pepperoni slices on a toothpick. We also ordered a charcuterie plate and that came with not nice salami and huge chunks of Coon cheese. I never thought you could screw up a simple meat and cheese plate, but there you go, I was wrong. From there we walked to place Josh and I had visited before. However, we got sidetracked when we saw 6 shots for $12. So we made a pit-stop.

I did not partake because I wanted to be able to remember the entire night. After this, we went to the Ten Bells. We ordered a weird combination of food:

A strange combination I grant you but somehow it all worked. And then because we still hadn’t had enough food, we decided to get dessert from Ferrara’s.

I got an baked American cheesecake and Josh got a carrot cake. Both were amazing and the perfect cap to our Tapas Trawl. After this, we headed home looking forward to our next day.

On our next day in New York, we decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather…

… and participate in a classic New York activity: Paddle boats in Central Park!

After the boats, we needed some sustenance to get us through our next attraction, so we went to the Shake Shack and… joined a line.

I’ve been told that the Shake Shack is the East Coast Version of In-and-out burger. The Shake Shack was pretty good but you pay about $7 for a burger and In-and-out only charges about $3 for theirs. So West Coast 1 – East Coast O.  After our lunch, we finally got to what Josh and I have been waiting for…. the Natural History Museum!

We bee-lined to the attraction we were dying to see… DINOSAURS!

After the dinosaurs, we decided to check out the rest of the museum. One of the key attractions here are the animal exhibits.

I really did not like this part of the museum. The animals were all clearly real and had been preserved after either dying or been killed. It was really strange I thought. Why wouldn’t people go to a zoo to see the real thing or even watch a documentary? It felt oddly similar to a hunter who stuffs the heads of his kills and then hangs it up. We did not stay long. After this rather macabre display, we went onto something way more interesting. The Museum displays the largest meteorite in the world.

This thing doesn’t look that big BUT it weighs 34 tonnes! And is made completely of iron. A small section was polished and you can see its all iron.

This marked the point where we were done with sight-seeing. We decided to cap off the day at the Mermaid Inn, known for their cheap seafood at happy hour.

We enjoyed our last decadent meal here and then visited the Jackie O reservoir again on the way home.

She was even prettier at night then during the day. All in all it was another great trip to New York. I don’t think Josh and I could ever get tired of this city. And now since we have Meagan and Ryan in the States with us, we might try meeting in the middle to discover other great places around America.

I have three weeks off until I go back to work. I have a trip planned for the country so watch out for another blog post in a couple of weeks. Its great to be in the land of living again after my study sabbatical.

Talk soon,

Sim (& Josh)