I've always been an adventure-junkie. And somehow I ended up getting to tackle life with this glorious human being who is the best possible fellow-adventurer, with a job that lets us kind of do whatever the heck we want sometimes.
So, naturally, we went to New York City.
I went with my mama and bestest Bethany two Octobers ago, (which was a month after Peter and I for-real started our relationship), and immediately after/during being there, I wanted to go back, especially with Peter, because we'd both be straggling behind staring up at buildings and taking pictures for too long. And if you're this in love with something, you really ought to have your husband meet it.
Traveling with him is my favorite. We both have the same philosophy about travel: it's pretty much just about eating food in a new place. And as much different food as you can possibly fit in. Literally and figuratively.
Neither of us are big on the sight-seeing, scheduling everything as tight as you possibly can, stressing out kind of travel. Going somewhere new is my favorite when we're more relaxed and spontaneous, and eat an obscene amount of food.
Plus, there were a lot of things I'd wanted to see in New York City, but I'd seen most of them the first time, so it left the second trip full of wandering-around-finding-french-bakery kind of possibilities.
One of the best parts of being married is that we can share food. This is bad on one hand, because we're both panicky, eat-it-too-fast-because-otherwise-the-other-person-will-eat-it-all kind of sharers (aka, really bad at sharing), but it's awesome on the other, because you get to try more things. We tried to maintain a continual state of semi-hunger by only getting one thing and sharing it, so that we could eat more at any given moment (so as to try the most things humanly possible).
We were also traveling very, very stingily--we got to stay in a friend-of-a-friend's apartment, we didn't do anything that we'd have to pay for (someday, Empire State building, someday), so the only thing we spent our money on was subway passes and food (as cheap and as amazing as we could).
Jenna, the magical person who I met last time we were on the East coast, and who gave me the advice to MARRY PETER, was able to meet us and run around for a day with her person, Taylor, who goes to college in NYC. He has a fancy apartment on Wall Street and a much greater knowledge of the city, and it was a relief to have someone to follow around for awhile instead of the ongoing struggle with the "map" (as in, glitchy and incorrect iphone directions).
Getting to photograph them was glorious, because whenever we travel places, we want to do a photo shoot there, not just take tourist pictures. So we got our New York City photo shoot after all. (Um, please call us immediately if you're in NYC and have need of a photographer.)
And for the first-time-ever, we got to have some pictures of us together while traveling. Taking lonely pictures of each other/vaguely horrific selfies (see above) only goes so far. (all the photos of us are of course by Jenna or Taylor, and the rest are by me or Peter. also we instagrammed heavily).
I love them so. They're both outrageously talented, artistic, and just, wonderful.
The Brooklyn Bridge was even better the second time because there wasn't a slew of ugly construction, we cheated and only walked halfway, and I got to make out with my husband.
King-of-the-world-ing. (yes, Taylor is Kate Winslet in this scenario...)
We explored Brooklyn Heights. Jenna found the flower shop, and the males found the real estate, of course.
Severe hunger was solved by the magical Shake Shack, where possibly the best fries, burger, and milkshake were devoured in an obscenely short amount of time.
AUGH. them. ♥
The only thing we bought from a food cart was on the desolate night we wandered around the financial district, ravenous and exhausted, and got the stalest, toughest, most delightful bagel I've ever had.
One of my favorite parts of the trip was getting to hold his hand so much. It sounds weird, but in everyday life, a satisfying amount of hand-holding doesn't really happen. But walking miles all over a city for several days means running across streets and racing to catch subways and meandering through parks and hurrying through sketchy neighborhoods while holding each other's hands, and that's just the best.
We had a truly awful Monte Cristo sandwich at a rather unfortunate diner in Times Square, which ended up being one of my favorite parts of the trip, due to exhaustion-induced delirium/laughing fits and the subway fiasco that followed, which ended in us walking back to the apartment on genuinely terrifying Brooklyn streets at 2am. The things that are almost weepily horrible at the time, but are later a "remember that awful/fantastic night?" you can look back on. I'm sure you know the type.
Propped the camera on our backpack and did a timer photo. :) And then when we were taking unattractive camera selfies, a biker guy offered to take a photo, which is one of my favorites.
I love him, I love him, I love him. Gah.
One of many of our French cafe obsessions.
Ever since I first went to Little Italy, I've been dying to go back, but this time, with my beautiful (have I told you he's part Italian?? it makes so much sense--his hotness, his beautiful eyes, his heavenly pizza, his ability to sell you anything... the fact that I'm desperately attracted to him...) husband. We ate more than we could handle, we dreamed of the running around the for-real Italy together, and we went back for hours the next day.
We visited the shut-down (because of rain? lame) Coney Island with our friend Julia and her husband and baby. They are a scrumptiously adorable family, and they even bought us Grimaldi's pizza.
More pizza. With my even-buys-me-coke, silly face-making man. (p.s. his pizza is better than any we found in Little Italy).
Lombardi's Pizza--America's first pizzeria.
We played cards and had Ultimate Jumbo Cannoli (or something like that), until we were told they aren't allowed to have people play cards unless the place has a gaming license). (???) This is an outrage, and finalized the fact that we could never actually live in New York City.
We pilgramiged to Dominique Ansel's bakery, the home of the original cronut. They'd sold out hours ago, but we got to have a chocolate chip cookie shot and some other wonderful pastry.
Eight Turn Crepe in SoHo--strawberries and chocolate and matcha. Heaven.
We went to a restaurant in Chinatown where no one really seemed to understand English, and managed to get pork dumplings, which we ate very classily (not) on the street.
We stopped at a random coffee shop in urgent need of a bathroom, but it didn't have a bathroom or even any pastries--however, it did have the hands-down best latte I've ever had.
We rode the Staten Island ferry, and ate our saved-up leftover pizza and best-donut-ever from a French bakery in SoHo. It had chocolate INSIDE. It was wondrous.
I realized some things about traveling. I hadn't thought about what it would be like travel with My Person. Instead of desperation to take an enormous amount of photos and remember everything that happened so you can tell everyone about it, it's much more peaceful--we get to live it together, and so it's more about "hey, remember that time we thought we might get mugged in Brooklyn? remember that baguette sandwich that forever changed the way we look at lunch time?" and less about "hey everyone! one time I went to New York City! listen to my stories that don't really matter!"
I guess it becomes important because we were together, and the rest of the reasons aren't important. And even if I hadn't taken any pictures or told anybody any stories, it would still be amazing, because of who I got to run around with.
Basically, I'm hopelessly in love with him. And adventures with him are my favorite. Even though we're still working out the tangles--we've had our share of airport fights and bickering over directions and hunger/exhaustion-induced nastiness (pretty much exclusively on my end).
But after quite a bit of practice, I think we're starting to get the hang of the trickiness of traveling together. And the happiness of coming home to a clean little home and the abruptly and abundantly green Oregon and our life with less people and more cuddling on the couch--it's one of the best things in the whole world.
