road trip day 31: brooklyn

Your probably wondering why I skipped over day 30 of the road trip...or i'm hoping you've been paying close enough attention to realized I skipped it. Either way, day 30 consisted of a long day at Starbucks, hiding out from the rain. We drove from Boston into Providence, Rhode Island and spent the day vegging out and drinking coffee, which was great. After we were literally jumping out of our seats from over consumption of caffeine, we decided to explore Providence. It was shockingly great. I recently discovered that if I have an expectation of how a city or state is going to be, i'm more often than not disappointed by the reality. I think I make up these places in my mind to be a lot more exotic than they really are (aka Bali).  If I have no expectations of a place, then it usually blows my mind with its awesomeness. And that was the case with Providence. The city is filled with adorable brick buildings and beautiful homes. We explored around Brown University and fell in love with not only the university, but Providence as well. It lured us in with its quaint New England charms.  Unfortunately it was too wet to bring out our cameras, so you'll have to just take our word for it.
Which brings me to Day 31 of our road trip, Brooklyn. We spent the night in Providence and woke up the next morning to drive into Brooklyn. We were scared shitless. I mean who in their right minds drives an RV into the biggest city in the country? We swallowed our fears (I buried my head into a book) and drove straight into the mayhem. By the time we reached Brooklyn it was mid-afternoon. We picked Williamsburg to wander around in first. We lasted about an hour before it got dark and wandered back to the Nugget and parked it in another Brooklyn borough and met my friend from college for drinks at the Brooklyn Inn (perfect bar by the way). She is pretty great and has an awesome job working at Martha Stewart Living. She runs Martha's social media and her stories are so fun to hear. She was even on the Today Show with Martha just recently! Anyway, we drank at a dark cozy bar and did our best to pretend we were Brooklynites before wandering off to bed in the Nugget. Cool thing about Brooklyn is that parking is free with no time restrictions. We found some beautiful brownstones, parked our ugly RV in front, and had a peaceful night sleep. How's that for wild camping!

new york in photos round 3

new york round two

Our first full day in New York, we woke up and headed over to Alphabet City to check into our apartment. We rented a place on Air BnB and it was AMAZING! I loved the apartment, and it really gave us a glimpse of what it would be like to live in New York. After checking in we decided to walk down to the financial district, but I got distracted immediately by pastries and China town.
The Essex Market was one of my favorite places that we found. It is a huge indoor market with little food booths, where you can find anything from gourmet organic food to a pigs head. I beelined it for the bread stand in the market. As you can see, I am in heaven! I picked up the best pastry, filled with pistachios and dark chocolate. 

new york photos round 1

A few weeks back on our Puerto Rico trip, we decided that we wouldn't fly straight home, and instead we would head to New York for a few days. After much arrangement and a canceled hotel, we landed in New York on December 30th, spent the night by the airport and then made our way into Manhattan the following morning. We spent the next two days walking around New York and taking photos, while almost freezing to death, but it was worth it! New York is always exciting, no matter the weather. Here are a few shots from our brief stay (more to come):

 

 

 We found the BEST PANCAKES EVER while we were in New York at the Clinton St. Baking Company. If you make it to New York, definitely try their banana pecan pancakes, they achieve a perfect level of "fluffy-ness" and the maple syrup must have drugs in it because I had to stop myself from drinking it.

Mondays....

I think I need a theme for Mondays...something that can turn the plain old Monday post into something exciting, and since Brian and I have become more stationary and less vagabond-y, I will need something travel related to cure my wanderlust. Maybe arm chair travel/ posts about the best travel books? Or a destination wedding Monday? 

Any great ideas? I would love to hear  them!

As for now, this Monday will be a very random post:

Scenes from my weekend...

Just a word of warning: do NOT see New Years Eve, hands down the worst movie I have seen in a while, I mean Halle Berry what were you thinking! And Michelle Pfiffer kissing Zack Effron...come on! (the real movie we wanted to see was sold out).

Random:

Cute post on getting kissed on top of the Empire State Building!