PART 3: Week 2 of exploring NYC!

The second week was my favourite – in the first week we did a lot of things that I have enjoyed since I have arrived. BUT in the second week we did stuff that I had been saving to do with this lovely lady and best friend, better known to me as “mother” 😀 .

We started our Monday by going to Grand Central, by checking out the market and the shops. I also had a hole in the sole of my left boot – I quickly realised this because of the disgusting feeling of a wet left foot, sock and inner shoe, definitely one of the more annoying and gross experiences to have.

After that we went to Harlem, Malcolm X Boulevard, to go on a walking tour. We were a bit early so we had some lunch for $6,50 at a “weigh your food” restaurant. The walking tour  was by Tours on foot and it was a really great tour with a very professional tour guide (they offer lots of pay-what-you-wish walking tours all over the city!).

For dinner we made our own special type of Taco’s with mince, cheese, Doritos and Guacamole.

Breakfast 😀

Grand Central

Grand Central

Grand Central Market

Grand Central Market

Harlem Brownstones

Walking tour!

Apollo theatre

Dinner consisted of Doritos, mince meat, guacamole and salsaaa!

We started our Tuesday by going to the famously famous Williamsburg and nearly got blown away. Unlike when Stephan and I went, we ACTUALLY found a nice street with  nice shops and nice food!

Then we hopped on the L-train and went to the Morgan Library and Museum (not allowed to take pictures inside, so now you’ll HAVE to go and check it out for yourself 🙂 ). Wow. This is a definite must see and in the same class as the Frick collection! This place was amazinggg!!

We ended our day with a quick drink and a snack at Chelsea Market and Tuesday night the lovely mamatjie slept over again because the NEXT day was my birthday!!

Really windy Williamsburg

Lunch at “Dos Toros”

Lunch at “Dos Toros”

On the G-train, on the way to Williamsburg

floors at Anthropologie

inspiration for future projects… 😀

Pre – birthday bite from Karen – really delicious and chocolatey!

Wednesday – MY BIRTHDAY –  started with a breakfast at Le Pain Quotidian with Stephan-husband & mama-Karina. The tables were also full of delicious cookies just because! (so I started my day with waaay too many cookies AND breakfast). Then we quickly stopped at 5th ave (Manhattan) again to buy a few stuff the madre wanted and then we went to the MoMA – and only had to pay $5 for my mom for a guest pass ( because I AM A MEMBER 😀 ) where we admired the Degas exhibition and we also watched the film “Where the wild things are” which was kind of not so nice and really depressing…

So to cheer ourselves up, we went for some happy hour cocktails in Park Slope before having a LOVELY AWESOME FANTASTIC dinner at “Al Di La Trattoria” :D. I am so happy to have been able to share this birthday with my husband AND my mother! I feel so lucky!

Blossoms for my birthday on Park Slope 5th avenue!

At Le Pain Quotidian

Breakfast!

More pretty flowers!

Another Ralph’s coffee

Mama and Marcel

Fig. 1

Klimt

Karina and Klimt

Mama and happy hour

Thursday 31 March we went for a looong walk in Prospect Park – there are tortoises in the lake, I found this rather intriguing – and had some coffee before heading down down down in Union Street until we reached Smith street (fun fact, if you walk up up up to the Manhattan side of Smith street, this will become Jay street and you will be at the NYU Tandon school of Engineering before you know it! And if you continue to walk/run this way even further, you will reach the Manhattan Bridge and now I will stop because the place where this bridge goes is kind of self explanatory 🙂 ) and there we found a lovely French Bistro and had some lunch. We then walked around in Brooklyn Heights (great “walking around” streets are Smith and Court street), we went to Barnes and Noble, Trader Joe’s (great place for groceries!), more “shoppietjies” (small shops, that word, if you are not Afrikaans is just a terrible mixture of English and Afrikaans just because I wanted to). A bit later we met for a quick beer and onion rings at Bare Burger in Court street – yummmmm and then we had an awfully long wait for the bus and we were late for our dinner arrangements, but everything worked out well in the end !

Blossoms in Park SLope!

Walk in the park

Walk in the park

Morning coffee

Walk to lunch

French Bistro

Bare Burger

Bare Burger

Bare Burger

Bare Burger

Bare Burger (live!) entertainment!

Bare Burger

Waaaaaiting for the bus

Dinner!

Dinner !

Dinner!

Dinner!

Dinner! 🙂

 Friday 1 April – The mother’s birthday!! We had hotel breakfast after singing for the mamatjie with a Buttermilk Bakeshop cupcake and then we went to the American Museum of Natural History . We had a special and cultural Harlem lunch at Sylvia’s – fried chicken and ribs ! And then a slice of cake for pudding at Café Lalu!! With this seriously overstuffed feeling we finished up the last things at Fifth Avenue before going home to Brooklyn and having a drink at the Oyster bar on 5th avenue in Park Slope. For dinner we went to Calexico and shared two celebratory Fajitas.

My BEAUTIFUL mama!

Waiting in line at the AMNH

With Teddy Rosevelt!

Sweet corn-bread at Sylvia’s

Sylvia’s

Sylvia’s

Sylvia’s fried chicken!

Harlem

Café Lalu

Café Lalu

Café Lalu

Café Lalu

Café Lalu

Calexico!

Pre-party at the Oyster bar

Calexico!

Hola Fajitas!! MMMmmmmm

Saturday – the sad, goodbye-saying, final visiting day – we went to Target and the lovely mother bought herself a blue Kitchen-Aid-handheld-electric-whisk, we had a drink at Gorilla coffee and we went to JFK for lunch and to hug and kiss and say goodbye. ❤ ❤

*A special note for my mother:

BAIE dankie vir die heeeeeerlike tyd mamma!! Ek’s so baie lief vir mama! Ek EN Stephan sê soooo baie dankie vir elke ete, bakkie, kossie, koffie, kuiertjie en al die liefde en die voorreg om alles te wys en te vertel! Ek hoop hierdie vul al die “blanks” in, ekt nou probeer moooi hard dink. Mams kan nog uitsien uit na ‘n “Part 4” met net nog foto’s en hopelik ‘n video of 2. Sien uit om mams gou weer te sien in Suid-Afrika of Amerika!!!

PART 2: Niagara Falls

We went to Niagara Falls, walked through the park , looked at the falls, had some delicious Hard Rock Café  AND we saw Canada (closest I’ve ever been to Canada 😀 ). We chose this tour because we didn’t have a lot of time to go away. We did the “two days and one night Niagara tour”. The cost of the “tour” includes a bus ticket and the night at the hotel. They have a “pay for two, get one free deal”, which a good deal if you decide to do your own stuff and pay your own entrances. Just watch out, some of these tour companies try to get you to do all the activities and if you book activities through them you actually end up paying more than what it really costs – luckily we only did one extra activity through the tour and for the rest we made our own plans.

• Our tour started on Saturday we had to be on the bus by 08:00. We departed from Chinatown, close to the Manhattan Bridge and it was just a 20min subway ride (yay Park Slope :D). We sat on the bus for a reaaally long time but we  enjoyed the views and we even kind of enjoyed all of the sitting. About halfway we stopped at Corning – and we skipped the glass museum for the Rockwell museum. We soon found out it’s NOT the Norman Rockwell museum, but another rich Rockwell that bought art for a museum (something like that). Luckily the museum was in a nice part of the town and we decided to skip the museum to rather walk around the historic part of Corning and go for lunch:

Lunch in Corning

Lunch in Corning

Lunch in Corning

Corning stop on the way to Niagara falls

Lunch in Corning

In Corning looking for the Rockwell museum – take note the NORMAN Rockwell museum is in MA… oops

•  After another few hours of sitting we finally arrived at Niagara Falls (some people believe the word “Niagara” is derived from a native word meaning “thundering waters. It’s quite interesting to know that Victoria falls in Zambia were referred to as “Mosi Oa Tunya” meaning “the smoke that thunders” in the native language of the region). We explored all around, looking at the Falls from every possible angle from the American side. Afterwards we had dinner at the Niagara Falls Hard Rock Café.
  

  Falls selfie – skies Stephan…

  

  mi madre y mi marido (see, I’m learning Spanish :D)

  

  exploring the Falls

  

  looking at Canada from the American side

  

  Ta daaaa!

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  Dinner at Hard Rock Café at Niagara Falls

  

  Dinner at Hard Rock Café at Niagara Falls

  

  

  

  

  
• We started our Sunday by waiting for some of the people of our group to finish a boat ride a little further away from the falls (it was Sunday morning and Easter weekend as well, in a really small town and everything was closed so we couldn’t even buy coffee somewhere else)  – we took some really nice pictures of the water here – and afterwards we went to Old Fort Niagara, a really cool old French fort.
  

  ❤

  

  

  the picture I was busy taking in the previous picture

  

  

  

  

  

  

  at the French Fort

  

  at the French Fort

  

  at the French Fort

  

  Over the bridge (in the bus) almost at Niagara falls

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  the last stop

  

  
• The last stop was whirling waters (or something like that) and then we headed back to New York City  and arrived nine hours later, had a quick cerveza, wine and cider at Union Hall, the cooolest bar we know of (so far). You can also play “bocce” here.
• 

  

  
•  Read Part 3 for the second week of my lovely NY visiting mother! 

PART 1: Tour NYC like a local !

My mom came to visit us! This is my mom and I (and a brunch mimosa and Stephan who took the picture, thanks Stephan):

During the time she was here we did a LOT of things, I know Brooklyn and Manhattan a little bit better now and I had 2 weeks to explore WITH someone!

This is how my mother and I did it. If you happen to live in Park Slope or actually anywhere in the world and you’re visiting New York, with or without your mother, here is a list to follow – *feel free to comment, or to ask opinions about the places or things we did.

I’ve divided the two weeks into two parts, part 1 contains the first week, from Friday 18 March (just so you have the timeframe, although the weather was quites strange and really not spring yet, so keep that in mind if you want to travel here in March) to Friday 25 March and part two is from Saturday 26 March until Saturday 2 April.

*I think I’d really like to become a tour guide 😀

LIST – SIMPLE STEPS TO HAVE THE ULTIMATE TIME IN NYC WITH YOUR MOTHER WHEN YOU ARE 23, MARRIED AND ON A F-2 VISA

• Do not have job due to your visa situation – make sure your unpaid internship starts after she visited. This also ensures that you can not wait for a friend in the form of your always loving mother. (I was super excited and counted down the days 🙂 ). For example – here are a few selfies to show you how I entertained myself before she came (and you’ll be able to read all about this in the previous posts as well!).
• Having “alone travel time” before she comes gives you time to explore the city (reaaally a lot to explore), this ensures that your list is really long when she arrives and since this is NY, there’ll still be really a lot YOU weren’t able to get to and you’ll do it together.
• Take the A train to the airport – this is worth it if you have time and you don’t have (any or a lot of) baggage (since I was going to get my mother I had none). It’s $7 for the air train to JFK when you reach the end of A. If you’re not going to Queens, DON’T  take the J train when going home… If you arrive at JFK rather call a taxi (if you’re going to Park Slope/ somewhere close to Park slope in Brooklyn, call Arecebo,  $40 pick-up/drop-off fare)
• Get your mother at the airport and go home with the Arecebo car service 😀 and take a selfie in the car:
• Show her around 5th Avenue and have coffee at L’Albero dei gelati:
• Have a late St. Patrick’s dinner with your lovely and extremely hardworking Stephan husband, your mother, your housemate and her son.
• Walk home with your mother to the cooool Airbnb place she lived for a week
• Start Saturday with a quick walk in Prospect Park and DELICIOUS brunch at Cheryl’s:
  

  Mama Karina crossing the street at Grand Army Plaza

  

  Mama Karina STILL crossing the street at Grand Army Plaza (I took a lot of pictures 😀 )

  

  Two of my FAVOURITE people in Prospect Park with me!

  

  

  Brunch at Cheryl’s

  

  Selfie!

  

  Proper picture – photocred goes to the waiter.
• Walk around Broadway, starting at Prince street and ending at Union Square
  

  

  Visit the pretty church and listen the organ concert
•  ALWAYS go into the book stores. Especially Barnes and Noble – they might have a Georgette Heyer book !!! We also went to see a free organ concert at 16:00 in Grace church (a really very beautiful church with stained glass windows).
• Go to the Guggenheim
  

  Guggenheim!

  

  

  

  

  Guggenheim selfie 😀
• Sunday:  eat some bagels in Union square park (we fed the birds a lot of the bagels) and then, to flee the cold go to Max Brenner’s Chocolate shop and drink some Chile Hot chocolate. Go to Strand books (just across the road) and the comic bookstore next to it – it’s really good bookstores!
  

  Special Mexican dark chilli hot chocolate…

  

  ❤ ❤

  

  that thing is FILLED with chocolate!

  

  

  

  Menu at Max Brenner

  

  Max Brenner

  

  ❤
• Walk further up up up in Broadway, go into stores and have lunch along the way until you reach Macy’s. By then we were really tired, went home for a nap and went back to 14th street to go to Redeemer Church at 17:00. After church go to Macdougal (nice historic street with LOTS of nice restaurants) and have a DELICIOUS Italian dinner, because by now your mother will be needing a good dinner and some wine 😀
  

  feeeeed the birds…

  

  A shop and some of the clothes inside

  

  

  wowie

  

  even more wowie

  

  Macy’s flower show – take note, TOO MANY PEOPLE!

  

  Delicious dinner!

  
• Monday: Start the day by visiting the Neue Galerie and having some Klimt cake at the Café Sabarsky. It had some gold leaf and everything! Klimt would have enjoyed this!
  

  View from our window seat at Café Sabarsky

  

  Tea in a teapot!

  

  yay for self-timer!

  

  Klimt cake – with some edible gold foil and cream.
• Then head down the road to the Metropolitan Museum, pick a specific section you want to see (otherwise you’ll never finish, rush and not be able to take anything in properly) and head there and do one unexpected turn. I find that’s the best way to see the Met with your “mammatjie” (mother but small, it’s Afrikaans o.k.). In this case we went to see the Islamic art section to look at the rugs and we also saw a special exhibition for Vigée Le Brun. She was a very impressive eighteenth century female painter).
  

  Rug!

  

  Selfie on the balcony in the Met

  

  On the balcony in the Met

  

  Italian frescoes – exciting stuff for first year art history students (AND my mother was a first year art history student last year 😀 )
• After the Met museum you’ll probably be hungry, and they have food at the Met at the cafeteria downstairs as well as the café. But I find if you’re done in the museum anyway, you’d be able to find a nicer restaurant for the same/ a lower price. SO skip the part where you take your mother to the supermarket and you pick something and they weigh it) just head to Dumbo, to Juliana’s from the start!
  

  Manhattan Bridge! (DUMBO)

  

  Brooklyn Bridge (DUMBO)

  

  My Sarie Magazine – wanted to be one of those people who feature in the magazine but I never sent them the picture 😛

  

  

  Pizza at Juniana’s

  

  
• A good way to start your Tuesday would be to head up to the Upper West Side again and go to the Ralph Lauren Woman and home flagship store (and get a free cappuccino) before going to the Frick Collection.
  

  Mi madre in Ralph Lauren on Madison Avenue

  

  Ralph Lauren

  

  Cappuccino!

  

  

  

  Frick museum (the only place in the museum where you are allowed to take pictures is in here)

  

  selfie!

  

  another selfie

  

  a very blurry but nice selfie…
• Head over to Central park for a walk until you find the Boat House Express Café. You CAN go to the restaurant, I’m sure it’s very nice but if you’re on a budget the café is great and they have small bottles of wine for $7 and they also serve burgers for $5.
  

  Lunch at the boathouse café

  

  Lunch at the boathouse café

  

  quick stop while walking through the park

  

  Bow bridge! Where Stephan and I got engaged last year!

  

  Bow bridge

  
• **Optional: Continue to walk through the park to the other side and look for a restaurant you, your mother and sister enjoyed 3 years ago. Find it and go and look at the place Stephan is currently interning at before going to Telio, the Greek restaurant with reasonable prices, good pizza and lamb gyros.
  

  telio’s – we found you again!

  

  

  the view !

  

  

  

  failed selfie attempt

  
• On a Wednesday it would be a good idea to go to the Brooklyn Botanical garden and that’s what we did just after working a while in the library (Brooklyn Public Library – great for free classes etc!) and for lunch go to Cheryl’s again. 😀
  

  

  

  

  Mama and Magnolias!!

  

  Magnolias!

  

  On the way to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens

  

  Brooklyn Public library

  

  Brooklyn Botanical Garden

  

  Orchids!

  

  more Magnolias!

  

  

  Daffodil hill

  

  

  

  

  Daffodils!

  

  Not excited enough… see next picture 😀

  

  “Orchids!”

  

  ❤ ❤

  

  at Cheryl’s
• Then just walk down Union street, have some more coffee and buy Turkey burger patties (no, don’t, because it doesn’t really taste as nice as chicken OR beef, but it’s everywhere, cheap and looked worth trying, so we tried it) and eat at home with Stephan as well.
  

  Coffee stop

  

  mural in union street

  

  walking through a supermarket

  

  

  Another blurry selfie – Making our own food $18 for the 3 of us – turkey burgers! (I don’t like turkey that much, I think Americans do because there is turkey everywhere)
• Moving down a little more in 5th avenue – we looked at all of the beautifully designed window displays and we went in a t the Polo store (Ralph Lauren designes Polo) and had some coffee at Ralph’s. Another nice thing about these (out of my league) stores, is the fact that they almost always have free rest room facilities :D. Always go into Gap as well – they usually have a good special – we each got a sweater for $12 or less ( my mother’s was $7!) and a really nice scarf for $3.
  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  
• We then met with Stephan at Eataly for lunch – I’ll have another picture update because I don’t have the nice Eataly pictures with me now).
  

  Macy’s again- trying to sell us stuff

  

  Eataly!
• If you’re in Brooklyn and you want to see, well pretty much the ultimate supermarket (supersupermarket?) kind of like Woolworths in South Africa  but bigger, there is a ginormous Whole foods on the corner of 3rd street and 3rd avenue and I only bought a spanakopita (greek spinach and feta pie, $3,50) but it’s quite cool to just look at everything. Calexico for dinner is ALWAYS a good idea 😀 be prepared to stand in a bit of a line, it’s worth it!!
  

  Whole Foods

  

  Whole Foods

  

  Whole Foods

  

  lotssss of beer at Whole Foods

  

  and some more

  

  

  

  at Calexico

  

  at Calexico

  

  

  Hola! really goooood tasting food!

  

  

  

  On the bus to “take” the lovely mother home.
• Start Friday morning by helping your mother pick everything up from the bnb space and take it to your own apartment before having some breakfast and spreads at Le Pain Quotidian. We especially enjoyed the little pots of coffee you get there!
  

  Getting the bags

  

  Le Pain Quotidian

  

  

  

  

  Pots of coffee!

  

  

  

  spreaaaads 🙂

  

  
• We then went to the Brooklyn museum, had some lunch there and went to Ikea and took the wrong bus but saw Red Hook through the windows so it actually worked out quite well!
  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  
• To be continued – Read about Niagara falls, Williamsburg, the Morgan Library and 2 birthdays in the next post!!!
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