Rachel Comes To Visit!

This weekend, my good friend Rachel came to visit. Rachel and I grew up together and our parents live across the street from each other (although they couldn't come up with this bright idea until we were in college, so we didn't really get the benefit of being neighbors as kids). Anyhow, she already had plans to come visit me in July (for the New Kids on the Block/Backstreet Boys concert - oh yeah, that is happening. Bet you can't wait for the blog on that one), but it just so happens that her job (at Dr. Pepper - how fun is that?) sent her up here to work for the next two weeks. So she came up a day early and we had roughly 24 hours, from Saturday to Sunday afternoon, to hang out/make the most of the city.

I gave her the number of my driver to come pick her up from the airport on Saturday. Luis is not actually my driver, but he works for a local car company and has driven me a few times. He lives just around the corner from us, so the last time he drove me, he just gave me his personal cell so I could call him directly instead of going through the dispatch. So I'm gonna go ahead and refer to him as my driver. Rachel found this very sketchy, but I told her it was all on the up and up (I think - haha).

Once she arrived, there was no time to waste. She wanted to go to this place she had been the last time she was in the city called Sarita's Mac And Cheese (S'MAC). Basically, they only serve mac and cheese, but they have all these specialty flavors. Rachel went for the Napoletana (fresh mozzarella, roasted tomatoes, roasted garlic, and fresh basil) and I had the Alpine (gruyere and bacon). Both were SO good! Check out their website to see the rest of their awesome flavors. I decided this was definitely one of the best places I've tried since moving here. In fact, I'm not gonna lie, I went there again yesterday. Haha. After S'MAC, we walked a couple of blocks to Crumbs. Lots of people had told me about this place, but I had yet to try it. It did not disappoint. I went for the carrot cake cupcake and Rachel had the red velvet. Both were delicious. Observe. There is nowhere to sit in Crumbs, so we took our cupcakes over to Union Square and sat on the stairs. Let me just say that Union Square is one of my favorite places in Manhattan. It is where the sand artist guy was in my previous post, and there are always some unique characters hanging around. Especially on a Saturday. Here are just a few of the things we saw.

Nintendo DS was doing some big promotion, so they had all these people walking around letting you play on them. The best part was that they had them attached by those black ropes. Like someone was going to run away with their DS. Actually, that's probably exactly what would have happened, so good thinking, Nintendo.

What are these 30-something-year-old men doing, you ask? Playing hacky sack, that's what. Hilarious. Side note: hacky sack always makes me think of Freddie Prinze, Jr. Bonus points if you can name the movie.

We also saw a big group of people in Union Square holding signs that said "Free Hugs." I didn't take their picture for fear that they would try to give me a hug. Maybe next time.

That night, we really wanted to see a show on Broadway. We put our names in the lottery for Book of Mormon (along with about 200 other people), but no luck. So we then proceeded to walk to all of the surrounding theaters to see what the ticket situation was. We finally decided on "That Championship Season". I had heard that it was good, and it had a fantastic cast...Brian Cox, Jim Gaffigan (hilarious comedian!), Kiefer Sutherland, Chris Noth, and Jason Patric. The show was okay. The actors were all really good, but the story was just a little lacking for me. Hard to follow.

But lucky for us, as we were heading out of our show and walking to Junior's for some post-show grub, Chris Rock just so happened to be coming out of his show in the theater next door. I snapped this picture of him while he was signing autographs. Sunday, we got up and headed back into the city for more cupcakes. Haha. This time we went to Billy's Bakery, a favorite of mine (and Shahla's!). Then it was off to Central Park. Rachel had gotten a new camera and wanted to take some shots in the park, so we spent a little time there. I wanted to walk over and see the place where Tavern on the Green used to be. Below is what the area looks like now. Just a bunch of food carts. The inside of the building has a visitor's center/Tavern gift shop. Pretty sad. If you have no idea what I am talking about, you can check out the whole story here.

So blogosphere, on the occasion of my first celebrity sighting, I want you to leave a comment saying who you think I will spot next. If someone is actually right, there will be a fantastic prize involved.

Happy Hump Day!