Albeit one day after payday and rent was due this past week as suggested by the preface of the Complex list, I paid rent two weeks early so funds for leisure are disposable at this time (pardon me while I pat myself on the back). I peeped this list Saturday morning around 10:30am so with Friday lost I challenged Amanda to help me fill up our weekend schedule and tackle remainder the list of things to do that were available for Saturday and Sunday.
First things first with any tour in a big city, it's important to stay together. To facilitate that, we thought it'd be easy to stay together if we rocked matching t-shirts (don't judge us!)
The shirts were especially designed by Amanda herself. I'm a fan of her work.
The tour itself was surprising. I thought with a scheduled 90 minute tour we'd be scouring the surrounding neighborhood, but it was literally a tour around the park grounds themselves, but it was very informative and entertaining thanks in part to our guide, Gregory.
Check out my list of most interesting facts learned:
- Although America won the American Revolutionary War, the battle of New York City was actually lost to the British in 1783 and the city was not freed until awhile later.
- Evacuation Day (look it up)
- The first ever statue of Lincoln was placed in Union Square Park
- "Ladie's Mile"[double entendre] (look it up) is an interesting study in gentrification, socioeconomics, and urban studies; if you're interested in that kind of thing.
- Finally learned why the Frenchman, Lafayette's name is plastered all across America. (Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette)
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Selected images from the tour:
Approximately 4pm: The Museum at F.I.T.
After a short subway ride up Broadway and a stop in the only stateside
Maison Kitsuné boutique (which I had no idea was on 28th street), which is my latest obsession in all many things French, we made our way to our next destination on the New York campus of the Fashion Institute to check out one of their museum's latest exhibits entitled "Beyond Rebellion: Fashioning the Biker Jacket?
Photography was not allowed in the exhibit, of course I didn't care and it rows it anyway but I couldn't cleverly hit the shutter button my phone before the security personnel noticed my not so stealthy mannerisms.
Sorry, best I could do...
Sunday @ 10:15ish am: A Brooklyn Area Subway Station
After a night of partying into the morning, it's always nice to wake up early and take a one hour train ride that I thought would be closer to 35 minutes uptown to 59th Street and Columbus Circle. Nevertheless we made the journey arriving fashionably late.
Long story short, we got some valuable recipes and I actually have a new found slight admiration for green peas, but only when they're fresh and blanched (I learned how to Blanche vegetable...quite bourgeois). I also learned how to properly butcher a chicken...no more buying boneless breasts at the grocery store for me...whole birds only!
they even provided a nice dessert option
After this session of standing and then browsing for cookware that we honestly didn't need, but would be fun to have, we decided to break away from our Complex schedule and pick up a nice Belgium brunch at
BXL East.
Bottomless mimosas on a Sunday, don't mind if I do....
Despite missing a few things on the list that we really did plan to do, star-gazing in Central Park (celestial stars, not people with their heads in the clouds due to celebrity) and the Pratt Institute's feature exhibition, "Black Dress..." Highlighting underrepresented African-American fashion designers.
At the end of the day, it was a fun weekend and you really can't beat free. Complex's weekend guides will definitely keep me checking my emails on time.
