Pounding pavement...

Every once in a while, despite lack of sleep and despite working a long day, I still get the energy to do crazy things. Like:

After work, I strolled down 15th Street from the Chelsea Market to Union Square where I was planning on meeting Karishma. We've been trying to hang out as much as possible because, out of some unfortunate circumstances she's had to drop out of school and, because of her visa, she has less than 15 days to leave the country for India. It makes me sad but I'm sure she's going to make it back at some point. It's all very complicated and I won't go into it. But anyway, she was running behind so I made a few phone calls to kill time, sat for a bit and then, on a whim, decided to walk up to Madison Square Park, on 23rd Street. Once I arrived, I realized I was in the perfect spot because Karishma had never eaten at Shake Shack, and since the name of the game has been doing things that Karishma has yet to do after living here for a year, I figured I would just wait there. So she came and met me and we stood in the mile long line for the Shake Shack which appears to never move because it's always the same length. But this is just a testament to the fact that Shake Shack is awesome. These are the best tasting fast food burgers I have had, (and you will ever have). They almost melt in your mouth.

While sitting and digesting our food we started brainstorming what to do with the remainder of a very young evening. Some of her friends from her brief period as an NYU student were out and about, one's band had a show but we ultimately opted to take a really long walk. Because that's what you do on a night like tonight in Manhattan when you don't want to spend too much money. (Who wants to pay $7 a beer at some random bar anyway?) So, the path we decided on was Broadway from Madison Square Park all the way to Chinatown.

We stopped in Union Square on the way to check out several different bands, one a budding pop star named Chloe Temtchine, who was interviewed recently by my TV station. She recently came up with a genius marketing idea, to play out of the back of a truck that would randomly show up in different parts of the city and to promote the events on her website. So she likes to come to Union Square and perform on the back of her truck with her other guitar player. I wasn't terribly impressed by the music until she started to beat box then sing in Spanish. Another group we saw a few feet away consisted of a drummer, bassist and two saxophonists jamming out (sounded like Morphine), and yet another a group of guys with acoustic guitars, an electric bass and a box drum singing strange ska influenced songs in German and subsequently covering a Beatles song, A Little Help From My Friends. The last guys were the best of all, they had a vigorous stage presence that manifested in frenetic dancing and walking around the space in which they were performing, all the while harmonizing their raspy vocals. They were pretty tight and really amusing.

Contented, we continued on down Broadway past NYU and into Soho, stopping briefly at UNIQLO, where I fell in love with an article of clothing for the first time (weird). $100 pea coat. It'll be getting cold soon. Walking further we watched the architecture and the demographic change and drank in the fall air which is quite intoxicating right now...or is that the urine smell wafting up out of the subway vents?

Either way, the smell in Chinatown itself was a force to be reckoned with but that didn't stop us from stumbling into another hole in the wall Chinese restaurant once we got there that served five fried dumplings for $1.00. I'm not even kidding. On the way we spotted my favorite building on Eldrige Street, which I see out the window of the train from the Manhattan bridge every day on the way into Manhattan.


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We decided not to eat in the dumpling restaurant, mainly because it was so small. So, we carried our snack to Sara D. Roosevelt Park on Chrystie Street, sat on a park bench and chowed down while watching some kids play football in the park and talking about how adventures like this can only be had in a big city like this. All total we walked about 5 miles. I went to www.mapmyrun.com and mapped out the walk. I'm that geeky.

But all that said, I love this city. And it breaks my heart that my best friend has to leave it, even if for a little bit. I know she'll be back though. We dreamers can't be held down. Good night everybody.