new york new york

some highlights:

• running around the reservoir/runner's track in central park in nice, 40 degree weather, seeing other morning joggers and feeling completely at home 3000 miles away from actual home.
• my first cannoli within minutes of arriving
  
• American Museum of Natural History (so big and so much to see must go back!)
• Zabar's Market (or heaven). amazing food. amazing housewares upstairs. delicious lox bagels with chive cream cheese at the cafe. fresh squeezed orange juice and grapefruit juice. free chocolate rugelach from nice baker. yummy apple strudel sample.
  
• Shake Shack - super cute and great music for a burger/shake joint. who would have thought ambiance mattered? they call their shakes concretes and their ice cream custard.
  
• restaurant week at AJ Maxwell's = cheap steak lunch with delicious corn chowder and ny cheesecake and a huge bread selection, plus a butch waitress who was really sweet! never again will I want steak for lunch though.
  
• walking across the Brooklyn Bridge, taking awesome jumping pictures, actually having a destination in Brooklyn
  
• lovely weather (40's! sunshine! no snow or rain!)
  
• dessert truck (love of my life)
  
• hanging out with my cousin's friend = my new friend!
• a stabbing in Brooklyn.. blood all over the subway platform...NYPD's = a bloody valentine for real.
  
• waiting in the cold for 30 min only to jump the line at Grimaldi's for bomb coal oven baked pizza.
  
• the banana pudding at Magnolia Bakery. way better than their famed cupcakes. and it's so cute and clean.
  
• not being able to find connections on the subways. hating on the Times Square station for its enormity and confusing paths.
• Katz, surprisingly delicious hot and greasy pastrami sandwich. crazy crowd made me super claustrophobic. but i would go back for that pastrami.
  
• Central Park, even in the dead of winter, is beautiful. the ponds are kind of frozen on the sides in the morning.
• Dessert Truck where i sampled bacon custard with a slice of chocolate on top (not that great) because they ran out of the bread pudding it was supposed to go on. so i got a rich hot chocolate which i couldnt finish because i had just had an ooey gooey cupcake. so we went back another night and i got a bomb chocolate bread pudding!
• Strand... STRAND! Love it! I wish I went in with a book list though! I also wish it was in the Bay Area instead.
  

Just wanted to jot down some stuff before I forget. So much more to not forget, though!