New York City: Day 2 - Bridges, Bird Poop, and Burgers

On the second day of our trip to NYC, we visited the South Street Seaport which is near the Brooklyn Bridge.

We power walked, weaving in and around construction, to the bridge to have enough time to walk the whole bridge.

Pretty impressive bridge, I have to say.

We took a lot of self-portraits on this trip. Fair warning.

This little pigeon has a huge extended family and they all live in NYC. Why does the city have only pigeons? What is it about the pigeon that makes it the perfect bird to live under these circumstances?

Anyway, remember this pigeon. I'll show you why in a minute.

The partial building in the center of the picture is one of the Freedom Towers being built near Ground Zero.

Here's the start of the pedestrian bridge.

We learned a few things while walking the bridge.

-Locals get really annoyed when you drift into the bike lane. Understandable.

-Power walking is nearly impossible due to the masses of people who want to take a slow stroll over the bridge.

-The bridge is a hot spot for local artists to try to sell their drawings.

-It's neat seeing cars zoom past under your feet (though it freaked Jon out).

It got so cold and windy up there that my cowl had to serve as a ear warmer too.

After the bridge, we headed back to the Seaport in hopes of finding some good lunch.

We searched through Pier 17 but found a lot of chain restaurants and the little outdoor cafe didn't hold any appeal since it was freezing cold outside.

Remember that pigeon? I'm pretty sure he was responsible for this. What does a wife do when her husband gets pooped on? Holds the tissue far away from him until he lets her take a picture! I'm lucky he's such a good sport.

We walked a block or so and found an unassuming restaurant called Keg No. 229. After seeing the menu, we decided that was the place for us.

The inside is interesting but not too busy, which I appreciated at that point in our trip. There weren't many other customers there yet since they had just opened that day so our lunch was very peaceful in the restaurant.

I love this guy.

Don't I look calm? That's what a few days without kids will do to a mom. Even a mom in the middle of a crazy city with 65 teenagers!

Jon ordered their Drunkin Cheese Burger (topped with Vodka relish or something).

Since the bun had milk in it, I had a bun-less burger and fries. Seems pretty boring, right? Wrong. The burger was grilled perfectly so that it had this flavorful crust all around it. The fries were fried with garlic and rosemary and had the perfect amount of salt on them. It was our favorite meal of the trip.

Here's Keg No. 229. I'm going to remember this restaurant and hopefully we'll be able to go back one day.

Look! Chelsea Market!! I wish we could have stopped to check it out but I had to settle for a quick picture as we wizzed by.

Here's the theatre that we'd see Spiderman (the musical) in later.

This little shop (Green Symphony) is hidden by construction scaffolding but I'm glad we found it. It's a great little cafe/grocery store packed with healthy foods.

Non-dairy smoothies!!!! Score! I could have done a dance when I saw the sign that said "Non-Dairy"! I got the Maui (pineapple, coconut, banana, and I forget) and Jon got the Einstein (strawberries, pineapple, banana, and who knows). The smoothies were great!

After our smoothies, we headed back to the theatre to see Spiderman. I both loved and hated it. There were times when the actors were flying around the theatre, the bad guys made me laugh, and the costumes were awesome and I thought "Wow, this is great!" ...... and then there were other times when the songs were lame, the plot was lame, and the scenes were boring that I thought, "Can we leave and get another smoothie?". So, not sure how to rate a musical that I both loved and hated. I'm not sure Bono is cut out for musical writing.

Another theatre that Jon wanted a picture of but I'm forgetting why now. I'll have to ask him the significance and get back to you.

Edited to add: This is where "Sunday In The Park With George" was first performed.

It was time to find dinner and it started to rain. Then it started to pour. We had no umbrellas. Jon had a hood on his coat that was waterproof but my thin hood was not going to work. Thank goodness for the men on the corner selling $5 umbrellas! So, with an umbrella over my head, we walked through puddles toward Hell's Kitchen (the food district in NYC) aka: Becky's Favorite Place In NYC.

We decided to give Westway Diner a try since the sign on the top of the building said it was voted Manhattan's best diner.

Jon's hand's a little shaky when taking self portraits. Look at us in our gray to match the gray day in NYC.

Jon ordered the fried chicken basket (though it didn't come in a basket) and fries. He declared it delicious and proceeded to eat that chicken down to the bone! I'm pretty sure he would have chewed on the bones too if he wasn't such a gentleman.

I ordered the spinach salad and sweet potato fries. The spinach salad had bacon, hard-boiled eggs, and mushrooms with a balsamic dressing (no, Mom and Katie, I didn't eat my mushrooms. Yuck!). The salad and the fries were fantastic! The bacon and dressing made that salad into something special. The sweet potato fries were so crispy on the outside and nice and soft on the inside.

This ended up being our second favorite meal of the trip.

After dinner, we found our way back to meet up with the group and said goodbye to the city for the night.

To Be Continued....