Dublin>>NYC>>Home {2016}

Dublin, September 24-26

After a chill last day in Amsterdam, we landed in Dublin on the evening of September 24th and did the familiar city-bus-to-the-town-center ride. Our Airbnb was a room in a nice high rise apartment that was right on a little canal. Our host was super friendly and met us downstairs. His place was super cute and clean, but the funny thing was — we never saw him again after that initial intro. That’s always strange. Like he was super conversational and awesome that first night and then he was a ghost.

That first night we just walked downstairs to the grocery store at the base of the building. It was really bright and shiny like a Whole Foods and they had so much to choose from. We ended up just getting a baguette, a container of soup and a bagged salad mix that we took back to the apartment.

The next morning we trekked into town to have a full Irish breakfast at a place we had read about on Trip Advisor. It was called Kilkenny’s, but it was actually on the second floor of a really high end department store. And it was set up as a cafeteria with a shit load of seating so it was a really nice place to come and chill. You could tell there were lots of locals there — old ladies meeting up to hang out, old men reading the paper. Since it was a cafeteria and not table service you really could just lounge there as long as you liked. And my boyfriend fit right in:

Me: Your beard looks like a squirrels nest.

Him: You have shit in your teeth.

After Kilkenny’s, we continued walking around and it started raining so we ducked into a darling bookstore. For lunch we stopped at the M&S cafe — M&S is a gourmet grocery chain and they often have cafes inside where you can eat food from their prepared section. This particular one had a cafe with outdoor seating on the second story:

On our final day in Dublin we checked out of our Airbnb and went back to Kilkenny’s since there was plenty of room for us and all of our stuff. This time we had actual lunch time food from the cafeteria and it was delicious — Kris had a really great lamb stew, among other things. Later that afternoon we took the bus back to the airport and caught our flight to NYC.

September 26 to 28 - er, well - 27th ~ NYC

We landed in New York the evening of the 26th, but to us it was early morning of the 27th with the adjusted time. So basically we were zombies by the time we took the JFK airtrain, caught the subway, and walked to our Airbnb. Our host was nice, but again — we never saw him again. The apartment was in Chinatown and it was funky as fuck. You walked into a small room that served as the kitchen, dining room and living room. There were no windows and it was just very strange. There were 3 bedrooms branching off of that main room and one teeny tiny bathroom. Our room was one of the smallest I’ve ever been in. The bed was pushed up against the wall and there was about 3 feet of space on one side of the bed and the foot of the bed. It was pretty nuts. Thankfully though it was quiet-ish and there was AC.

That first night we just couldn’t fucking even. Even with the energy of New York, all we could do was stumble down the block for takeaway food. It’s always hard to sleep that first night back.

The next morning we woke up at the actual crack of dawn because you just can’t help it. Since the apartment was shit and our room was a prison cell, we got the fuck out of there as quick as we could. There wasn’t any lounging around at home. Thankfully, since it’s NYC, you can leave the house at 6 in the morning and the city is already alive….because it never sleeps anyway.

The sun was already up and we made our way up to our favorite coffee shop: Ninth Street Espresso. It has a beautiful window that looks onto Tompkins Square Park and it’s just perfectly situated in alphabet city. Their menu consists of the 3, the 6 of the 8 — espresso with 3, 6, or 8 ounces of milk. It’s super clever actually and really cute. And their coffee is just….it’s other worldly. We actually splurged and each went back up for decaf’s since it started to rain and we wanted to hang out there longer anyway.

I've been some places
I've seen some things

And this place remains one of my favorite spots of all time

Velvety coffee
Trim, pint sized New York boys
NPR
A window to Tompkins square park
Where sexy betches are working out
Boxing, sprinting, rocking their sports bras
It's early :: 7 am, it's been raining

Old ladies walking their fur ball dogs
Bikes, kids, bagels

It's New York

It's home

After the rain stopped, we walked around the corner to Tompkins Square Bagels. That place is just….it’s just so New York. The people that work there are so outgoing and friendly - like the guy who took my bagel order felt like an old friend and like he was so happy to make me a bagel sandwich that was going to blow my mind. And he did. It was ridick. We ate inside and then I wrapped up half of mine to-go for later.

We were already a little fried and it was only 10am. We decided to walk up to the Fashion Institute museum since we had never been and it was free. Afterwards we were walking around and Kris saw a design store that he loves so we walked in. One of the sales ladies came up to greet us and asked how we were doing and I said, “Really fucking great today!” and she responded with an f-bomb of her own and it was another just, “only in New York” moments. We ended up talking to her for a while — turns out she is familiar with Arizona and had even spent time in Sedona. I literally do not know what people mean when they say New York is unfriendly.

We ended up sitting with some snacks in Madison Square Park and just….kinda starting to lose it. It was like one o’clock in the afternoon and the thought of going back to our apartment was super depressing and not going to happen….but the thought of walking around the city or doing anything else also just was not going to happen.

So. I did something out of total desperation — I called the airline and made up an elaborate family emergency lie and pleaded and really played it up and got the woman to change our flights without charging us. Basically we were booked on a flight the next evening at 6pm and she just booked us on the 6pm flight that same day.

Which was perfect because at that point it was 2 in the afternoon so we had just enough time to get back to our Airbnb to get our shit and then book it to the airport. An immediate wave of relief washed over us as we could simply go home. We’d be sleeping in our bed that night. It was kind of surreal actually.

There really is no place like home!