I love my birthday. I’m not a big party person, I hate being responsible for others’ good time, so I rarely organise anything other than a few drinks with a few people. But I still love my birthday. Not even for the presents, though those are obviously very nice and gratefully received, but more just for it feeling like a special day, hopefully not having to go to work, and when anyone asked you to do anything, like make tea, you can say “but it’s my birthday!”. Oh and the cake, I love cake.
This birthday was to be great! Firstly not so great that John wouldn’t be here but he sent me an AWESOME present! For year and years, in fact since 1999, when I went travelling after leaving school I have wanted a large map for the wall to stick pins in. At times I’ve even bought a poster but never used it, it’s been too big or too small, or on a wall that you can’t actually stick pins in. Well John got me a big old fashioned style map, exactly the right size so as not to be too big and take up half a wall but big enough to have city details, and even the US states, which is a piece of geography I really need to brush up on. It comes with different colour pins and a key; red for where you’ve been, green for where you want to go, yellow for fave place ever (Brighton) and blue for next planned trip. Blue unfortunately has been relegated as his shaft is too wide and when you take him out to replace with red, the hole’s too big! And that won’t do at all. There’s also a plaque which says “Mel & John like big maps and holidays”. I told you it was awesome. Thank you John, love you!
So it was up to Bean to put up with my “but it’s my birthday” bleating. However we had the best day ever planned so this wasn’t going to be much of a problem. The first tickets we booked were for the evening session at the US tennis open. I’ve spent years wanting to go to Wimbledon and I’ve never made it, been here 3 months and already been to the US open! We then thought about going to a matinee performance on Broadway, I looked at ones where we could get some cheaper tickets, those of you who know Bean will know once I mentioned Spiderman there really wasn’t any other choice! And as I will go to practically anything it was fine by me! Finally the morning Bean planned a surprise birthday brunch venue!!
So to start at the beginning! John’s present had arrived the night before, very well timed, and I resisted the urge to open before getting on skype with him. A quick skype with Mum and Dad and then we were setting off for Manhattan. Couple of detours via Century 21 and the Apple store for Bean to correct some purchases and then on to Serendipity! This place is AMAZING, it’s been made famous by the film Serendipity, they go for coffee here, but was also a haunt of Andy Warhol amongst others. It’s now a beautiful café, very vintage shabby chic white chairs and floors place. Sells a load of tat, souvenirs and toys for some reason in the entrance, but also has very cool mugs, tea cups, general café paraphernalia and the recipe and ingredients for their very famous frozen hot chocolate. We ordered a frozen hot chocolate each; I had an omelette and Bean a turkey sandwich thing. Turns out the chocolates are as big as your head and think my omelette must have had half a dozen eggs, but it was one of the nicest I’ve ever had. This place is also more famous for its desserts; it’s open late night and always has a queue to get in. We weren’t coming and not having a pudding! We did opt to share, a lemon ice cake frozen fruit ice cream ridiculous extravaganza! It was fabulous. And we felt thoroughly sick after but it was totally worth it. There are before and after photos that I will try to attach. Highly recommend this place to anyone who is ever in New York!
Second stop Spiderman! The Broadway show has had mixed reviews, and it’s been closed down a couple of times because of injuries, but apparently that is all behind them. Also the music is by U2, which I didn’t know. The flying scenes and action and sets are incredible, very, very well done. They use all the DC comic style stuff and the flying really is very cool. They should have spent a little more time on the lyrics of the songs and the general story, but I have a feeling it’s aimed more at 5-10 year olds so maybe I should have expected that! Very enjoyable couple of hours, and considering the cheapness of our tickets we had amazing seats. And my nephews will be seeing some Spiderman themed Christmas presents so all good there too.
Then I took us on a bit of a wrong detour to get the subway to the tennis, but we had time for a quick glass of bubbles in the Oyster Bar underneath Grand Central station so not so bad.
We met up with Adele again at the tennis. Can you believe that despite that enormous brunch we have by now also shared three mini cupcakes, and had a hot dog and fries for dinner (I told you it was mainly about the food!). Our seats in the Arthur Ashe stadium were right at the top (getting used to this recurring theme) and the view was great. And we were further excited by the matches we were going to see being Maria Sharapova followed by Andy Murray! The evening was perfect, nice and warm but not too hot, comfy seats and a good view. Another plus for me was the misfortune of the guy sitting along from us who had bought his date one of the Grey Goose tournament cocktails that comes in a commemorative glass ($16 no less) and then she stood him up so I got the cocktail, and the glass! Poor guy but yay!
That was my actual birthday all over; I managed to extend it slightly by having drinks after work the following day. A few lovely people turned up and we found a really good burger place. The Central bar in East Village is an Irish bar with a nicely cheap happy hour and a very, very good burger. It’s all about the food!