High heals and cocktails...

The Weekend! Saturday was Giovanna's actual birthday, and she had decided she wanted to have some dim sum in China Town before heading home. I was up first so armed us all with bacon and egg sandwiches, then off we headed to the subway. Hedy had never had dim sum before so was very intrigued. The place we went to - The Golden Unicorn - was Gio's favourite, where rather than have you order the food, they bring it round on trolleys and you just pick what you want. It was very tasty, and the 'check' was only $13 each including the tip. Not bad given that we were all stuffed. Gio and Damien headed home after this - it was nice to catch up with her as I haven't seen her for about 5 years or more. Not sure when I will again either!
Hedy and I took advantage of being near the lower east side and walked down past the Brooklyn Bridge, stopping to look at the 'old old wooden ships' at the Seaport. We continued on down and took a ride on the free Staten Island ferry - what a bargain. It goes right across the bay, past Ms Liberty and gives great views of the down town Manhattan sky line. Apparently there is not much to do on Staten Island, so we took advice on this and walked straight round to get the return ferry to Manhattan without hanging about.
On our way back over, we planned on going to the Ellis Island Immigration Museum, but we had missed the last boat as was 3 o'clock already (no jet lag excuses for me anymore - I had thought it was about 1 o'clock!). Instead we wandered up towards 'Ground Zero'. I had not particularly intended to go there, as I just did not feel that I needed to go to the site to appreciate the gravity of it. We were in the area though, so why not? The area is obviously pretty huge amd is currently a building site for the new 'Freedom Tower', but you really get a sense of emptyness - a massive void in the city where there should be two buildings towering twice as high over the others. It made my stomach roll. Hedy is working with people who have done identifcation work - Gio also used to work there before going back to university - and she told me there are literally thousands of unidentified remains still being worked on. Very sad. Some of those identified are going to be buried together at Ground Zero once the site is complete - a choice made by their families.
Moving on, we walked past the amazing Woolworth building (the facade is just beautiful!), past city hall and up toward the courthouse. At this point, aching feet caught up, so we got some directions from a helpful cop and headed to the subway to go to Katz Deli - the place where they filmed a famous scene in When Harry Met Sally. It was heaving inside! The ticket we were given when we walked in just confuzzled our tired brains, so we got a glance of the table used in the movie, then left and marched back to an Irish bar for a beer! 'Irish' bars are everywhere here and all geared up for St Patrick's Day - this particular one was actually playing Irish music - of the slow and durgy type mostly! Very bizarre!
Saturday night was for cocktails, so we came back to the appartment to have some food and get changed into our gladrags and our uncomfortably pretty shoes. We met up with some of Hedy's friends in the Meatpacking district first and had a couple of drinks there. Then - armed with a list of 'trendy' bars we headed off. The the first stop was a rooftop bar with great views. It was a little crowded though and the crowd crowding it were all quite young. We had one (VERY expensive) cocktail here and headed back out. We took the subway to the next place and found it a bit more to our tastes! Another expensive (and Absynth based - oops) cocktail later and we were shattered. Time to head home via Grays Papaya (sp?!) for a hotdog. Not quite 'Sex and the City', but close enough for this pub going Londoner!