Raise Your... Smorgasburg!

Since I spent most of June in Virginia, it's been quite awhile since I've seen my friends up here. I've missed them a lot and thankfully this weekend I had wonderful adventures with two of my "anchor friends" - Meghan coined that term while we were out today. Anchor friends are my friends here in NYC that I know from JMU and we all moved up to the city around the same time. They're always a comfort to have - those people here in this gigantic city who already know you and get you.

Stephanie and I were conversing early Friday morning and decided we wanted to either go to the movies or see a Broadway show that evening. Tough decision, huh? We decided to go for Sister Act tickets and if we couldn't get them, the movies it'd be. Just our luck - Stephanie got them discounted! We met at the theatre, found our seats and caught up on each others Southern adventures, since we'd both spent some time back down below the Mason-Dixon. Right before the show started Stephanie said she heard they changed the setting from the movie (which was in the '90s) to the late 1970's. Hm. I wasn't quite sure what to expect from this show. I should never have questioned it! Completely enjoyed the show! Great laughable moments, flashy large musical numbers - the quintessential Broadway musical experience.



Meghan and I made plans to meet up at Union Square today and grab the L over to Williamsburg in Brooklyn for Smorgasburg. Well, I ended up running a little late because as I opened the door to walk out of my apartment, it fell off the bottom hinge. Oh New York. Had to spend some time fixing that. I texted Meghan who was also running a little behind to we changed our meeting place so we could just take the L one stop. SO glad we went over! Smorgasburg is basically tons of food booths from restaurants around the city right along the water in Williamsburg with a great view of Manhattan. We tried some great new stuff including soft serve banana. What is that, you ask? So did we! The woman running the stand said she has been allergic to dairy since she was little and could never have ice cream so what she does is freeze bananas, put them in the food processor and voila! Soft serve banana. Served with any kind of syrup you like - our sample had raspberry sauce. Mmmm. For lunch we grabbed chicken pupusa which I'd never even heard of before but BOY were they delicious. I'll be going back for that again! We sat by the water, ate, people watched and talked and talked.
Chicken Pupusa and Plantains
Since I'd never been to that area before we walked all around the neighborhood, McClaren Park and into Greenpoint. Once we exhausted ourselves it was back on the L, under the East River and out into the East Village. Meghan told me about a new ice cream shop that she saw in my neighborhood called Alphabet Scoop. They employ youth from the neighborhood to help with empowerment - check out the website cause it has more information but it's a great store! I had a scoop of coco pine (coconut with pineapple chunks). Added a few sprinkles because they are FREE! I took a picture of that and sent it to my sister, the sprinkle MONSTER, who replied back she was so jealous. Way to go, Alphabet City!