The Weekend That Never Sleeps

Warning: High amounts of fun in this post. Proceed with caution.

So I went to New York last weekend! Arthur, Dee, and I took HolaBus (apparently it is a real company) from Chinatown at 3:30 Saturday morning; Mike's mom was in town, so he had other things to do. After dropping our things at Dee’s cousin’s apartment in Queens, we headed to the One World Trade Center. It was certainly amazing to see the One WTC, especially considering last time I

was in New York it was a mere 3 stories tall (its now 94 stories tall). In addition, we got to see the amazing memorials for the fallen towers. After the WTC, we went south on Broadway to Wall Street. It was really great to see the Financial District this time, as last time the Occupy Wall Street kept us from seeing everything. We then proceeded to the Staten Island ferry, which passes the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, but is also free. We spent dusk walking from Central Park to Grand Central Station down 5^th Avenue. We finished the day eating New York style pizza in Times Square. It was certainly a busy day, but nonetheless fun as it was Dee’s first time in New York.

Sunday morning, we walked from Times Square through Central Park. We actually spent more time in Central Park than originally planned, almost walking all the way through it before going to lunch. Fortunately, lunch was at Gray’s Papya (my favorite hot dog in the world). It was certainly worth the wait! After lunch, I got to check something off of my bucket list: I got to see the bar that inspired How I Met Your Mother! It’s

Legen- wait for it- dary!

called McGee’s; it’s on W 55^th, south of Central Park. It was really cool! It doesn’t look particularly like MacLaren’s, especially from the outside, but there is no question that it’s the bar (the walls are lined with pictures of the stars in the bar, and the theme is the same). After McGee’s, we went to lower Manhattan to see the apartment building from Friends. It was certainly cool for Dee, who is a die-hard Friends fan. One wouldn’t know it was the building if it weren’t for the “I <3 Joey” written on the side in chalk. Then, I got to check one

Could this *be* any more like Friends?

more thing off of my bucket list: I got to see Yankee Stadium! It has been a dream of mine for years to see The Stadium (though I would have loved some postseason baseball to have been played there too). Unfortunately, we didn’t get to go inside because it was late on a Sunday afternoon (plus, the Yankees had been eliminated). We finished our trip to New York with a burger at Harlem Shake (nope, we didn’t do the Harlem Shake while we were there). The burger was quite good, but it was topped by the astounding culture in Harlem. We left

The Stadium

New York at 10:30 that night, not reaching our apartment until 4:00 Monday morning.

Getting back so late would not have been an issue as Monday was Columbus Day, but I had work. I was extremely tired Monday morning (I had gotten 6 hours of sleep for the whole weekend), but

After a long discussion with a former ambassador

Cato's TTIP event, as well as meeting former ambassador to Belgium Howard Gutman, made going to work worth it.  Meeting Mr. Gutman was very interesting, as we stood outside the auditorium for a solid 20 minutes talking about everything from cultural division in Belgium to trade policy. The research this week consisted of more poverty research, specifically focusing on gender inequality (especially the often misunderstood 77 cents statistic). It’s certainly amazing to have to deal with an issue as complex as poverty, thinking deeply about it and trying to find answers.

Story of the Week: See entire 2 paragraphs about New York (New York was awesome!)