New York kills me dead.

I find New York exhausting in the best possible way. My bus rolled in a typical hour late, and Mike was waiting for me as I stepped off. Mike and his dad are on a weeklong baseball trip, and their first game happened to coincide with my decision to skip town to New York for the weekend. He finally got to meet Nabila over a slice of plasticky New York pizza. It was perfect.

He dropped us off at the train and we rode a good hour out to Queens. My first time in Queens was ushered in by a good ol' meat on a stick. There's a magical Cinderella stand that appears after the sun goes down and it's only a block from Nabila's building. I was disappointed this morning when it was gone. We headed into the city for the Museum of Natural History, which is the most majestic of any museum I've been to. Cyndi's old roommate Ellie works there (coolest job ever) so we got a behind the scenes tour. We petted cheetah and skunk and fox and otter skins! We saw a real, live dumb waiter! We ate at Shake Shack!

That museum can suck a whole day out of you, and by the end my back was killing me, but we persevered. On to Brooklyn and Prospect Park and the free bluegrass concert! We found some familiar faces (everyone lives in Brooklyn apparently) and enjoyed Trampled by Turtles (we debated over the name) until it was time to trek back to Queens. Something about being in New York, where everything is farther away from one another, all of my usual habits go out the window. It's 2:16 AM and I'm writing a blog post. Who am I? We made it back to Queens just in time for tacos then trudged our food coma butts home. I'm sorry to say that two carne asada tacos and half a carnitas taco can deter me from the meat on a stick truck. Tomorrow: Brooklyn Round 2. (Must find Momofuku Milk Bar!)