Rima & Gaby invades NYC, Day 1.

Ok, finally I have the time to post my recent trip to New York City. This time I was accompanied with my good friend, Gaby, who I've known since kiddy land back in Jakarta. One word: AWESOME. She's was an awesome companion. 

Too bad our seats were separated, she opted the front while I got stuck in the back near the bathroom. Gross. All I smelt was dirty diapers. Double Gross.  

We flew from Ontario and had a pit stopped at DFW for 3 freakin' hours. So we decided to make the best of it by eating at TGIF. Beer it up. Gosh my arms look nasty. Mind you, I was wearing a push up bra AND sports bra at the same time (I was probably saving some suitcase space?) so my boobs felt so full yet so big yet so awesome. Too bad Pillow wasn't there to witness some cleavage view. 

I love having window seats because hello, I get to see awesome clouds and take pictures of them. Oh since the flight was pretty long, I managed to kill a novel from Ontario to New York. Awesome. I was very into it too. 

Top Right: That's our Station!; Top Left: Heaven in East Village; Bottom Left: Artichoke Pizza; Bottom Right: Margherita Pizza.

Anyways, once we hit saw the sight of Manhattan, me & Gab managed to blast Jay Z's song "Empire State of Mind" in our own iPods. Awesome. Thank God for him to create that song. Once we hit La Guardia, we got our Metro Card and figured out how to get to our place. What we found out was that the apartment owner, Barack, was in Chelsea the time we arrived, yet the apartment is all the way in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Boo. After so many debates, we hailed the great Yellow NYC Taxi and head down to Chelsea.

We were greeted by an old Korean man who injured his back tripping in a sauna. The first thing he said, "Can you please lift big suitcases? Back hurts. Fell in Sauna. No compensation. No good, huh?" Being Ms. Nurse me, I felt bad for this old man already. Anyways homeboy decided to start a conversation with us about various things and it was hard to understand him with his thick accent and the noise from the traffic outside (we had the windows down). While Gaby went to fetch for Barack once we're in Chelsea, I managed to converse more with Mr. Kim. He's been in NYC for 35 years, but originally (from Korea) from Redondo Beach, CA. I was like, "HOLLLAAA WE NEIGHBORS!" And he got all giddy talking about his glory years in Los Angeles. Then he asked what nationality we both are, and he got super excited when we said we're both Indonesians. More crazy conversation about how awesome Indonesia is from his point of view. Then he managed to give us some tips and tricks on what, where and when to visit NYC. He even gave us tips on safety once we told him where we're staying. He was like, "OH YOU NEAR RABBI LAND. LOTS OF JEW!"Anyways, after spending our first 1.5 hours with Mr. Kim, he felt like family. We even hugged it out when we got to our place. I regret not taking a picture with him. Damn.

Anyways, once we were settled and melting away to the damn NYC heat, Gaby & I were starving. Thanks to Yelp and her friend's recommendation, we decided to go to Artichoke Basille's Pizza in East Village.

It was 1 in the morning already. We don't care. And we live in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. It's filled with gangsta lookin' people with Jamaican accents. We don't care. It was 1 in the morning. Our Subway stop is a 10 minute walk. We don't care. The trains that head to Manhattan stops every 15 - 20 minutes because it was so late, and we were hungry. We don't care. A trip that supposedly takes a 20 minute train ride turned into a 1 hr + ride. We don't care.

Once we got to East Village, we both felt HIP right away. We so hipster it hurts.

Gaby got the infamous Artichoke Pizza while I got the Margherita.

We took a bite of our pizza, and died.

We went to Pizza Heaven.

A...... MA................ ZING.

Gaby's pizza was foremost the BEST PIZZA I'VE EVER TASTED IN MY WHOLE LIFE. I wanted to cry. My mouth was partying like it was 1999. It's like drinking soda with pop-rocks in my mouth. That's how EXCITED my taste buds once it got in contact with that awesome Artichoke Pizza. The Margherita was excellent as well. But the Artichoke... MMMMHHHMMM... OH MAH DAYUM. There's just something about the cheese on that pizza. Gawsh, I'm drooling right now. I'm so sad we don't have it in California.

If any New Yorkers out there who's in California, PLEASE... PLEASE recommend me a New York Pizza in Cali. I'm desperate.

After our 15 minutes in East Village devouring the awesome pizzas, we went to the CVS of NYC, Duane Reade, and got water. Yes, the heat was insane, so we needed water. And Vitamin C.

And head back to our apartment. We got back at 4 am. Yes. 4 am. With heavy water in hand. Walking in the middle of Crown Heights, Brooklyn. To our apartment that's 10 minutes away by foot from the station. We don't care. We're 2 fine fresh meats from California walking in the Brooklyn in the middle of the night at 4 AM, belly filled with gooey cheesy pizza, laughing and fist pumping to the first night in NYC, while there were some gangta lookin people staring at us. We don't care. We did it.

Day 2 coming up soon :)

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