Weekend Recap: Park Slope, Brooklyn

On Sunday, I planned on heading into Queens to scope out different neighborhoods as the apartment hunt has commenced (apartment hunting is the worst. The worst.) Instead, I met up with a friend who just moved into Hamilton Heights and we moseyed about Riverside Park. After about an hour of moseying, we hopped on the subway and decided to go wherever the polluted subway wind took us to mosey some more. We ended up in Park Slope, Brooklyn near the new Barclay's Center - I might be seeing Queen B there at the end of August. No big deal folks.

Park Slope was super cute and kitschy. We stayed on 5th Avenue which was full of boutiques, thrift shops, dive bars and ale houses (my favorite,) sophisticated bake shops (my other favorite,) quirky named stores (Pork Slope for a butcher shop, Pita Pan for a sandwich shop,) and people hanging out. There were also a lot of brownstones on the streets between the avenues and a lot of families gathered on the stoops. Everything was in bloom and it felt like we were in a different city altogether. We grabbed a delicious and cheap dinner at Ginza, a hibachi and sushi place that had half-off sushi. Fifteen pieces of various sushi and a soda cost 10 bucks. Boom. After, we walked from Park Slope to the Brooklyn Bridge and over to lower Manhattan. My legs were killing me but we decided to do the same thing again soon - wander and explore new neighborhoods throughout the boroughs. I mean, I have to get in exercise somehow right?

Riverside Park View in Hamilton Heights

Weekend Recap: Nai Tapas Bar

To celebrate my friend's 23rd birthday, we all met up on Saturday night at Nai Tapas Bar for tapas and flamenco dancing. Tapas are a Spanish cuisine (they were all I ate when I traveled to Barcelona two years ago) that are eaten as snacks or appetizers but can be combined to form  full meal. "The serving of tapas is designed to encourage conversation because people are not so focused upon eating an entire meal that is set before them." We ordered a bunch of tapas (my favorite was the chicken potato croquette though everything was delicious,) and two pitchers of sangria (sangre means blood in Spanish - used because of the drink's dark color.)

The flamenco dancing was amazing - sitting at the back of the table, I had to awkwardly crane my neck around to see the dancer's feet but it was worth it because it's incredible to see how fast their feet move. Flamenco includes four parts: singing, guitar playing, dancing, and handclapping. One thing I noticed was how the dancers looked down - I've been told countless times (when I was on the ballroom team and kickline dance in college) that it was necessary to look up so I though it interesting that these two flamenco dancers kept their gaze down.