brooklyn with f.r.i.e.n.d.s | the one with all the photos

I'm still surprised at how easy it was to gather eight of my closest friends in New York for a weekend in September. It helps that it was the weekend sandwiched between my birthday and my long-time, childhood best friend Mel's birthday (we're a year and 10 days apart, this is nonessential information that I had to share, anyway), and that everyone was within 4-5 hours of the Big Apple. It worked out even sweeter that it somehow, someway ended up as four couples - Mel and Mike, Matt and Ryan (my roommate and best friend since way back in high school & his boyfriend), my college roommate Ellie and her boyfriend Andy (who live in Brooklyn), and Zander and me. It was the first time Zander and Mike met, and they hit it off right away, which sort of melted me - I think you maybe never think about it purposefully but always just know that someday your significant other and your best friend's significant other will be best friends. Or at least, that's the way you dream life will turn out.

This weekend felt like three whole days of reaping the fruit of the labor of all that childhood dreaming. Six of us shared an AirBNB apartment in Clinton Hill (minus Ellie and Andy who have their own pad!), and we trudged up a four-story walk up every day, one after the other, laughing at whatever jokes we'd just made and all pretending we weren't gasping for breath at the end. We shut down a new craft beer and artisan wine bar (best. bar. idea. ever.) on the Lower East Side at 4:00am, and I think even then the only reason we finally left is because we drank the bartender out of stock (story has it that Zander ordered another bottle of Champagne at 2:30 in the morning). We stayed up late on Saturday night drinking wine in the apartment, sipping slowly, still recovering from the night before. And we -- okay I -- hungover shopped at the Brooklyn Flea - a five-minute walk from the apartment - until there was nothing left to buy.

We stuffed ourselves silly with bagels and cream cheese from Bergen Bagels, just down the street from our apartment for the weekend, and it's my new favorite New York bagel stop - but maybe that's more for the memories than the bagels themselves? No, the bagels are that damn good, too.

But maybe the best part of it all was our impromptu decision on Sunday morning to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. None of us could say no to the thought of one more outing, one more subway ride into Manhattan, one more morning spent under that impossibly blue sky before heading back to our respective cities and regular lives. I've walked it before at night, but it was a whole other kind of beautiful during the day. We had the world's most perfect weather - sunshine hitting our shoulders and turning our noses pink with breezes cool enough to remind us that fall is coming, it's almost here.

I bought a print from an artist drawing them in the middle of the Bridge. It's of New York in the rain, and it felt touristy and just right, and it's really beautiful - I can't wait to hang it. We took too many pictures, and I convinced everyone to jump - let's get that silly tourist jumping picture. They're so imperfect, and I think that's why they're my favorite photos from the weekend.

We ended our whirlwind weekend that felt like years we'd spent together with a stop at Smorgasburg, the Brooklyn Flea Food Market, at DUMBO, near the Brooklyn Bridge Park. The food blew us all away, as did the view.

It maybe seems cliche and a bit 1999 of me to say, but it felt like a Friends with a capital F - like the ones who hung out in Central Perk and on my TV for 10 years - kind of weekend. Eight of us in the big city with nothing better to do than make memories.

if you go...

old man hustle 

(a gigantic hell yeah and thank you to old man hustle, where the drinks were great, and the bartender practically knows our names) 

*thanks to mel for use of the last 6 photos shown above. photo credits belong to her. visit the things they made for more of her photos and other good things.