Romping Part 2: New York City

Part 2

New York:

After a sad goodbye and a short 4 1/2 hour flight we landed in New York. I could hardly wait to see Josef and Helmut and of course all those special to me in the big apple. My parents picked us up at JFK. Unfortunately, Helmut and Josef were landing 2 hours later at Newark. My sister Tricia was picking them up. One of the perks of having a large family. It was a sweet reunion! and the best was that we got to stay in my sister's apartment, that was currently between rentors... totally cool. We immediately started having fun. One of our morning rituals is to be the first customers in the bagel store. We always order sesame bagels with tuna. We went for long walks in Riverside Park with Uncle Kaya, enjoyed sunset roof-top BBQ's and days at the beach with our girlfriend Theresa. We spent whole afternoons in Central Park at the Meadow. I showed the kids the bathrooms at Tavern on the Green and explained that you can always use the restrooms in restaurants even if you aren't a customer. I enjoyed working with long time colleagues of mine on several fabulous events while Helmut visited FAO Schwartz and the likes with the kids. We visited our friends Don and Michele on Long Island, swam in their pool and BBQ'd big American steaks. We went with Grandpa (my Dad) to his fitness studio and swam for hours in the roof-top pool. Afterwards, we would go home and cook gourmet meals together. The highlight had to be that Helmut and I celebrated 9 years of knowing each other. Our night out started at Quest, a fabulous American bistro, with $15 Grey Goose Martinis and plain green salads with some magical salad dressing that topped any other I had ever tasted. I moved on to home-made raviolis while Helmut reveled in heaven eating the thickest pork loin I'd ever seen over a pool of dark brown beer sauce that would make any German the happiest person alive. We couldn't actually leave without sharing the molten chocolate souffle, which was a good thing because I don't think my mouth had ever actually watered like that before when eating. I wanted to burst out laughing due to how happy my taste buds were. We then walked hand in hand through the East Village over to the West Village, through Washington Square Park and back over to Astor Place. A very comprehensive tour of my romping grounds in my 20's. I was happy. Helmut was happy. It was time to fly home. I decided to pack Helmut's bag separate so that I wouldn't have to do too much packing for Italy when I got home to Germany. The plan was that after returning home to Abensberg at around 3 pm, to rest and sleep a little and at some point in the very middle of the night, to drive to Italy with Tina and her 3 year old daughter Maria...