CJ visiting his former 'home town'

This weekend, an old friend of mine came over to visit me ánd to come back to the town where he lived for a couple of months back in 2003. One of the good things is that he's not a stranger in this city, so there is no hard core tourguiding involved. The weekend, however, wasn't less intense!
CJ was going to be my first visitor in my 'new' apartment, so I was curious if my 'new' directions would work out. I was very happy to hear he smoothly made it from JFK to Manhattan, even with some strangers who he kindly helped getting there because they did not have a clue where to go!

Friday we went down town to see Battery Park, Pier 17, Financial District and Ground Zero and do some shopping in between. Lucky as we were, my employer's corporate tickets for the NY Knicks would not be used that day, so we could go and see the game from one of the best spots in Madison Square Garden, sitting right next to the field, where we almost could feel the sweat of the players coming at us. John McEnroe was there as well! A great, once in a lifetime, experience with traditional ingredients like the Knicks City Dancers, Budweiser and Hotdogs. The Knicks just lost, after an exciting, spectacular last quarter where they did everything in their power to walk away as the winning team, we cheered our ass of but it didn't help in the end. After the game, we continued the evening in style, some cocktails did the rest...
On Saturday, Soho was the place to be with a brunch in Félix, art hunting on West Broadway with China Town and Little Italy around the corner. We enjoyed walking around on this nice, sunny afternoon.

Of course, a visit to NY is pretty worthless if you haven't been in hip Meatpacking, so after a refreshing power nap at home, we were ready to go down Ninth Avenue and have diner in a favourite place for many: Spice Market. The food was delicious and our neightbours, a very entertaining couple from the Hamptons, dragged us into a very interesting conversation, we ended up having diner and a good chat about life, love and politics with the four of us. And this is exactly one of the reasons that I love this city!

CJ, it was great having you, thanks for the good times, the Starbucks Tall Capucinos and coming over all the way from Amsterdam, hope to see you soon in NYC!