Thursday 7/12/17
We have spent the past few days exploring Manhattan but there are four more boroughs to see and while we knew we wouldn’t get to see them all, we decided to dedicate a day to Brooklyn. Once again Rory was king of the Subway and got us to Brooklyn with very little effort (at least on my part). Our first stop of the day was Washington Street where you get a great view of the Manhattan Bridge – it’s a view you might recognise from the movie One Upon a Time in America!
After taking a few snaps we made our way to the banks of the East River. The Main Street Park offers amazing views of Lower Manhattan and we followed the shoreline, stopping at the Main Street Lawn and the Pebble Beach. It was really nice to get out of the city and the weather couldn’t have been any better. We ended up finding what looked like a small, private park. Unlike the rest of New York and Manhattan, the park was empty and we picked a nice bench where, after eight years of friendship and almost seven in a real life grown up relationship, Rory built up the courage and quite literally got down on one knee…
After a lot of laughter and the response that every man wants to hear – I don’t know, what do you think? – I waved goodbye to my freedom and said yes. I suppose, if I have to marry someone I might as well marry someone who is patient, kind, generous, funny, easy on the eyes, paying me to write this and of course, my best friend.
After all that excitement we took a last view of Manhattan and went to the best restaurant in Brooklyn. You might think that getting engaged would warrant a fancy restaurant but no, we had a giant pizza and spent the rest of the morning walking around and looking for a Notorious B.I.G mural.
While we didn’t see any murals, we got a real feel for Brooklyn and eventually made our way back to the bridge. The bridge was competed in 1883, and according to Wikipedia it was the first steel-wire suspension bridge in the world. Six lanes of traffic make up the lower levels and a dedicated pedestrian/cycle path runs directly above. We couldn’t have picked a better or clearer day to cross the bridge!
A quick stop at Grand Central was next on the itinerary and we made a beeline for the whispering gallery – apparently an accidental design, if you stand in the corners of the gallery and whisper against the wall it travels over fifty feet to the opposite side of the gallery. Obviously, we whispered sweet nothings to each other… not… we might be engaged now but we haven’t had a personality transplant. Rather, there was a lot of “can you hear me? … yeah… can you hear me? ... yeah... cool".
We then took a lap round the sights of New York – now that the ring had been liberated from Rory’s jacket pocket after a solid six days (talk about dragging your heels) we felt that it needed to see some of our favourite places! We even stopped off at the New York Public Library, which you might recognise from the movie The Day After Tomorrow. It was cold but thankfully not a new ice-age cold so we were able to enjoy having a look around and neither Jake Gyllenhaal or Dennis Quaid's rescue services were needed.
After a quick stop-off at the hotel we made our way to the East Village where we had a tremendous BBQ and the biggest onion rings I have ever seen. Shamefully full we made our way back to Brooklyn and re-visited our little park which, much like lower Manhattan, looked even better at night.
Even if you aren’t planning on getting down on one knee I would really recommend a trip to Brooklyn, especially at night. The lights are so impressive and if you really want to end the day in the best possible way, grab an ice cream from the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory - even Mr Healthy enjoyed it!
While I hate to admit it, Rory managed to pull off a pretty good proposal; the day had everything I could have hoped for - great sights, delicious food and excellent company which is pretty important, now that we're stuck with each other forever. Here's to conforming to social norms and finally becoming an adult... maybe...
