OMG, we finally found our drugs?

They say the olfactory sense is the strongest and most memorable. I agree.  Before our trip, Shulamith and I had never spent time in a city where marijuana is legal. Walking the streets of NYC took me right back to my college days, when I had to hold my breath while walking through the halls of my dorm. Gotta love the 70s! That smell is so distinct, haha, and so gross.

As we've discovered before, outside of Utah where Diet Coke should be the state beverage, it's sometimes a challenge to find. I mean you can always get bottles or cans in grocery stores, but we prefer fountain Diet Coke in styrofoam cups. In NYC, there's a Starbucks on every block (and we went there one morning for some yummy hot chocolate), but not a single Swig or Sodalicious anywhere. So you can imagine our joy when Shulamith spotted a 7-11 just a few blocks down from our hotel! I worried they might not have fountain soda, or worse, that they might have only Pepsi products. But hallelujah (!) look what we found our very first morning:

Not styrofoam, but we'll take it. We carried these with us as we sought out a good breakfast spot. You always hear about New York style bagels, but I thought the hype couldn't be real. I mean nothing could beat Einstein's, right? Wrong. At a place called Pick-a-Bagel, we feasted on the most giant, chewiest bagels, both sweet and savory. We each ordered two and couldn't finish them, though we definitely tried. The next morning we considered finding a different place to eat, but wound up right back at Pick-a-Bagel. So good.

Our best dinner was on Isaiah's recommendation, which is not surprising. In his world travels these past seven years, he's become quite the food connoisseur, especially with Asian cuisine. Ramen is his favorite, so he insisted that we go to this Japanese Ramen bar. All they serve is Ramen, and you don't speak to anyone. Instead you fill out a form to "Customize Your Ramen" (level of spice, noodle texture, pork and garlic options, levels of saltiness and richness) and are seated at a bar that faces a wall with an opening at the bottom, just large enough to slide bowls underneath. You slip your form through this opening, and the people behind the wall (whom you never see or hear) slide your bowl of Ramen to you. Apparently this dining style is common in Japan and is designed to accentuate the experience as you focus on the Ramen, rather than on people. It was lots of fun and truly the best Ramen I've ever eaten.

We also ate a delicious Italian dinner, spaghetti with carbonara sauce. Like in all the restaurants we went to, we felt like we were the only ones not drinking alcohol, and the servers seems rather confused when we requested Diet Coke. At one place, they didn't even have normal soda glasses, so they brought us our Diet Coke in these:

In the entire restaurant, we could see just one other table drinking soda, and these people also had 4 or 5 kids with them, so we made a stereotypical judgement that they must be members of our church, haha.

As this post comes to an end, so does this series "Terrianne and Shulamith fly to New York City to see four shows in three days." I won't lie; that's making me a little sad. It was such a wonderful trip in every single way. I can't think of anything I'd change. You, Shulamith? Thank you for being the best travel companion and best friend in the whole world. 

Until next time, "Give My Regards to Broadway!" We will be back!