November 24, 2020

I have been asking Jim if we can go to the city for months now. When everything started to shut down in the spring I thought it could be nice to drive there like an early Sunday morning since there would be no people outside but he was never into it. Now I guess he finally caved:)
On Saturday we left Stamford around 8 am or so, took us about 45-50 min. We drove along the west side and parked down in Battery Park. Super easy.
We walked from the parking garage to the dog park across the street where Thor played with his friends (and enemies haha) every day when we lived there. They have built a new bridge over the street there (wasn’t super safe there before) so it looks quite different there, I don’t think T realized where he was because of that. But once we entered the big dog park he seemed to know exactly. Of course he tried to be the alpha over all the big dogs there haha.
We didn’t stay long, just a few minutes. We walked over to our old apartment building. The door was open and our old doorman recognized us so we chatted a little with him before we walked down to Wagner Park. Dogs are normally not allowed in that park but it was so early in the morning plus others took their dogs there so we didn’t really care, if we tell T not to pee on places he listens.
We came to what used to be my favorite area in the whole city (behind our old apartment). The last time I was walking around down there they had torn the whole thing down and I was super sad (check this post from June 2019), but I guess they rebuilt it. I was so happy to see that, I really do love that place!
We continued our walk up along the water. The Rockefeller Park was full of people, lots of groups of kids with a coach: karate, soccer practice, you name it. Very busy. We left the parks and walked in on Chamber Street and soon came to where I spent most of my time the first few years in the city – old DNA/now Gibney. During all the years of living in the city, this building had scaffoldings outside, it is just so weird to see the actual building now haha. Dance studios are closed this year but it was still nice to walk by and feel the dance vibe:)
We walked over to the Brooklyn Bridge. I wanted to walk further up because there weren’t much people and the weather was nice but J wasn’t into it, so we saw it from afar.
Walked passed Broadway and to the WTC area. They have blocked off the entire park, you can only go in the park if you pay (looked like if you paid for the museum you also get access to the park). So dumb! It is a huge and very nice park but now there’s just fences all around it. Oh well.
Walked down to our old neighborhood again and T ran straight up to the entrance of the small-dogs dog park hahah, he for sure remembered that:) But we wanted to continue. I bought us bagels and coffee at the little store across from our old apartment and we sat down on one for the benches in the pathway near the dog park (because there’s basically no people there). Aaaahh, that’s my absolute favorite thing to do in the city; sit in the sun on a bench with a bagel and a coffee, life can not get better any than that:)
It was about noon when we had finished eating, so then we walked across the street, picked up our car and drove on the west side back home, took about 1 hour 10 minutes. Thor was so tired. He’s only 8lbs of fluff but he sure can walk a lot. He did not want “daddy taxi” at all, just wanted to walk on his own the whole time which I saw on my smart watch was 5 miles. He tried to sleep in the car and succeeded a little but the roads here suck so bad that he constantly woke up. So once we were home, both boys fell asleep on the couch.
I seriously had the best day in a very long time! This year really makes you appreciate the good moments a bit extra. I’m so happy we decided to do this little mini trip!

So happy to see my favorite place rebuilt! old Dance New Amsterdam / now: Gibney Dance
he really wanted to go to the dog park:)