I had a birthday.

Sometime in the past month or so, I celebrated my 23rd* birthday!  It was a great weekend, and I've been meaning to do a post for awhile now, but with November just being busy in general and the holidays coupled with my general laziness, I'm just getting around to it now.

On my actual birthday, we had reservations at Landmarc at the Time Warner Center (courtesy of Marc Murphy, the owner, which was probably the most exciting part for me), and the dinner was great.  Marc must have told them that it was for my birthday, because they brought over the dessert sampler AND cotton candy after Marek and I were done eating.  We ate all the cotton candy, and I ate the creme brulee (so good), and we took the rest home.  It was a very good meal, and I cannot wait to go back.

Before dinner we had some time to kill, and so we stopped by Bouchon Bakery, which is right next to Landmarc.  I got a few bouchons, and Marek got some monster pastry.  The bouchons are so delicious.  I won't even tell you how many I've had since my birthday, but let's just say it can't be healthy.

The weekend before my birthday (which was on a weekday), I was fortunate enough to have a whole bunch of my friends make the trek down to New York so we could celebrate together.  We got together Saturday afternoon and went to Shake Shack (I love Shake Shack), and then had reservations later in the evening at Virgil's BBQ, but I messed up the time, and in the end, we ended up eating at Chevy's instead.

After that, we got a private room for karaoke, which was so much fun.  We had to kill some time at a nearby bar, and I finally got to try a Guinness...yuck.  I've always loved doing karaoke - I used to do it every week my senior year of college, and one thing that New York has going for it is plenty of karaoke!

Jeremy and I like to sing duets together.  We like to sing together as Boomer and Chief.  (If you get that reference then we should be friends if we're not already.)  Here we are singing the song from "Aladdin" together, which, surprisingly enough, is one of the most requested karaoke songs.

After karaoke some of us went to the bar a couple of doors down and had a couple more drinks.  I had a Shirley Temple, and the bartender made it with Coke.  When I pointed out that I asked for a Shirley Temple, he said it had been so long since he had made one that he had forgotten what was in it.  Really?

Another thing I like about New York is the public transportation, especially given how late bars can stay open.  We headed home around 2:30 AM, and it was nice to stay out late and spend some time with our friends.  Jeremy ended up giving Marek and his brother piggy back rides, so it was an interesting end to the night.  Very entertaining watching Jeremy shoulder both Marek and Pawi at the same time!

The next morning I was really excited that Friar Chris came and met up with us for breakfast.  He is living in New York, too, but this was the first time we got to see him since we all moved down here, and I was glad he was able to come up when our whole group of friends were visiting.  We all went to this diner near our apartment (Marek and I are trying to make it "our" diner where we always go).

After breakfast, our friends from home headed back, and Chris, Marek, and I went to Central Park.  We walked around for a bit then went down to Times Square to people watch for a bit.  I took full advantage of the nut carts that day!  I love those things.

It was a really nice weekend and birthday, and I'm glad I got to spend it with so many friends!

*You don't even need the asterisk to know that's a big, fat lie.  However, I've been told that if I start early and say it often, it'll eventually catch on.