Oh No, We Did Not Need Sleep for This.

The thing with red-eye flights over to the East coast is that you gotta be below 30 for the loss of at least 3 hours not to affect you.  Otherwise, you got to do what you got to do when the hotel you are staying in had no room for you at 7:30 in the morning.  For us, that meant checking our to-do list and figuring out what we can possibly do at our current state - jet lagged, no-sleep, hungry, and really, just plain tired.  Quite naturally, we opted to cross the Brooklyn Bridge to Manhattan  - a 1.1 miles of a journey that included a chaotic Subway ride that involved the "natives" yelling well-meaning (but yelled) instructions how to do this and that in that damn, antiquated, subway turn-stiles (really - in this century?).  Unfazed by the ride, we headed to the bridge and crossed it with other tourists, murderous commuters on bike, joggers, wedding parties, artists peddling their bridge pictures, and a motley crew of others that looked like they should not be on a bridge or anything that one can jump off from.  When we reached Manhattan, I rewarded myself with Belgian waffles and incredibly scorching hot coffee from a food truck by the City Hall.  Alaia waited until we got to Chinatown for some pork buns - two kinds no less - crispy and not crispy.  Along the way, we had close encounters with folks in uniform black jackets (knock-off North Face) whispering "Gucci, Chloe, LV bags" to every passer-by.  By the time 1 pm came around - both of us clearly reached the end of our line.  The subway ride back to Brooklyn was long and un-touristy.  Thankfully, our room was finally ready and we slept until 5 pm at which time Alaia woke up with a raging "toothache" so we had to insert "pharmacy" in our go-to list.  It was the only way our NYC trip could have started - it could only go bumpier after that.  Day 2 next.