My second day in the city moved at a much more rapid pace. Two of my friends live in the same building in FiDi, so I thought it would be funny to schedule back to back coffee dates like a recruiter (they work in finance and tech, respectively). We met at Conwell Coffee Hall, and I picked up a few postcards from the teller booth.
After catching up (work, relationships, the stock market, etc), I headed up towards the Villages, where I planned to spend most of my day. I didn’t get a chance to stop by some of my favorite spots like Bookmarc, Three Lives & Co, or Left Bank Books, but I did step into other old favorites, IFC and C.O. Bigelow, to do a bit of window-shopping. I picked up a headband à la Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy and two matchbooks. On my way to meet a friend for matcha, I passed by Greenwich Letterpress, where I bought my Gilmore Girls Dragonfly Inn keychain three years ago. I ended up buying more matchbooks, which is more or less my main mission any time I’m in the city, and then headed over to the cafe.
My friend and I are both of the cafe-hopping, journaling variety and it was nice to be able to be girls together and converse over our beverages.
The primary objective of my trip was to celebrate two of my friends’ at their white coat ceremony, so I went back up to Washington Heights to attend the event. The wonderful thing about the post-grad life is that the world seemingly gets smaller, in a cozy and connected way. One of the friends I was celebrating was from preschool, and the other was my downstairs neighbor in my Boston apartment. Introducing people from the earliest and latest points in my life was such an experience and I’m so grateful to have loving girl friendships that have been part of my whole life up to now and newer ones that I’m confident will remain for the rest of it. Being able to celebrate them with friends and family was so wonderful and I was so happy to be able to come for the occasion.
After the festivities, everyone headed their separate ways to dinner. I met up with my friend from the cafe at The Nines, a piano bar that has been on my to-go list for ages. It was exactly my type of place, from the leopard-print carpet to the red accents to the custom pins and embroidery on the bartenders’ jackets. The music was lively and the vibe was decidedly downtown. Any place that delivers the bill on a custom postcard is a place I can appreciate. We swapped matchbooks and various trinkets that we had collected for one another which really says something about Early Woman and gathering.
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