Saratoga Springs, NY July 6-8th - Up State New York!

We made in town around 4:30 and headed straight to josh's house. His house was right by the main street of the town just down the road, and he lived in a duplex with 2 room mates. There was supposedly some party that night that was going to be fun so we just hung out on the patio till it was time to head that way. We tried to get a hotel but all of them were either booked for extremely expensive(350 a night @ a comfort inn!) so we decided we would just crash at joshes that night. To kill some time Josh showed us around town a little a bit. He took us to this cool park in the middle of town that had a bunch of cool statues in it and stuff.
 Once night rolled around we started getting ready to head out for that party. The party was about 20 miles away so we thought we should get going since it was a good distance away. As we were arrive to where the GPS said the party was it started raining like crazy and we could barely see anything on this little back road. After missing the party twice we finally pulled up to what would be one of the coolest spots we have ever been. The girl who has having the birthday party lived in this apartment above a golf shop/bar at a little par 3 course. The party was alright, it was a ton of lesbians so we thought wed go check out what was going on down stairs. This was where the real party was at!

 Down here we met a group of guys that were friends since high school and one of their dads owned the golf course so they would just stay up drinking and partying in the bar down stairs all night. In bar they had a beer pong table set up, some tv's going and a pool table. It was awesome, it feel like the real life Cheers. Here we spent the night drinking, playing pool, and having a great time with these guys. And to make it even better they knew we were under 21 but still served us anyways. Once about 2 am rolled around we decided to head home and this is when it became apparent that luke may have had a little bit too much to drink! We almost made it back to Josh's before he felt sick to put him to bed but sadly we were too late! While flying about 70 mph down the high way Luke rolls down the window and proceeds to blow chunks all over the side of the car! Since the damage was so bad we figured we should probably clean it up cause it will just be 10x worse in the morning we headed to the Gas station by Josh's house to start cleaning off the car. After digging Luke's barf out of the windows for about half an hour we finally made it back to Josh's for some much needed rest! The next day we woke up late in the afternoon and just had to relax and get rested for the 14 hour drive to chicago we had coming up the  next day.

Boston, MA. July 3-5th - Happy 4th of July!

We arrived in boston around 3:30 and headed to the hotel to check in. The hotel was in a very good location down town a couple blocks away from where we would watch the fire works. We were a little disappointed when we walked in the room though because it was extremely small and we only had one bed. We asked the front desk to bring a roll away bed up and they did but the room was so small that the bed couldn't even fit so we ended up having to make a pallet on the floor again. After getting the hotel situated we headed out to walk around the city for a bit. The city was really awesome! it feels a lot like Chicago but is much smaller and it does not feel crowded at all, even on the 4th. The city is also really cool because the architecture appears very old and there are a lot of really cool looking churches in the city. There are also a lot of shops and restaurants all down the streets. That night we took an Uber to this place called the Hen House for some chicken and waffles. To our surprise this place was located in a sketchy part of town and we were pretty sure some breaking bad type stuff goes on here. Needless to say the chicken and waffles were very good!

The next day we woke up, grabbed some lunch, and walked around town again. We looked at some of the shops and checked out the restaurants that were by the hotel to kill time before the fire works that night. The festivities began at 7:30 and the fireworks didn't start till 9-9:30ish so we headed down to the river around 8:30 to try and get a good spot to watch the fireworks. Down by the river was packed with people! They had most of the roads blocked off because there were so many people walking in the street. After weaving through the crowed for about 30 minutes we finally found a good spot to see the fire works! They come on at 9:30 and it was by far one of the best fire works shows we have ever seen. It was really long and they had a ton of cool fireworks!

Boston was a great city to be in for the 4th! You could just feel the American spirit in the air and we had a great time at the firework show! That being said the holidays are always better spent with close friends and family! I hope every one had a wonderful 4th!

New York, NY June 30-July 3 - Unique New York!

We made it into the city around 2 and headed for the hotel so we could park our car. Driving through the city was extremely hard. The roads are tiny, there is a TON of traffic, and every one drives like a maniac. It was also really hard to get to the hotel because the street it was on was blocked off for a gay pride parade. Thankfully when we asked the cop if he could let us past the barrier to drive to our hotel he said yes. Once we made it to the hotel and payed we too much for parking we met up with  Hannah in the hotel lobby. Since it was too early to check in we left our bags in the car and walked around looking for a place to eat. We found this lace called Martinique that looked good so we check it out. Here we had some delicious pizzas and a turkey club sandwich.

 After lunch we decided to go check out Time Square. This place was awesome. There are a ton of huge screens all over that are playing all sorts of ad's. There are a bunch of street performers dressed up as Elmo, Batman, Iron Man, there are people who painted their whole bodies and a bunch of other weird people. There were also a lot of cool stores here. They had a huge M&M store, a big Hershey's store and a bunch of restaurants. The M&M store was really cool because you could get every color. 

One really cool restaurant was this place called The View. It was a lounge on top of this hotel that slowly spun around so you could see the whole city while you were drinking and eating. After getting a few drinks at The View we headed back to the hotel to chill before dinner. 

The first night in the hotel we had a tiny room with one bed for all 3 of us :( it was pretty brutal. To make it better though we decided we should get some sushi once dinner rolled around. The sushi place we chose to eat was called Koi. It was a really cool candle lit sushi place inside this hotel. Here we had some amazing sushi, sake, rolls, and dishes. All of it was extremely good but it still wasn't as good as Uchi or Musashino back in Austin. After sushi we decided to walk around the city some more and check out the night life. The city is awesome looking at night. All the buildings are lit up and the sky never really looks that dark because there are so many city lights. After walking around we decided to get some desert at this place that is famous for having frozen hot chocolate. Here we had some Frozen Hot Chocolate and some Peanut Butter Frozen Hot Chocolate. Both were freaking amazing!

The next day we woke up and headed to the Financial District to check out the 9/11 memorial and wall street. First we checked out the 9/11 memorial and the new tower they are building where the old ones were. It was really crazy to see the place where thousands of people were murdered over 10 years ago. Next we headed down to wall street. This was one of the coolest parts of New York(For me at least[isaac]). The street is cobble stone and all the buildings are very old and inspiring. Here we saw the New York Stock Exchange building where the pit used to be. This building would have been amazing to see in its hay day back when the pit was full of traders hooping and hollering. Now the pit no longer exists and it is mostly Market Makers in there. Next we saw the old Federal Reserve building with the statue of George Washington in the front of it. This was also a really cool building that you could tell had a ton of history. Next we saw what has to be the most famous part of Wall Street and why they say there are Bulls on Wall Street, the Charging Bull. This statue was awesome to see and has to be one of my favorite(isaac) parts of the city.

After seeing the financial district we decided to get some lunch. We ended up picking this place called Delmonico's which has been in the same building since 1827! This place was AWESOME! The atmosphere was great and the food was even better! It was true fine dining in the heart of the financial district. Here we had some amazing lamb chops, red snapper, garlic herb mashed potatoes, and some king crab mac & cheese. After lunch we grabbed a cab and headed back to to hotel.





Once dinner came around we decided to try this place called Patsy's Pizzeria, it was in the top 25 pizza places in New York so we thought we had to check it out. Here we had some AMAZING margarita pizza. The pizza was cooked to perfection and the crust was some of the best I have ever had. We also had 2 pastas that were very delicious and a caprese salad that was extremely fresh and delicious!

The next day we headed for Chinatown! This part of town was crazy! every one around us was chinese, all of the banks were in english and chinese, and there were a ton of nasty chinese fish and meat markets that smelled AWFUL! One of them had dehydrated shrimp, clams, and crabs... I mean who would eat this crap! its like the beef jerky of sea food. These markets also sold whole chickens, ducks, squids and even pig heads. After getting our china town fill we headed to get a little mexican food at this place called Tortilla Flats.

Here we had some very good queso and guacamole. On top of that our waitress was very cool and didn't card us so we were able to have some ice cold margaritas that were not bad at all. For our meals we had Taco's Al Pastor that we established were not bad, but not the greatest, a chicken enchilada that was really good, and a mexican short stack(3 tortillas stacked with chicken,cheese, and beans in   between them) that was pretty good.

After lunch we headed to this cool park/garden thats on top of a bridge called           . This was really cool because you felt like you were kind of in nature and stuff  but its right in the middle of the city on a bridge. It was also good to see some lush green plants are being in the concrete jungle all day! After walking through the garden we wanted to get a little snack before heading back to the hotel so we went to this really cool doughnut shop we saw the night before called Doughnut Plant New York City. They had a bunch of crazy types of doughnuts but we ended up just getting glazed doughnuts that tasted very authentic and home made.

Once dinner came around we headed to this little place called Tappo's Thing Crust pizza that was right next door to the hotel. This was a cool little restaurant that had some live jazz music and delicious food. Here we got some cheesy garlic bread, another caprese salad, and we all split another margarita pizza. This pizza was very good. it was super thin crust and very crunchy. That being said we still liked Patsy's pizza more. This waitress was also very nice and didn't ID us so we were able to enjoy a couple of beers with our pizza. After dinner we got some wine and champagne and headed back to the hotel room to hang out there. The next day we woke up and headed to check out the FSG manhattan branch that was only a couple blocks away. This was by far one of the coolest offices of FSG's that I have seen. After seeing the office we got some breakfast at this little bagel place and headed back to the hotel to chill before we had to say good bye to Hannah and head to Boston!

Overall New York was an amazing city and we had a blast with Hannah! The city is very inspiring and while you are there you just want to do bigger things. I don't know if its because you are just surrounded by big buildings or what but the city is extremely inspirational!

Here are some more pics we took through out the city!

Point Pleasant/Belmar/Woodbridge, NJ. June 28-29 - Home Of The Original Jersey Mikes & Some Damn Good BBQ

We pulled into the town late afternoon and had to find a hotel to stay at. Sadly anything that wasn't too sketchy was either sold out or the only rooms available had 1 bed in them. Finally we found one that had two beds that didn't sound too bad from the reviews. Boy were those reviews misleading. This place looked like a prison from the back. After checking into this God awful hotel called the Best Value Inn we headed out to get some dinner. We drove around for a little bit and ended up going to this BBQ place called Local Smoke BBQ. Here we both had some amazing chicken, some pretty damn good ribs and a nice slice of corn bread to top it off. The chicken and ribs both were very juicy and fell off the bone and the BBQ sauce they had was very good as well. After filling up on some good ole BBQ we headed back to the hotel to call it a night.


The next day we both woke up really early so we just hung around the hotel room till lunch time came around. Then we set out for the original Jersey Mikes! But first we made a quick stop at this local skate shop close by to check out some of the boards and stuff. It was a really cool place, Luke ended up getting a new deck and they guy who helped us out was very friendly. After leaving the skate shop we headed to Jersey Mikes. Which isn't actually called Jersey Mikes. The original jersey mikes is just called Mikes Giant Subs. Its a really cool little sub shop in the middle of the town. Here we got a turkey sandwich Mikes way, a Mug Root Beer and some Lays potatoes chips and boy did it all taste delicious and fresh! After eating at Mikes Giant Subs we decided to pack up and head to Woodbridge, NJ!

Once we made it to Woodbridge NJ we headed to the Metro Park train station to take the train into New York since we couldn't check in yet. The train ride wasn't bad at all, it only took about 30 minutes and it took us right to the Penn Square Train Station. From here we headed to the streets. We found this one street that was blocked off and it had a bunch of tents set up where people were selling food, jewelry, clothes, etc. We saw a roasted corn stand that looked pretty good so we decided to get some. After walking around the city a bit longer we headed back to the train station to go back to try and check into the hotel. Here we had some of the WORST hotel service in the world! You can read all about it on my yelp review here. After that whole debacle we took our business else where to the Renaissance Hotel down the street. Here we had an amazing room and absolutely no problem checking in. It was much better than the Hampton Inn.