57th and 5th...

So, Sunday night, my boy and I wanted to drive into the city to go to the Apple store to buy his uncle a Macbook Pro. We started it out in Queens. We didn't know the exact address for the Apple Store, but I knew it was on 5th Ave and where Central Park starts which is 57th, so I typed in that intersection into the GPS and put in New York as the city. This freakin' GPS takes us into Brooklyn through Linden and Flatbush. It was so out of the way haha. But it was cool. I ended up putting in the same intersection, but entered Manhattan as the city. I didn't know anybody referred to it as that. Usually New York, New York refers to the city. Anyway, there's too many things to talk about, so I'll let the few pictures I took sum it up. I miss it already.


This is a little pizza shop in Forest Hills called Lillian's. It's named after the owner's wife. Samer has been going here his whole life. We went here last time, too. We both got the chicken parmesan sandwich. Thanks to Jules (Samer's uncle) for buying us our food.






After we ate, Samer went with his uncle and cousins to their house to kick it. I was alone until 7 PM. I still had to go to mass at 6 PM in Forest Hills. I think we parted at like 3 PM, which left me with 4 hours to do whatever. I decided to drive down to Brooklyn. These grafitti pictures probably look familiar to those of you who saw my blog from 5-6 months back. I used Google maps' street view to see this. It was crazy being there again and just walking down this block.


This church is on the same block as my house and the graffiti wall. I parked in the parking lot of the church. If I looked right, the church was there and if I looked left, it was my old house (2 pictures down).




My family took up the majority of the second floor except for that window on the far right. That was somebody else's portion of the second floor.


Apple store on 57th and 5th. We drove up here with no parking problems because it was a Sunday night. It's crazy that this place is 24 hours. I heard Wendel was in town, so I'm surprised I didn't run into him here haha.


F.A.O. Schwarz right next door to the Apple store. Obviously, it was closed already.


After buying Samer's uncle a Macbook Pro, we got hungry. Midtown was full of retail stores and not really any food places. So, I called Nikki and asked her to see where the closest Gray's Papaya was. It was 50 blocks south of where we were. This Gray's is on 6th and 8th. Samer and I both got the two hot dogs and a drink combo for $4.25. Right when we got back to my car though, this guy was like, "Yo, do you have jumper cables?" I ended up having it in my truck, so I whipped a U-turn on a one way street to jump his car. His girlfriend kept saying that she definitely needs to invest in jumper cables since that was the second time it had happened to her Lexus SUV. It was cool helping them though. But by the time I was done, my hot dogs were semi-cold. So, we went back for seconds.


Shot of my car parked on 6th.


The next morning, Samer and I parted ways right away. He left his grandma's house to go with his uncle to his VW dealership. I ended up taking the subway from Erickson's to Jollibee's. The Jollibee's is on Roosevelt and 63rd. If anyone ever goes, go to Rego Park, find parking, take the 63rd Drive-Rego Park subway towards Manhattan, take the R train, then get off at the 65 St stop.... or you can go straight to Jollibees, but parking is terrible there. There was no line at all on Monday. We tried going on Sunday, but the line was down the block. They're open basically 8-8 everyday. I got 1 Yum Burger, and 1 box of Spaghetti and Chicken Joy. Bomb!




After the Jollibee's, I went to Niketown to kill time before meeting up. This was their Jordan selection. Terrible. I loved the 5th floor with the Nike Lifestyle stuff though. Great clothes and shoes.


For Ivan.


Bad grammar. "Cared"* Geez, Lebron.


This employee saw me wearing my III's, so we chopped it up about shoes for a while. Then another employee came by, and I talked to him for a while, too.


Nike ID Studio on the 5th floor. They had these double doors to the right where you could go in and pick materials and really customize your shoes. Sick stuff.




All Day.







These three pics were the outside and inside of St. Thomas church. I went in there, and they were saying the Our Father. So, I prayed along with them along with praying for like 10 minutes after they were done.. I was like, "Hmmm, where's the Holy water?" It turns out it was an Episcopalian church. Haha. Oh well. I did some research and it seems like the only difference worth mentioning besides Catholics and Anglicans/Episcopalians is who is in charge. Catholics have the pope, while Anglicans have more spread out authority. Mostly everything else is the same though... the Nicene Creed, Apostles Creed, calendar of saints, the rosary, shrines for Mary, the Bible, etc.