There are days that make me love New York, and then there are days that make me LOVE New York. This past Saturday ranked as one of my top 5 all time favorite days in New York. The day was a bit touch go in the morning as a certain someone had only managed to catch about two hours of sleep from the prior night. The day was an extension of “birthday week,” which is my excuse to do one new thing a day every day of the week of my birthday. Basically, it’s my motivation to put the Netflix away, get off my tushy and explore all that New York has to offer. This year during the actual week of the big, ahem, “27,” (being 29 is so cliche so I’ve decided I’m going younger every year) I was too swamped to follow through so I made a deal with myself to do five new things in the month of August. Now, mind you I didn’t plan to do them all in one day, but I nearly accomplished my birthday week bucket list in one day.

We started the day off by taking advantage of the Summer Street Program, which Bloombie (that’s my nickname for our billionaire Mayor) introduced last year. For three Saturdays every August from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. streets are closed off from traffic from the Brooklyn Bridge to Central Park. There are free bike and skate rentals along the route. My friend and I “rented” bikes and hit the open road and by open road I mean Park Avenue. A Park Avenue without any cars sort of gave it the I Am Legend and Vanilla Sky feeling (you know where Will Smith is driving around Park Avenue without any other cars on the road and Tom Cruise is running through a very empty Times Square). I feel like I should have a theme song for this portion of the day (Will and Tom would).

New Yorkers getting their bike on

From there we headed to the upscale portion of the day and went for High Tea at Lady Mendl’s. Lady Mendl’s has a very French chic vibe. I am not going to lie, the favorite part of High Tea was seeing a sugar cube topped with a little pink flower on it. Oh so pretty and girlie! I secretly pretended that I was living at Lady Mendl’s and that we were in my salon and I was expecting various literary giant who all seemed to live in Paris at one time or the other circa the 1920 and 30s. Whatever big girls can play house too!

Care for a spot of tea?

We then attempted to go to Pier 40 to do some free kayaking on the Hudson, but accidentally ended up in Brooklyn. The A train was on a covert black ops mission and jumped to the F track and next thing we know we’re in Brooklyn and we had to wait at a stifling hot train station. This would not deter us on our goal. Rather, it made the breeze off the Hudson that much more enjoyable when we finally made it to the pier.

Kayaking on the Hudson isn’t for everyone. First, you must be resolved that you’re not going to think about the fact that you will get soaking wet from the gross Hudson River. Second, you must forgo your fear of capsizing and/or accidentally falling out of the boat while trying to get into it (I actually thought I was going to miss the boat entirely and go head first into the Hudson). Third, you must be able to not freak out every time it appears like you’re going to have a head-on collision with inexperienced kayakers who have no navigational skills. There should be a boating test that people have to pass before they’re given an oar! The water was choppier than I expected and I couldn’t look at the boats that were anchored in the water since they were rocking side to side more than Elvis did on the Ed Sullivan show (not a good thing to look at if you’ve had a few too many the night before). P.S. there are changing rooms and a locker area on location, but word to the wise-if you bring a change of clothes don’t forget the most important thing, i.e., back up underwear because you will then be forced to choose which is the lesser of two evils. I’m just saying.

The seas were rough that day, but no one had to yell man overboard.

After our little Christopher Columbus sailing of the high seas expedition, we went for a walk up the West Side Highway and over to the High Line. For those who haven’t checked it out, it’s a must see as it is an example of urban planning at its finest. Believe it or not, we had intended to hit a few small museums, but thanks to our unexpected No Sleep Til Brooklyn detour we ran out of time. So, instead we headed to Chelsea Brewing Company for a free tour, which I highly recommend. Our beer sommelier was generous with the three pitcher pours of Checker Cab Blonde, Sunset Red Ale (my favorite), and a Stout beer the name of which escapes me. You also get discount beer tickets for pints at the bar. I wonder if anyone gets banned from coming back too many times. It was a motley crew on the tour though as I think we may have had a mail order bride and someone with daddy issues (seriously my friend and I couldn’t figure out if this girl was with her father or her boyfriend-it was ambiguously creepy).

We finally ended the evening at The Frying Pan and had a sunset cocktail of white sangria (a bit reminiscent of peach wine coolers) and garlic fries (evidently they’re famous for them). We could have stayed longer, however, I had dinner plans to meet a friend from out of town so where did I head to meet her? The Shake Shack because why not end the day with another New York institution!

It's so hot I could fry an egg in this frying pan!

Bartles & James decoy