Celebrating Labor Day

Happy belated Labor Day, blogaudience (yeah, I’m going to try and make that stick - as Furnas would say, that word is totally boss).

According to our good friend Wikipedia, Labor Day originated here in New York by the Central Labor Union as a “day off for the working citizens.”  Sounds like a pretty vague reason for a holiday, but I have admit, I’m a huge fan of the Central Labor Union’s idea on this one.

We kicked off the long weekend late Friday night when our good friend Jill (and her friend Joe) arrived on her way up to Boston.  Jill was our Young Life leader at Western Guilford, and has been a dear friend to Tracy (and me!) in the years since.  She’s moving to Boston and planned a stop in NYC along the way.

Saturday was spent in the city in semi-tourist fashion.  While we pounded the pavement to see the World Trade Center, look upon the Statue of Liberty, and explore Midtown, the highlights of the day were our meals.  Lunch was Lombardi’s, aka the first pizzeria in the USA.  For dinner we ate at a local Mexican joint in the UES known as Blockhead’s.  Neither restaurant can claim to be the fanciest in Manhattan, but both proved you can eat pretty well without running up a huge tab if you know where to go.

(The above picture used an open shutter…so the lights behind us are headlights from passing cars.)

The weather was fantastic all weekend, so Sunday we spent a few hours in Central Park reading books, the newspaper, and letting our legs rest from the day before.  Without a doubt Central Park is my favorite place in the city.

After saying goodbye to Jill and Joe, Tracy and I went over to our friends Stephen and Hannah’s new apartment.  They’ve lived in the city for a couple years, but moved a few blocks from their previous home into a new building which is only a 10 minute walk from our apartment.  We were also able to catch up with John and Summer who were back from vacation.  With no work looming, we had a grand time ordering in some Thai food and catching up.  For Tracy and me, it was fun to begin to feel like a part of a community here in New York.

We made the most of this fabulous Monday known as Labor Day by spending a few more hours in the park.  Weather was once again perfect (though maybe a little hot), and we enjoyed sitting in the sun, along with a few thousand others, and thinking how much better it was than an office.

I guess that’s what the Central Labor Union intended.

Cool picture inside the World Financial Center.  Directly outside the windows is the walkway by the Hudson.