The weather this morning was as predicted: light rain on and off all morning. I used that as an excuse to stay in and get caught up on banking, personal emails, and some website maintenance I’d been putting off. All after I got the blog up, of course.

The only sure thing I had planned was to meet a new friend that I met at the conference for a 6:30pm meeting in Greenwich Village, and dinner after. Other plans were related to the 3 days of use I could get out of The Met ticket and it’s three museums, so all that will mean is one less museum on this trip. I’ll skip The Breuer, which is focused on modern art anyway which, if you’ve been following me for awhile, you know is not my favorite.

I finally headed out just before 1pm. I took a 10 minute bus ride to the Hoboken train terminal to get on PATH. Because of where I was headed in Manhattan – meaning lower – it was the first time Google had recommended PATH, which was good since I’d planned on doing that anyway. PATH trains all stop around 33rd St.

I got off at 14th Street. My only plan was to wander the Villages: Greenwich and East. Between the two, they take up the swath of Manhattan that runs north of Houston and south of 14th Street, divided by Broadway. Depending on which definition you use, the West Village is either its own thing or a subset of Greenwich, but is everything west of Greenwich Ave in the same area.

I took a look at Yelp for possible lunch places. This was rated #1 for the area I was in and, conveniently, was across the street from where I got out of the subway. It’s a rule: if you have an opportunity to eat fresh Asian noodles (or Italian pasta for that matter), do it.

After lunch I just wandered. This entire area was fun, very livable, somewhat affordable (for NYC that is), moreso the East Village, as seen below.

It was now just about 5:15. I still had a good hour to kill before the meeting, and remembered that I was still in the market for a watch. Maybe I could find something in this neighborhood? Google to the rescue: a Swatch store on Broadway and Bleecker.

Mission accomplished! And, it brought me to Bleecker Street, which I had been wanting to check out anyway as it’s one of the better known streets of this neighborhood, known for fun retail and nightlife.

The meeting I was going to was in a medical office building on 13th St at 7th Ave. There was a Duane Reade (Walgreens) across the street so I stopped in for a bottled water and travel toothpaste. My friend, Jonathan, was there when I got to the 6th floor meeting space, which was very nice for an AA meeting! It was a gay men’s meeting targeting those “approaching and over 40”; I noticed that I was in the bottom quartile (if not beneath the 10th) by age in the room. The speaker was 43 and most likely the youngest as far as I could tell. But it was a good meeting and I’m glad I went. I rarely seek out meetings when I travel but on the heels of the conference and an anniversary coming up it seemed appropriate.

It was just an hour meeting, and the dinner place Jonathan had picked out was just around the corner. (I neglected to take a photo of him, but you’ll see one in the entry for Day 2 if you care.)

I’ve without intention developed a Latin American food theme on this trip. No complaints! This was wonderful and I took half of it home – will probably be breakfast this morning.

From there Jonathan walked me to my subway entrance on 6th Ave and we said our goodbyes, perhaps until next year’s conference. I took PATH back to Journal Square in Jersey City and a Lyft from there back to the house. Home around 10:30pm.

The plan today is what I didn’t do yesterday: Fort Tryon, part of The Met 3 day ticket option, and today is the last day I can use it. We’ll see if that happens – it’s quite the ride up the Hudson River. Tonight is Dear Evan Hansen, which will most definitely happen.