One of my best friends was in town this past weekend. That means 3 days of strolling, eating, laughing and drinking all over this city. Having visitors forces me to be a tourist myself. Here are some things I’m writing love letters to in this magical place.

Pizza places in our neighborhood – When Luigi’s was busy and the pizza didn’t look great, we can call Mario’s and it is at our door in 20 minutes. The fact that two of the closest pizza places to this apartment are named Mario’s and Luigi’s just makes the nerd in me so damn happy.

Sugarfina – This candy store is somewhere I could move into. When you walk in the door, they always offer samples. It is expensive, but it’s a pretty awesome gift or a tiny “treat yourself” moment.

Law and Order – We almost got our chance to be famous, but we weren’t patient enough to hang out and wait for Ice T and the rest of the SVU cast to show up for filming.

Our bartender at Social – We didn’t plan to hang out with you for the majority of our Friday evening, but you were super supportive of our new project (do you follow us yet?) and we will never forget you.

The talented children in School of Rock – We got tickets to see School of Rock and I’ve never seen the movie so I wasn’t sure what to expect. The kids in this show were so awesome. I could have watched them perform for another few hours at least. Plus, the lead was played by an understudy and he was UNBELIEVABLE. Sometimes getting to see a show with the understudy is better because you know they are getting a chance to play a bigger role and they usually crush it. This show was no exception.

$0.99 Slice of Pizza – On our mission to feed Kelsey pizza every day, we stopped at Sauce and they didn’t have the garlic salt labeled and there may have been some confusion that it was cheese. That slice didn’t impress. Two block later, we grabbed a slice from the cheap place and it was really good. It shocks me every time but I love it.

A Good Jukebox – So many bars have switched over to TouchTunes, but not the dive bar down the street from our apartment. A few dollars spent and we were able to sing loudly to Toto and Hall & Oates while drinking beers and fighting the cute aggression over the puppies running around the bar. Seriously, if you’re in our neck of the woods, check out Do or Dive on Bedford.

Bodega Sandwiches – While we usually only enjoy breakfast sandwiches downstairs, we had a meat eater staying in our house and she was definitely impressed by the turkey & provolone sandwich picked up on the way home from our singalong. Why aren’t these a thing in other cities? I don’t understand.

Dekalb Market – On a hot day, sometimes you need a little air conditioning. The new food market in downtown Brooklyn is great to cool off after a lot of walking. We stopped there for the final pizza of the weekend (it was fried and amazing) but we also enjoyed Key Lime Pie and the magnificent Arepa Lady. I love that a place like this exists.

On top of all these wonderful things, we had perfect weather and no flight delays in or out of the city. Plus, the puppies got lots of love from Kelsey. Hope you all had an awesome weekend!