And more birthday weekend!

About a month ago, I told my best friend she needed to clear her schedule on March 15 so she could spend the day celebrating my birth. And she had to plan it. Pulling the BFF card only works two or three times a year, so you gotta make it count, right? So. Saturday. We drove into the City (I guess that makes us B&Ts? Shudder). The original plan was to hit up the Met, then brunch, then American Museum of Natural History. But... we got a late start, and ended up eating first. We ate at this place called Cafe Lalo, this really cute and quite small restaurant on the UWS. It was very, very French, and unlike most brunch places, it didn't really have your typical breakfast meats (bacon, sausage, etc). But my meal was delicious... steamed eggs with herbs, cranberry scone, Devon cream, and marmalade. (And a really yummy champagne cocktail called a 'Rose Petal' - champagne and Chambord.) BFF had a plain belgian waffle. Look! Pretty brunch! We headed over to the natural history museum. BFF works for Time, Inc., so she gets in free to the top museums in the city. We spent 20 bucks to go to the Butterfly Conservatory, and I got some really pretty shots. We took a brief stroll through the museum. I liked the African Peoples exhibit, which was good, although all the forms had medium skin tones, which I thought was pretty lame. Plus, they looked sorta... ashy. Onward to the Asian Peoples hall, which was also good. I must admit, I did feel like I was in elementary school. But, in a good way. After spending about and hour and half in the museum, we crossed Central Park (it was our first time actually walking through it) to get to the UES, and the Met. I had a very brief Blair Waldorf moment when we got to the steps. They were covered with people sitting, eating hotdogs and pretzels, talking on cell phones, reading. I wished I was wearing a pleated skirt and knee socks. (Oh Gossip Girl, how I've missed thee!) (Note: my profile pic is actually a self-portrait taken while we were chilling on the steps.) The Met was gorgeous. We were on a tight schedule, but I could have used hours to explore it. There was a really interesting exhibit on a French realist named Gustave Courbet. His work was incredible... and talk about real. In his paintings, he even included the depressions left on women's waistlines from wearing corsets. We weren't allowed to take photos in there (bah!) but it was really, really good. Take my word for it. The only thing about having such a busy day was that we were TIRED. But we remained calm and carried on. Dinner was at Dallas BBQ, home of the most wonderful and ginormous margaritas, followed by a quick change in the car, and off to Sugar, a cool lounge-y type place off of Canal. We don't look that tired, do we?? I had the BEST time.