Laughed and laughed and laughed like no Twilight groupie should at a screening of New Moon at The Knitting Factory in Brooklyn on Sunday night. It was shown on a screen out the back of the club, attended by a mix of people wanting to see a comedy show and some true die-hard Twilight fans in their Twilight t-shirts – the difference being the alternate script via voice-over from comedians The Raspberry Brothers.

I wrote a bit about it on the Xero blog so please read that to save me re-typing everything here!

Letter from New York – records & film night

At the end of our wandering around Williamsburg we headed to Variety Coffee & Tea to wind down for an hour or so before setting off again to find The Knitting Factory to attend their Sunday night comedy show that we’d gone over to Williamsburg to see. Sounds a strange name, and we didn’t know what to expect, but as it’s on the NY Times coffee list we were definitely going to give it a try. All looking good from the outside, what we’re coming to expect from the good coffee places in New York – a little bit funky, with a definitely ‘groupie’ vibe from anyone hanging around the entrance way.

It was dark and narrow inside but that meant it was quite cool down the back where we headed with our coffee and cookie. Free wi-fi meant I could deal with a bit of work for a while (bet our customers don’t realise they’re being helped by a girl down the back of a coffee shop on a Sunday afternoon in Brooklyn!) and then we passed some time playing an ancient game of Connect 4! I won just about every time and The Mister blamed it on him not having as many pieces as me …

Variety Coffee & Tea, 386 Graham Ave, Brooklyn

Bakeri is the first place we tried from the NY Times coffee list on our hot-day trip to Williamsburg – it was really really hot inside the cafe, hotter than outside so we took our coffee and freshly baked treats down to the river park nearby.

The coffee was quite strong but great taste – and the little mini croissants and cinnamon rolls were just lovely. It really does seem than places that proclaim to be ‘espresso bars’ and do nothing but coffee, maybe an occasional baked treat or couple of tables, can be trusted to do consistently good coffee.

Bakeri, 150 Wythe Avenue, Brooklyn, New York

Had one of the most stinking hot days I’ve ever had in my life on Sunday wandering around Williamsburg in Brooklyn. We went over to attend a comedy show that night so thought we’d take a look at the shops and cross another couple of places off the NY Times coffee List while we were at it. I thought being the leafy ‘burbs’ it might be a bit cooler, but no.

We headed down to the river to take advantage of the breeze off the water and have our coffee.

There were people everywhere trying to cool off in the shade, just laying about chatting or reading or paddling (just feet, the river is not that clean).

You can get right down to the water’s edge and even though it was a river scene that reminded me of many tv and movie scenes where a body floats by it did provide the breeze and gave us a different view of Manhattan.

However, we’d gone over to explore Williamsburg a bit so decided we couldn’t really sit by the river all afternoon so forced ourselves to walk, v e r y s l o w l y through the streets, poking in vintage shops and taking in street sights a bit different to Manhattan.

Spotted a bunch of orange numbers and signs in one half block at the weekend and despite the stinking heat I stopped to take photos as only an orange addict would!