THE REUINION TOUR STOP ON THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE

The plan was then to head back to the hotel, shower, and then go to the Brooklyn Bridge (the whole purpose of the trip). Also, another shout out to our tour guide David who has amazing patience. He waited for all three girls to shower and get ready. By the time we were ready to go, it had started raining pretty hard. Shannon and I were ready to bag the bridge and hit it Tuesday morning before we left. But Laurel insisted that we live on and not be derailed by a little weather.

We really got the most out of our Metro cards this trip as we headed once again to the subway. A minor disaster occurred as Shannon and David made it on the Subway car but Laurel and I were forced out. You don’t get cell service down there, so once again the two most directionally challenged people on the planet were on their own.

It was a good thing that we followed Laurel’s intuition because once we started walking to the bridge the weather cleared and it was a beautiful dusk. Laurel came across a bench in which she was convinced was the exact bench we had sat on in 2004, however, there was a couple already sitting on it. Undeterred, Laurel kicked them off the bench so we could get our photo op. I don’t think they spoke a lot of English so I’m not sure then knew what was happening when Laurel shooed them off the bench.


It really was a gorgeous evening on the bridge and our photos turned out amazing. We had made it happen. Five years had passed and all three of us lived up to the commitment to be back on the bridge in 2009.


It was a great moment in our friendship right up to the point the Laurel tackled me to the ground to get a photo of me laying across the Welcome to Brooklyn sign. Despite the bikes whizzing by breaking the sound barrier and stopping for no one, Laurel thought the photo would be worth risking life and limb. She just kept saying, “It’s all about the story,” as she gave me my second body slam of the trip.


Another tradition we planned to take advantage of was pizza at Grimaldi’s! It’s this great pizzeria under the Brooklyn Bridge. The difference being the last time we were in Brooklyn we walked the entire borough before finding it. This time we had David who walked us right to it from the bridge. There was a line outside to get in, but this pizza is worth the wait.

We almost didn’t get to eat at Grimaldi’s because when Laurel went in to use the restroom, she tried to take a picture of them making the pizza and the pizza mafia thought she was after the secret recipe. They seat you family style in this restaurant so the couple next to us was from Holland. Believe it or not they were huge Abba fans and headed to see Mamma Mia the next night.

The pizza was everything we remembered it to be. Back in 2004, the four of us ended up ordering and devouring three pizzas. We all still had the benefit of a metabolism in our twenties. This time we were half a pizza down and already calculating how many miles it would take to run it off! We got a parting photo op with Grimaldi himself and the five year reunion itinerary was complete.