NYC Take One: In Which We Vow to Never Take a Rush Hour Bus Again

Instead of one long post detailing every moment and morsel of NYC, I'm going to break it up into pieces. So here we are, part one!
After dropping Bria off at her cousins' house, driving to and parking in Bethesda, taking the metro to DC, and meeting Sam at Union Station, we sprinted through rain to catch our bus to NYC leaving at 4:30. Now let's think this through: 4:30. On a Friday. In the rain. All of this led to a 6.5 hour bus ride to New York. We weren't particularly thrilled-- especially when the wifi didn't work the entire ride. I think we'll try Bolt bus next time.
Anyway, we arrived in the Big Apple at 11 pm and were absolutely famished (note to selves, bring heftier snacks on the bus). We thought about just grabbing something quick and easy, but I stuck to my guns: we had very few meals in NYC, and I wanted to make each one count. We had originally planned to eat at the Burger Joint, so we mapped it on our iphones and hoped it would be a quick subway trip to Midtown, which it was.
The Burger Joint is this little place inside a fancy hotel. Le Parker Meridien bought the space and tried to buy out the Burger Joint, but they wouldn't leave. They had to take down all signage and advertising, but they are still going strong! You have to walk into the luxury hotel, past the fancy concierge and then disappear down a tiny hallway. A tiny neon burger on the wall points the way behind a curtain, and you have a tiny little burger place full of hipsters.
When you combine our level of hunger with the quality of the burgers, you have one tasty meal. We scarfed it down in record time. The burgers were substantial (I couldn't finish my last bite), and we even splurged on a chocolate shake that was out of this world. We sneaked a couple shots before the girl at the register yelled "NO PICTURES!" at me and I tried to play it cool while I turned beet red. (So much for trying to get a picture of the two of us!)
I may have felt sick the rest of the weekend from my red-meat indulgence, but it was totally worth it. So glad we didn't scratch our plan just because of our late bus. A perfect start for the weekend!