New York City 2013

In March, we took a spontaneous trip to New York City, and even though it's been a while, I thought I'd recap our trip. Thanks to an expiring airline voucher and a handful excuses like March being my birthday month and Brandon's spring break, we thought, why not? I've addressed my obsession with New York before, but just to remind you, I am obsessed with New York. This was an unusual trip to the city for us in that we weren't visiting for any reason in particular and we weren't accompanied by any newbies so there was no need to hit the usual tourist attractions. We stayed at The New York Palace, which was undergoing some major renovations but still managed to fulfill my wannabe Gossip Girl aspirations. The Palace is located across the street from St. Patrick's Cathedral and Saks Fifth Avenue, so we spent a good majority of our trip in this area, exploring the Upper East Side and Midtown/Central Park South. 

Night 1: When we arrived it was snowing, which was totally unexpected. I actually love snow, but freezing cold air- not so much. After checking into our hotel, we braved the weather and walked to Serendipity 3 for gloriously oversized desserts. A little touristy, but I can never resist. (**Let me prep you-- one of my favorite parts of traveling is taking photos, and when we got to our hotel room, I realized I'd brought my DSLR with a dead battery and no charger. Major bummer. So, all of the photos in this post were taken on my iPhone.)

Day 2: We got up early and walked to the Met to check out the new exhibit, Impressionism, Fashion, & Modernity. Loved it! Nineteenth century clothing and paintings side-by-side in my favorite museum ever = pretty much the ideal scenario. After the Met, we spent the afternoon shopping (and window shopping) on the Upper East Side and finally got to check out the New York Laduree location without the line being wrapped around the building. Not much room to sit, and lacking in pastry variety, but macarons galore and didn't have to order in French, so the place still earned two thumbs up from me! We finished the day off with dinner at Carmine's in Times Square, a family-style Italian restaurant that's become a special place for us over the years.

Day 3: One thing that characterizes all trips Brandon and I take together is we walk absolutely absurd distances. Walking is the best way to experience and see a city, but seriously, we take this to an extreme. At the end of a day, our legs are throbbing. We usually plan to avoid this in the future, but we never change. On our third day in New York, we walked from our hotel all the way down to Tribeca and back. Such a fun day though. After stopping by ABC Carpet & Home and Strand Book Store, we had our favorite New York pizza for lunch at Bleecker Street Pizza in Greenwich Village. For dinner, we hit up our favorite Chinese restaurant, Szechuan Gourmet in Midtown.

Day 4: On our last full day we got to experience something many little girls dream of, something I'd been imagining since my first encounter with Eloise-- Afternoon Tea at the Plaza Hotel. It was fancy, it was overpriced, and I don't regret a second of it. We loved exploring the hotel and wishing we were fancy enough to stay there. Other than that, we spent the day shopping and walking through the park. That night, we saw "The Lion King" on Broadway, a classic that neither of us had seen before. We topped the night off with burgers, fries and shakes from Shake Shack. (Sidenote: Why does a California girl like me like Shake Shack so much more than In-N-Out? It's not right!)

Anyways, I know this long-winded, photo-heavy post was probably an odd way to return from my lengthy hiatus, but at least it's something! I hope all who read this are well and enjoying lovely spring weather wherever you are! :)

Any New Yorkers or fellow-wannabes out there with some recommendations for our next trip?