one really big post about NY

lately it seems like blogs have taken a backseat to Pinterest/Instagram/twitter…etc. which made me start thinking if there was much point to keep blogging. but we started this blog with the idea of keeping a sort of family journal, plus I enjoy doing it. so I suppose I will carry on with my blogging and those few of you who still occasionally take a gander at our sweet little life, I think you’re wonderful : ) since I don’t have much time to blog nowadays, and my posts have become few and far between I’m choosing to write one quite potentially long post on our recent adventure to New York (sans baby boy).

We flew in to NY last Thursday night. We made such good time that we decided to rush to the new Yankee stadium to see them play. They were out of town the rest of our trip, so that night was our only chance. We hurried and grabbed a quick dinner with Mairin’s roommate at a Greek restaurant nearby before jumping on the subway. We met Mairin at the game and were happy to find we’d only missed the first few innings. The new stadium is beautiful, but quite fancy for a baseball stadium. It was very clear that this team has MONEY. The game was close and one Yankees player hit 3 home runs in one game. We had a great time, despite not being the biggest Yankees fans.

        

after the game we decided it was time for a late night treat and thought Serendipity would be the perfect way to end our first night.

Friday morning I woke up. sick with what we now can only assume to have been food poisoning. I was miserable. We had plans to go to the Brooklyn Bridge, take the Ferry, Statue of Liberty…all that kind of stuff since it was supposed to be the warmest day of our trip. I made it about halfway to the ferry before I realized I was just to sick to do anything. We spent the rest of the day at the apartment, me laying in bed, feeling so sick and so sad, Mckay repairing some things in Mairins bathroom (good brother).

Saturday I still felt awful, couldn’t really eat anything besides saltines. but I really didn’t want to miss more time in NY. It was a beautiful day so we walked to Central Park with Mairin. We walked through part of the park and relaxed on the grass for a little while.

     

     

     

We left the park and grabbed a delicious pain au chocolate from Aroma before Me and Mckay headed to Broadway for the Lion King.

The play was amazing! so much work goes into each show and everyone is just so talented. We were definitely impressed. and I was just happy I didn’t get sick during the show. We walked around Times Square for a few minutes and then met Mairin for dinner at Stand. They had great burgers and fries but we mostly went there for the shakes.

 Mint, Smore’s and especially the Toasted Marshmallow were amazing. I couldn’t get over how the Toasted Marshmallow actually tasted like a marshmallow straight from a campfire. We tried getting tickets to the New York Philharmonic for that night but they were sold out, instead we went to Rockefeller Center and did Top of the Rock, where we got amazing views of the city.

After that we walked around 5th Avenue, went to Zara and saw Trump Tower.

Sunday. Still felt sick, still couldn’t eat much of anything, but Sunday was our museum day. and apparently everyone else in the city had the same idea because the museums were packed! The freezing cold rain outside was also a major factor forcing everyone to head for the museums. We first went to the Frick. The Frick is a museum in a beautiful mansion owned by Henry Clay Frick. It displays his collection of artwork as well as collections donated by others. And there just so happened to be a Renoir exhibit going on, and we were pumped. However, when we got there the line was really long, and we were cold, wet and not in the mood to stand in line in the rain so we took the bus over to the Museum of Natural History. It was unbelievably crowded but we would have managed it, but the main exhibit we were planning on seeing was already sold out. So back to the Frick we went, hoping that the line would be shorter, and luckily it was. We still had to wait a little bit but eventually got in. We were completely soaked and so grateful to finally be in a warm dry building. We strolled through the beautiful house looking at amazing art, we both loved it so much. Cameras weren’t allowed so I don’t have any pictures of the house.

After the Frick we went back to Mairin’s apartment and decided to spend some time relaxing and getting warm after being freezing cold and wet for most of the day. We stepped outside later in the afternoon to grab a huge Levain cookie to hold us over until dinner at La Esquina. When it was time to leave for dinner I was definitely not feeling up to going so I stayed behind while Mckay, Mairin and Trevor went to dinner. Celebrity spotting of the night: Emma Stone with Andrew Garfield.

Monday me and Mckay headed back to the Museum of Natural History. We were obsessed. particularly with the dinosaurs. I don’t know why, but I was just way too excited to see the dinosaurs. We also had tickets to the Bioluminescence exhibit (no cameras) and the Butterfly exhibit which was also amazing.

We spent hours in the museum and could have stayed longer but we had other things we wanted to do. We took the subway down to Brooklyn and had ourselves a taste of the famous Grimaldi’s pizza.

    

After lunch and a quick stroll under the bridge we headed out to Queens to catch the Mets doubleheader. It took us about 2 seconds to decide we liked Citi Field a lot better than Yankee Stadium. The Yankees are good that’s for sure, but the Mets game just had such a fun old fashioned baseball atmosphere. We enjoyed the game and some tasty Shake Shack for dinner. We ended up leaving in the middle of the second game because it was just getting a little too cold and windy but we had a great time while we were there.

Tuesday we had breakfast (my first real meal since Thursday!) and headed to the Met. I didn’t really know what to expect but once I saw how big it was and how many different collections they had I about died. I felt like I was back at the Louvre and was loving every minute of it. This was probably my favorite thing we did the whole week.

After spending half of the day at the Met we said goodbye and headed to A Salt and Battery for Fish and Chips and a deep fried Mars Bar. yep. we shared. and we kind of still regret it. my first and only celebrity spotting: Rachel Dratch.

After our late lunch we went to the World Trade Center memorial. This was such an amazing experience. It was hard to wrap our head around everything while we were there. Seeing tributes to people who had passed away, seeing a timeline of the events that happened that day, walking down the streets where you knew people had run down to escape the buildings. it was all overwhelming but we are so grateful for the experience. The monument was designed by both an architect and a landscape architect. Two pools nearly an acre big take the place of where the original buildings stood. Names of those that passed away that day are carved into the edges of the pools. The water falls 30 feet before landing in a pool, where it eventually falls down another square hole which you cant see the bottom of. The new building is still being worked on. It will have the same number of floors as the old buildings and with the added antennae on top will reach to a total of 1776 feet tall. It is such a beautiful building and beautiful even at night when the entire thing lights up.

We met Mairin at the Meatball Shop for dinner and since we were quickly running out of time to do all we wanted to do before we left the next day, decided to go take the Staten Island Ferry to take a look at the Statue of Liberty and the Manhattan skyline. Granted it would have been a better view during the day but I’m so glad we went anyway.

Wednesday was our last day and we still had so much we wanted to do. By the time were all packed and ready we decided to finally go get Donut Plant and we are so glad we did! Their donuts are amazing and yes we might have gotten 6 between the two of us. After, we hurried down to Madison Avenue (fancy pants) and bought some Macaroons from La Duree for our moms for watching Henry. We made our way over to Central Park to walk around again before it was time to leave for the airport. Central Park is so beautiful right now! I absolutely loved walking around, it was such a nice day.

We had such a great trip and were sad to leave. There was so much more we wanted to do, but we were even more excited to get home and see our sweet boy who we missed like crazy. The thing about vacations is they just make me want to go on more! We love travelling, getting out with our family, seeing new places and doing new things.We are already anxious to plan our next trip somewhere, it definitely wont be as big as a trip to New York but we’ve got the travel bug :) and we’re ready to go anywhere so we’ll see where it takes us next!