New York City

New York City: Where the buildings are tall, yellow taxi cabs fill the streets, people are everywhere, and shopping and restaurants are plenty. What a fun city full of energy and exciting sights and sounds.

A long weekend here was a perfect, fun getaway for my parents and I. We filled our time by seeing all the highlights and tourist attractions, walking miles on end, figuring out the metro system, and of course - eating!

After we arrived, Ubered to our hotel, and dropped off our luggage we set out for the day. Our hotel was a block off from Times Square, so we stopped there to admire the buildings and bright signs as we made our way to Central Park, which is massive and very uniquely quiet and serene to be located right in the middle of the city. We walked through the park all the way to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, or better referred to as the Met. In fact, I drug my parents here for the simple fact that I needed to go to the Met Steps and act like I was on the set of Gossip Girl. Then, I got even more excited because we were just a few blocks away from the Madison Avenue Lilly Pulitzer, which was more beautiful than any Lilly store I’ve been in! From there we took a bus back to Times Square area and then got ready and went out for a nice supper. Walking through Time Square at night looks so different than in the day.

One of my favorite parts about New York was walking across the Brooklyn Bridge and taking pictures along the way. We spent some time in the DUMBO area before taking the metro to The Bagel Store, which you may remember from a few years back when they became famous because of the rainbow bagel, also known as “The Bagel that Broke the Internet”! In all honesty, it’s quite a ran down hole in the wall of a place with mediocre tasting bagels, but they are beautiful nonetheless, so I was more than content! That evening we went to the most delicious pizza place, John’s Pizza, before we went to watch Waitress, a cute broadway show with excellent singing!

Another favorite part of mine was taking a ferry to the Statue of Liberty. She is so magnificent and beautiful! We ate lunch at Eataly (my heart!) and then went to the 9/11 Memorial and Museum, which was quite a somber experience. We made our way to LRoom, which had SPARKLY LATTES! Another DREAM come true! Delicious and glittery! From here we went to the Soho and Flatiron area.

Monday morning we got up very early to head to Rockefeller Plaza for the Today Show. It’s been my mom’s dream to meet Kathie Lee and Hoda, and we are proud to say that after arriving at 5:15 am, we were first in line to enter the plaza! Once entering the plaza, we found the best place to stand and waited. It was very cold, but the energy and excitement kept us going. The plaza crew workers were so fun and kept us entertained, and the energy levels expecially escalated when the cameraman would pan the crowd! At 8:30, Al, Savannah, Hoda, and couple other members of the Today show cast came out to the plaza. We got to shake hands with some of them and even got a photo with Savannah! Unfortunately they were only out for a few minutes, BUT were DIRECTLY behind them and therefore on camera almost the entire time they were outside! We are basically famous, what can I say haha! Sadly my mom did not get to say hello to Hoda when she was on the plaza, and Kathie Lee was not on set that day, but we still had a great experience and I am glad we were able to go! After going back to our hotel to defrost, we decided we had done all the things we had wanted to, so we took the metro to New Jersey so we could say we had been there and so I could cross another state off my list (my goal is to go to all 50 state before I turn 30!) We got coffee and walked around Hoboken, then headed back to the city where we went to Union Station and then made our way back through Times Square for a final time. We took the metro all the way to JFK Airport, which was actually quite simple after using it throughout the weekend! We said goodbye to the Big Apple and made our little town that felt especially small after being in such a big city all weekend. 

I am so glad we got to experience NYC! Although there is never a shortage of things to do there, four days was the perfect amount of time for us to see and do everything we wanted to while still having ample time to relax and enjoy ourselves.

Xo,