A Long Weekend in NYC Recap

-
Until this year, I had never been to New York City. Iceland? Yes. Dubai? Also yes. But NYC? Nope. It just wasn't a trip that had come up yet.

Then Mike talked about going to a conference in London and I'd join him for a long weekend trip. When that feel through, I got the idea of a long weekend in NYC instead in my head. I had some vacation time, it would be December and I'd always wanted to visit around Christmastime. A friend who had moved to NYC a few years reached out randomly and that sealed it - with that and a budget for the trip created we were ready to go.

I mostly wanted to see musicals and eat at so many of the restaurants and bakeries I'd seen all over the Internets. Mike had the Nintendo store on his list.

Day 1 - Friday

Got in around 10 pm, checked into our hotel and walked to Veselka for dinner. Veselka is known for pireogis and was the place I most wanted to try when I started looking into NYC restaurants. I love pierogies and this plate of fried pierogies topped with cheese sauce and caramelized onions was exactly what I wanted after the flight. 




Day 2 - Saturday

Hadestown day! After researching and agonizing over which Broadway show to see for weeks, I landed on Hadestown. It was amazing; loved that we got to see the original cast and hoping to see the traveling cast when it comes to Minneapolis next season. After that, we met up with our friend Andrea who introduced us to Ellen's Stardust Diner, where the waitstaff sing to you. 

Before the show, we had Essa-a-Bagel for breakfast, wandered through most of Central Park, stopped at Levain Bakery and got quick bites - empanadas for me and a poke bowl for Mike - for dinner. I got a lovely pair of earrings from a vendor at a Christmas market and when I realized one wasn't set quite right was able to get it swapped out at the Bryant Park Christmas Market the next day.




Day 3 - Sunday

A late start after a late night, we walked over to Chelsea Market for brunch at a hand-pulled noodle place then walked part of the High Line before meeting up with Andrea again for an off-Broadway show - a Love Actually parody. Andrea showed us around the tourist hot spots - Grand Central Station, Rockefeller Center, Times Square and the Bryant Park Christmas Market. We then wandered over to the Nintendo store, where Mike sadly didn't find anything he wanted, and checked out the Macy's holiday display before getting dinner at Rezdora, a tiny, delicious Italian restaurant. We ended at a craft beer bar near our hotel.



Day 4 - Monday

A very rainy day and the impetus for my getting Mike waterproof shoes for Christmas . Started out with brunch at Sarabeth's near our hotel then made our way down to Battery Park to take the free Ellis Island ferry for a view of the State of Liberty. Stayed in FiDi for a few hours and then decided I had to find a rainbow cookie. One of Mike's aunts makes rainbow cookies for Christmas; I'm obsessed and since I knew NYC had them, I went on a mission. The closest place I knew of that had them was Ferrara Bakery in Little Italy, which I reasoned was kind of on the way to the Brooklyn Bridge. 

Crossing the Brooklyn Bridge wasn't as much fun in the downpour as it might've been otherwise and we were very tired of being wet by the time we got over. In Brooklyn, we checked out several breweries - the first of which had over 10 IPAs alone and was therefore not really my thing (I'm more into stouts and porters) - and had dinner at Frankie's 457 Spuntino, where I had an amazing cavatelli dish that I want to replicate. 

Day 5 - Tuesday

No photos here as we just got another bagel for breakfast and then hit up another Christmas market, where I got a cute magnet for my desk at work. My flight was at 2 pm, while Mike had a slightly later flight headed to Seattle for work. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

LeRoy's Arrival Story

-
Image
This week is Birth Trauma Awareness Week so I thought I'd share the story of LeRoy's early arrival, as writing it down and sharing is helpful in processing it. His delivery was certainly not what I expected going into pregnancy and even right up until it happened.  He's a somewhat small 3 month old now, but a generally happy one First, some background on my pregnancy:  On our five year anniversary I found out I was pregnant. We couldn't do our normal anniversary dinner out due to covid and instead went for a hike nearby while cautiously (it was super early, the line on the test was faint but there) talking about the pregnancy and potentially taking our kid hiking some day.  I was pretty grateful to be working from home as the first trimester required daily naps for a period. We were "team green" - not finding out the sex prior to delivery. Mike couldn't come to any ultrasounds until the 3rd trimester due to the fall covid surge, though he was able to vide
Read more

A Victorian without a fireplace? No more.

-
Image
 One of our "nice to haves" on the house checklist was a fireplace. It seemed a bit strange that our house didn't have one, but it's also not uncommon to have had them removed at some point.  When we bought, we knew the original mantle to the fireplace was in storage in the basement. You can see where the original fireplace was in the "Before" photo - it's the chaise between the window and the hallway. Originally, we'd hoped to uncover that fireplace but we realized it was tiny (made sense, as a coal fireplace) and had been filled in with cement.  So, onto a new location for the fireplace: replacing the old "monstrosity" (as the seller's realtor called it) of a built-in cabinet on the left of the "Before" photo with a direct vent gas fireplace.  Before After The teardown To start, Mike tore out the cabinet. It was a presumably 60s style built-in that we didn't serve a real purpose for us. Oddly, there was a return vent ben
Read more

Vietnam 2020: A Recap and Travel Guide

-
Image
With just a few weeks of vacation, it's hard to narrow down where to go for our bigger trips. I've started to keep a Google doc to reference the many destinations I have in mind. For this trip, we went with two friends who we had traveled to Dubai with last year and narrowed down the list of places with them. Our criteria was roughly 1. warm in February and 2. somewhat adventurous, not just beach but also have the option for a beach. It got down to Argentina and Vietnam, landing on Vietnam because our friends had heard great things and, while we had never been to SE Asia, they had been to Bali and loved it. At first I wanted to combine Vietnam and Cambodia as I so wanted to see Siem Reap, but quickly discovered how much more I wanted to see in Vietnam than we could possibly fit in and settled on 2 weeks fully in Vietnam. Based on the above criteria of being warm, we stayed largely in the south and central regions starting in Saigon/HCMC, then Hue, Phong Nha and ending in Phu
Read more