New York, New York

I’ve said New York was my favorite city for a decade now, but hadn’t been there in over 8 years! Oh how time flies when you’re having funkids! 😊 So for David’s 33rd birthday we decided to take a quick spontaneous trip!

Day 1 – Travel Woes

What a rough start. We missed our flight due to being unable to find a parking spot in any of the parking garages. We drove around the lots for 30 minutes trying to find a spot before we just invented our own parking spot in front of a fire exit and hoped that we didn’t get towed (we didn’t). On the upside there was an available flight about 4 hours later so we took it! A few coffee breaks, some creative photoshop work, and a lunch later and here we are: FINALLY on the plane. Because we were on standby we had to board last… and after getting on the plane there were about 10 single seats left in the middle seats but no two next to each other. The flight attendant offered a free alcoholic beverage to anyone willing to give up their seat so we could sit together… but no one even looked up to acknowledge the request. What the heck? There was even one of those front seats with virtually unlimited legroom available! The guy with the window seat I ended up sitting next to never even opened his window for the entire flight. Why even have a window seat then!? Oh well.

I only downloaded one movie, Thor Ragnarok, and I wasn’t about to watch that one by myself… so that was a fail on my part! On the upside I was able to get some writing in while on the plane since I’m sitting by people that don’t care to acknowledge my presence. 😂

5:00 – We have arrived!!!

Our Airbnb is pretty great and the view was phenomenal! We definitely got a great deal with this place (if you sign up for airbnb with this link you’ll get $40 in travel credit). We stayed in Hell’s Kitchen, which is nothing like what Dare Devil makes it seem. There was so much to do within walking distance (though I’m sure that’s true of anywhere in Manhattan)!

Our host recommended a restaurant right around the corner, At Nine, and I’m so glad we took her advice. It was unlike any place we have ever been. Anytime we travel to a city where coffee shops, restaurants, and grocery stores are literally below your apartment it makes me want to live there. Being able to walk everywhere (if you want to) is pretty awesome. I’m sure as with most things I could get jaded to the accessibility of everything, but for now I still think it’s amazing! :-) After dinner we headed to Times Square to do some touristy stuff and then watched some Buskers (AKA street performers) do some crazy break dancing. After walking around for a bit and doing some window shopping I admitted that I’m not as young as I once was and needed some sleep, so we headed back to our place. Time for some beauty rest to get ready for the bagillion pictures David would take of me the next day! Haha!

Day 2 – Exploration

We started our day at a coffee shop called Romeo and Juliet Columbian coffee… and I was a little disappointed in the coffee and atmosphere here… but there were many more cafes to be visited so NBD.

11:00 – Coach, MOMA, and Lunch

Next we headed to MOMA (Museum of Modern Art), and on the way we just had to stop by Coach to get a healthy dose of motivational sticker shock (and shoot some Instastories) and see their Dinosaur made of $250,000 USD worth of Coach, which was pretty incredible. And insane. David just wanted to see a Van Gogh, but the price to get in to MOMA just for one painting was a bit more than we wanted to spend so we headed off to Whole Foods for old times’ sake (8 years ago we had what we thought was the absolute best pizza ever here) for some lunch. The pizza looked like a soggy plate of sadness so we went to a restaurant inside Whole Foods and enjoyed some lunch to stave off our hangriness.

1:00 – Losing David’s Wallet and More Coffee at Knave @ Parker New York

Next up: more coffee! But not after getting caught in the rain and grabbing some umbrellas at CVS… only to find out my hubby left his wallet at Whole Foods (thank goodness it was still there!). We went to Knave at Parker New York for coffee, which was super expensive but actually really fun and fancy! The atmosphere was so relaxing I didn’t want to leave, but we had so much more to see so off to Central Park we went!

3:00 – Exploring Central Park

Thankfully it stopped raining and the sun even came out so we did a mini photoshoot with the cherry blossoms and enjoyed a beautiful walk. We didn’t get very far before we realized it was time for more coffee and food. We headed off to another cafe recommendation, La Colombe, which also did not disappoint! Then off to a random restaurant we randomly walked by called Chefs Club counter, also delicious!

5:00 – Visiting Fohr

We had an opportunity to drop in to visit Fohr (we called ahead to make sure it was okay) and had the chance to see where the magic happens. The offices in New York are so different, we walked into what felt like a random building, the elevator didn’t work so we took the stairs that lead to a hallway of doors. We knocked on what really just looked like an apartment door and went in to see an big open space with the bar to the left (every office should have one, of course), a comfy couch where James from A Drink with James was reviewing some notes before recording, and then everyone working side by side in a open space, and a conference room that also looked like a living room. It was quite the space!

6:00 – The Posh Life and Drinks

After chatting with some of their team we ended up deciding to go out for some drinks. We stopped by three different bars before finding one that wasn’t crazy busy. We ended up at this very posh restaurant called The Musket Room where they wouldn’t serve us bread unless we ordered at least two small plates… which were comically small plates. Like… two quail legs (Google them to see how tiny!) on a plate. I didn’t actually try the quail, but the bread really was delicious, as was the wine. It’s a really cool place and if you’ve got a taste for the finer things (and the budget for them) you should check it out. I’d love to go back for the five course “long story” dinner.

8:00 – Exploring SoHo, Walking to Brooklyn, LBAD, and Dessert

Next up we walked around in SoHo and decided to try to walk all the way to the Brooklyn bridge. We thought it’d be a nice evening walk and we’d get to explore as much as we can on our last night in NY. We were getting fairly close and then a severe case of LBAD (Low Battery Anxiety Disorder) kicked in (hence the lack of instastories that night)! David’s phone was already dead and I was at 13%; apparently we have absolutely zero confidence in our ability to survive without WiFi. Haha. We were very cold due to our Florida winter wear not being enough and NYC deciding to have a wet and windy extended winter (I think it was around 38°F at this time) and we gave up when we thought we were just a just a few blocks away from the Brooklyn Bridge (we actually had walked 20 minutes in the wrong direction). The photo at the top of this post is by The Williamsburg Bridge. 😞 There weren’t any subways nearby, at least not close enough for us to want to walk to at this moment, so we finally called an Uber to pick us up and bring us back to SoHo… literally to the same block we started from!

We ended up at Little Cupcake Bakeshop in SoHo and enjoyed our last night on a sugar high and exhausted. Despite our giving up in our quest to the Brooklyn Bridge, it was still a wonderfully enjoyable experience!!!

Day 3 – Breakfast and Going Home

Our last morning in NYC I really wanted to go to find the best breakfast place in all of NYC. So we Googled a bit and found what we thought was going to be the perfect place. It wasn’t too far from our Airbnb so we decided to just walk the 15 minutes it’d take to get there. And then there it was. Only one problem: no indoor seating and it was about 40°F outside. It really did smell amazing but we needed to get warm so we found another option. Just another 10 minutes of walking and we came to Maman. Best. Coffee. Yet! And their breakfast menu was also to die for! I had an amazing latte and avocado toast (I absolutely needed some healthy food after the cupcakes from the night before). The place was super cute and delicious; two things that are very important to me when eating breakfast and drinking my first cup of coffee for the day 😁

While sitting at Maman David discovered we were only a few blocks away from the iconic Flatiron building so we walked on over, took a few photos, and enjoyed our last few moments of city life before calling up an Uber and heading home. The flight was easy on the way back and we got to watch our movie together 😁.

Don’t worry NYC, we will be back and stay much longer next time!