Monday, October 5, 2009

New York City! - Part One

At last! Coco and I have finally had a chance to catch up on laundry and sleep and sift through our many photos. I thought I would share a few highlights of our trip. Coco and I had not gotten away just the two of us since our honeymoon almost six years ago so this was long over due! We had a great time and can't wait to plan the next one.

We arrived Thursday in time for lunch, after we checked in to The Westin Times Square, we spent the afternoon walking down 5th Avenue and exploring Times Square. We visited Tourneau, FAO Schwarz and The Plaza among others. As a side note - I purchased what I thought would be the most comfortable shoes for the trip. They were these little black Merrell's that went with nearly everything I brought. Boy was I wrong. After an afternoon of walking through the city, those puppies had rubbed a blister on the back of my heels. So we spent about an hour searching for some more comfy shoes (what a great excuse, right!).

The view from our hotel room - interesting!

The Plaza


That night we set sail (in my new comfy shoes) on a Harbor Lights Cruise around the island. It was fantastic! The night air was cool and crisp and it was neat to take in the city from the Hudson River. We ended the evening with a late (and yummy) dinner at B. Smith's in the theatre district.

Right before we set sail




Friday morning we grabbed a bagel and Starbucks (Pumpkin Spice Latte!) and set off to catch the downtown loop Gray Line Double Decker Bus Tour. I must say, I was a bit skeptical signing up for the bus tour. I mean, what is more touristy than sitting atop a big red bus with a camera? We LOVED it! A tour guide took us through the southern part of the city and at every stop (there were at least 26 stops along the way) we had the opportunity to hop off and explore the streets and then hop back on whenever we were ready (buses stop every 15 minutes!) to resume our tour. We caught the bus in Times Square and set off. We ended up getting off in SOHO/Nolita to walk around and peruse the shops (H&M!). We had lunch at Lombardi's, which was awesome - Coco and I shared a spinach and pancetta pizza that was de-lish.

The ultimate tourists

Yay for Pumpkin Spice Latte!


The Flatiron Building

No Soup for You! Seinfeld anyone?

Lombardi's for lunch


The Empire State Building from afar

We headed back to our hotel via the bus tour and got ready for an early dinner at Carmine's in the theatre district. After a HUGE meal (Carmine's is family style and every entree is enough for at least four people - I think I ate my weight in Chicken Parm!), we headed to The Palace Theatre for the 8:00 pm showing of West Side Story. The show was great! Coco even liked it - probably because he had a crush on the actress playing "Maria". We decided we had not consumed enough calories for the day so we stopped at Juniors for cheesecake before heading back!


Okay, its getting late and my computer is getting tired of uploading pictures - check back for more of our trip!

4 comments:

Rachel H. said...

Awesome photos! Looks like a really great trip! :)

Monogramchick said...

Did y'all take those night shots?

Brittany said...

After reading this I really want to take one of those tours! Sounds fantastic! I love that you can get off and explore too! Thanks for sharing:)

Keri said...

Such great pics! This makes me want to go back to NYC!! I loved the double decker bus tour too...such a great way to see all the best spots in the city. Looking forward to the next batch of pictures.