New York, new york!
Oh I miss it already. So yes, I am no longer there, and do wish I had written proper blogs when I was in the midst of all the action, but I was just having waaay too much fun to stop and write. I do apologise.
Basically, Nina and I had a ball of a ball. We stayed 7 nights in total, and did many a fun thing.
The first 2 days were spent in a lovely lovely lovely hotel called Belleclaire, a booking generously given to us by my darling Mutta and Geoff. It was on the Upper West Side, very very beautiful area I must say. Our room was on the 9th floor, had a fricken EPIC view of Broadway and West 77th, on our first night I could hardly drag myself away from looking down into the lights and noises and yellow cab blurs of the night. Such a dream, it was a dream, only it wasn't. Best real dream I have ever had. Our second hotel, where we spent the next 5 nights, was The Carlton Arms Hotel, in midtown. A small hotel, with a quirkily cool vibe, each room is a different design and has artwork from different new york artists, even the bathrooms and lobby and halls are works of art. We got room 3A, with some interesting photography against the white walls and an artwork kindof reminiscent of M C Escher. It was a lovely room, and for the price it was well worth it, the shared bathroom/shower was actually good, and right next door to our room so it sorfot felt like ours anyway. I especially liked the big window overlooking east 25th and 3rd Avenue. Greenwhich Village was only a short walk away, and only a short subway (which we took alot during our week, and found it very convenient) ride away from Soho, Noho, Chinatown, little italy and times square (CRAAAZY INSANE LAND! but cool to see ofourse) just to name a few surrounding areas.
The next day we decided to explore our neighbourhood, we was most excitingly just 3 blocks away from central park, which was also a dream in itself. So lush and beautifully green and full of people and tranquillity and leaves amongst the madness. Went to Strawberry Fields to see the Imagine circle, Shakespeare gardens, the Great lawn, then walked up the length of the park and through to the upper east side, saw columbia university (amazing) and finally made it to the outside neon sign of "TOMS RESTAURANT", the "restaurant" part of which is used as the outside of the diner in Seinfeld. Just being there, Nina and I felt just a little bit closer to Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer…
Our second, third and fourth days in this amazing city were jam packed with sighseeing and museums and the like, as these were the days we used our "New York Pass"--this was extremely worth it and I would defs recommentd it to anyone travelling to new york for a bit--it gets you entry to EVERYTHING and its prepaid so you don't have to worry about money while your at each sight and you get to jump the queus…hey I should really do a testimonial for them…
Anyhoo, I hate to list things like a boring person, but I really am a little short for time on this thing. So heres some highlights from our 3 days of crazy new york pass mania and the little extras in between; I will attempt to list consecutively but you know how memory can meddle with the true order of things, so…:
MOMA museum of modern art = extreme art attack, in a very very VERY goood way.
Guggenheim = the building itself was an artwork, loved the fact that the main exhibition inside was on Frank Lloyd Wright, who designed the building

went to NYU to meet Ninas friend sophie (awesome name) who is from Toronto but had just done a 4 week photography summer school course at NYU, so we went to her class's exhibition which was very cool, we got to see her dorm and stuff. then we went to washington square park which was beautiful.
Rockefeller Centre = most beautiful, obviously took pics of just the 30 rock part of the address for purposes of bragging-to-fans-of-the-show.
Top of the Rock Observation Deck = so picturesque! And it was an insanely clear day. Great views of the city, central park, very good photos were taken that day.
Tour of NBC Studios = pretty good, it was fun to see the SNL set in particular, wish Andy Samberg had been there though. Mmm Andy Samberg…

Metropolitan Museum of Art = Sublime. So big, like the other two art museums we could have easily spent years in there, so had to pick and choose our way through.

Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island = so ncie! Ferry was fun, lineup to get on looked worse than it was in reality, and I was not under whelmed at allll by the statue, as some guidebooks had said (silly people im sure), I enjoyed it very much. Unfortunately I forgot my camera bttery that day, left it in the charger like a true professional, so I will have tpo steal Nina's snaps…
Macy's and Bloomingdales = I must say I preferred bloomies, maybe it was the 11% off discount we got instead of the 10% one we got from Macy's, maybe it's those big brow bags, maybe its cos Rachel Green works there…both were fun to look in though, we both bought some nice stuff ( i bought a scarf for 61% off from blommingdales, really nice)
and last but not least, the empire state building = loved. Unfortunately it was a little cloudy and extremely that evening, but it was definitely worth it.
Our last 2 days were spent a little more leisurely, we were both pretty pooped from all the toing and froing without stopping for much air. Highlights were shopping in Soho (bought a beautiful jacket and some jeans, both half price), going to heath ledgers old apartment in soho, where he died (yes, slightly creepy thing to do but nina and I felt we neede to see it and pay our respects. Broome street was such a nice street too), going to Grand Central Terminal (SO EPIC, I just wanted serena to be standing there and it would be real life gossip girl) and also the new york city public library, the giant one, which is so amazingly cool and big and a great place to escape the heat.
Oh and its crazy how many locations from sex in he city i recognised without fail, I looked in a restaurant window and thought "hey, carrie had dinner there with someone I swear" and couldn't walk past a church without saying OhEmGeeeeeeeee, Charlotte got married there!!!!" So tragic, yet so satisfying…

I am so happy I went to New York. I am also happy I got to share it with Nina, we had such a swell time together and I will always remember it, even the crazy times were good, like when we trekked it to Moby's café in the 40 degree heat only to find our it was burned down. It was all just so…New York. I fell very lucky to have gone to this beautiful amazing spontaneous place.
I love this city, this experience, this memory. I want to marry it.
Xoxo a hopeful future new yorker