We are back from New York City! We spend 8 nights there and had the best time, so much fun, and still so much more to do and see. Next time, I told Christopher that we should stay in a different area. We stayed at the same hotels as our previous two trips. I feel like we’ve mastered Times Square and next time I want to pretend like we are residents and stay further out from midtown. We flew direct, but in order to go direct without a connection, we had to fly into Newark in New Jersey and then take the train to Penn Station. It was super easy, but less trains were running because we went on Thanksgiving Day. It took 2 hours from the time we landed to checking into our hotel room. We dropped off our bags and went walking to find a place to eat. It was around 8pm. Chris wanted to tryout a Mexican place he looked up but it was so busy so we kept going and walked out of the main area towards more residential areas. We found a cute restaurant named BarDough and shared pizza and a drink before going back to the hotel to shower and sleep. The first night always feels so good and you feel like there’s so much time to do everything, your trip is just beginning. Then, I swear the trip ends and it’s time to go.

Our first full day in New York we booked a couples massage at the Baccarat Hotel and it’s so gorgeous. It has a pool, hot tub, steam room… it was relaxing and perfect to have after a previous long travel day. We got coffee from Gumption which is yummy and bought a bag of beans to come home with us. After the massage, Chris went and got Halal while I went straight to Saks to check out Moynat! It was so beautiful, I love their bags, and took my time walking around looking and trying them on. I ended up purchasing 3 things! I was overly excited. One was a camera bag, which is typical of me and I have so many similar bags. I used it once and then honestly felt kind of guilty because I didn’t feel the love I should and I felt more guilty than happy about purchasing it. It didn’t feel special, was more on the plain side so I decided to pack it back up and return it. I know I made the right choice. I did keep the pouch and the shoulder bag I bought which I love! They have hand painted animals on them. So cute! So different than anything I own or would usually buy and I’ve used the shoulder bag several times and I’m so happy with it. I saw beautiful Loewe bags as well, my goodness! But the prices are so expensive, also it’s available online and in Las Vegas when we go whereas Moynat you can only buy in-person and the only place in North America to purchase that brand is at Saks in New York. Shopping is so great but something came over me in New York, this feeling of contentment with material items. I have so many beautiful items which I love and am happy I own and I don’t feel the need to add anything so I didn’t do much additional shopping other than what I planned on from the beginning. I wanted a bag from Moynat and shoes from Manolo. I bought a surprise Stella McCartney sparkly bag at Bergdorf which was on sale and too good of a deal to pass up and just a gorgeous bag. I feel so happy. I bought little gifts for friends like Hello Kitty pop mart dolls, little crayons, a cute lighter, post cards, stickers. So many fun and cute things – oh and books! I bought a book titled: All The Cool Girls Get Fired. So good, I’m giving it to Karli as a Christmas present. She will love it and it will make her laugh.

We ate at so many great restaurants. We went to both places inside Central Park – The Boathouse and Tavern on the Green. Both were delicious. I think they are both definitely for tourists but whatever, they make great food and drinks. I think my favorite place to eat is where we went on our last night – it’s an Italian family restaurant called Altesi. The food is perfection. The atmosphere is unmatched. We also went to a steakhouse (which seemed more geared towards men) and we saw the deputy commissioner of the NHL Bill Daly there. We went there (Uncle Jack’s) before the Knicks game on Wednesday. We went to another Italian place in Little Italy. That was so yummy too, I got vodka rigatoni. Yummmm. Then we went to a place on the 9th floor of a building in Columbus Circle and that was great too. The food and drinks we had were so good, I love it so much. We love to get coffee from different places in the morning, walk around a little, find some lunch, then go back to the room and relax until dinner time. After each dinner, we would stop somewhere else on the way back tot he hotel and have a drink. We were on the same page about everything. Chris got his pastrami sandwich at Katz Deli. I couldn’t go with him because I was sick – I caught a cold while at the football game on Sunday, I still have it now. The next day I needed to rest in bed for the day so he went to Katz by himself while I did nothing. That night we went to see Mark Norman at a comedy club and then went to Shake Shack afterwards for dinner.

The city is lit up for Christmas and looks so beautiful. Everything sparkles in the city. It feels so cozy somehow, it’s so easy to travel around and find where you’re going. We mastered the subway system. Chris was talking to me in North, South, East, West and finally I had to say I have no idea what he means. I need left and rights. We trained back to Jersey to watch the football game. We saw the Jets this time – and they won! They beat Atlanta with a last second field goal. We saw the Knicks again – and they won too! They beat Charlotte. I enjoyed the basketball game more than the football game. I’m not sure if it’s because it was pouring rain the whole football game and we were outside or what but I definitely had more fun at the basketball game. Chris was able to get those comedy show tickets to see the comedian he likes so that was an extra bit of fun too. The rest of the time we kind of winged it. We got donuts, drinks, snacks. We walked around the park. We waited way too long at Ralph’s for coffee that was overpriced and ended up being cold because they made our coffee but didn’t call out our names so the coffee sat there for 15 minutes. Chris said he noticed so I don’t know why he didn’t say something or walk up to the bar to grab them but whatever. Then we found the sushi place we ate at the previous time we were there and it again was a great idea. I found my pineapple rice dish at At Nine Thai. We had great croissants and donuts. Chris favorite coffee came from a place called Maman’s. It was super good. I also liked Ground Central coffee – both offered Macadamia milk as an option and I love that. We upgraded our seats on the way home, it costs us $150 extra because that was the cost of our baggage so why wouldn’t we upgrade both our seats for an additional $150 and then we got 2 bags each for free. It gave lots of leg room for Chris so we were comfortable. His parents picked us up at the airport with Hanky and snuggling him again was fantastic. He’s the cutest and most snuggly and we missed him so much but truly enjoyed our vacation.