Okay it’s time to blog about this trip.  As you know this was mine and Matt’s 1 year anniversary trip. We decided to go to NYC since I had never been and we could make it a long weekend.  {I will be running out of PTO days soon if we take another long trip.}

Matt decided we needed to be up around 4:30am on Friday to make our 7:20 flight.  Ughhh!  I hate waking up early and I really thought this might be an issue but my body had other ideas.  It decided to wake up at 4.  JOY!  I rolled over and found Matt awake too so we decided to just get up and get going.  We left the house around 5:30ish and headed for the park and ride.  The park and ride is pretty awesome and cheap!  We arrived at the airport and I grabbed some breakfast before getting on the plane.

The flight from RDU to JFK was pretty quick, just over an hour.  Once we got to JFk we found a taxi and headed into the city.  Um, now let me just talk about our cab driver.  He didn’t say one word to us except to ask where we were going.  And then it was like a mad man driving.  {Granted I never actually felt like we were going to die but holy crap they are BAD drivers!}  He managed to get us to our hotel in one piece but I am pretty sure there are no rules for driving and there are certainly not any lines to follow.  But enough about our cab ride.  I will say the drive was interesting.  Not really what I expected though I’m not sure what I expected.  I felt it looked kind of run down and dirty.  Seeing the skyline as we drove in was pretty cool though.

After about an hour in the cab we finally arrived at the Chambers hotel.  The hotel was very nice and had a funky modern flare to it.  We were told our room wouldn’t be ready til noon so we left our bags and hit the street.  Now is probably a really good time to mention I completely forgot my Rainbows at home and I wore my Lucky Brand boots on the plane.  That’s right I started walking the city in boots.

Our hotel was at the corner of 5th and 56th so to our left was Harry Winston.  Across the street was Trump Tower, Louis Vuitton, Gucci and a host of other super high end places.  We walked for a little while and Matt informed me taking pics was out of the question since people would run me over.  Hmmm.  I randomly took a few pics as I could maneuver my way into a corner or out of the main walking paths.  We found a Pret A Manager and grabbed some yummy snacks and rested our feet before heading over to the Flat Iron building.  The plan was to go to the Shake Shack for lunch.

When we got to the Park where Shake Shack was the line was stupid long so we decided to wait a little while for lunch.  Around this time my feet were absolutely killing me and I told Matt it was time to find new shoes.  He found the world’s largest Macy’s about 10 blocks away so we headed there.  OMG, I have never seen such chaos in a department store before in my life and guys this was a Friday in May.  WTF?!?  Ladies shoes were on the 3rd and 4th floors so we rode the cool old wooden escalador up.  Matt ran to the bathroom while I tried to wrap my head around the chaos that was Macy’s.  I found a couple pairs of flip flops but I was so discombobulated I just grabbed a pair, quickly tried them on and went to pay.  As I was standing in line I realized I had nothing to actually use to buy shoes.  Matt had all my money.  Dammit.  I waited for him to return and finally paid for my new shoes.  They weren’t the best but by no means were they as bad as my boots.

We left Macy’s and walked around to Madison Square Garden before heading back to the park for Shake Shack.  Of course the line was still stupid long so we continued our walking.  We finally ended up at Momofuku ssam bar.  We got the steamed pork buns and they were delicious.  After lunch we started to make our way back towards the hotel.  Honestly I have no clue as to where exactly we went.  Matt decided we could take the Metro back only to realize there were no restrooms in the metro station and I was about to die.  This turned into find restroom and head back to the metro.

We got back to our hotel around 4:30 and laid down for a while.  I tried to wash the black off my feet but they are still dirty looking, almost a week later.

That night we asked the concierge where a good place to go to dinner was and he said Bistro Milano which was one block away.  Sold!  He recommended a few dishes and called to let them know we would be right over.  We were lucky to snag a table outside but as the evening went on it began to get chilly.  Being the amazing husband he is, Matt ran back to the hotel to grab my sweater.  Our food arrived and I was less then impressed with my pizza (which was recommended) but Matt’s pasta was amazing so we ended up sharing that basically.  Our waitress was HORRIBLE!  She took our order and we didn’t see her until we asked another waiter for the check.  I was seriously tempted to just leave but Matt didn’t want to go to jail on our first night. 😉  I will say her tip reflected her shitty service, so much so that we took a pic of the receipt.  I wanted to leave tip:  Learn some customer service but Matt left actual money.

So that was basically our first day in NYC.  I think we walked at least 50 miles and guys these feet are NOT made for walking. 😉

~K

I’ll post all the pics on my photography website in the next day or so.