25 and kickin

I can’t believe I’m 25 years old! To me I feel like 25 is a big deal hence the trip to the Big Apple. We left Thursday 4/16 hoping that NYC would be good to us as I ring in my 25th year of life. We landed, drove to my sister in law Emily’s house, went out for dinner and kicked off the trip. 

DAY 1

Friday was a BIG day. I had planned our itinerary and it was packed. I was pretty ambitious and after a little help from Emily to tone it down, we were able to see some awesome stuff. This was our main site-seeing day and boy was it glorious! We started out by going to Times Square which was so overwhelming but worth seeing! There were people and lights everywhere and it was so loud. Not only that but the stores were MASSIVE! I'm talking about a 4 story Forever 21, 3 story Disney store, 3 story movie theaters and so on! It was cray cray! 

        Then we went to the New York City Public Library/Bryant Park and it was beautiful! After Times Square, the park felt like a haven and the library was nice and quiet.

       After the library, we made our short trek to the Empire State Building for a tour. I don't know if this is nerdy or not but we did the audio tour and loved it! We learned a whole bunch of stuff about the building, the city, and the buildings we could see from the top. 

        After a couple of hours, we continued our busy site seeing day at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and then Central Park. The MET was incredible and massive.We couldn't get through all of it but everything we saw was really cool! And don't even get me started on Central Park! That park was also massive and beautiful! Plus, my sister in law Emily took some photos of me by this amazing pink crab apple tree (which are my absolute favorites). I literally wish the world was covered in them 24/7.

        So that was our longest and most packed day! We had a blast our first day in NYC and loved all the sites we saw. Definitely worth seeing once in your life for sure!
        

 

 

 

Photo Credit: Emily Lewin Photography

Photo Credit: Emily Lewin Photography

DAY 2

        Now we're on to day two of our trip aka celebrate Alicia's birthday day. Emily took us to an amazing brunch spot in Brooklyn called Miriam. It was so good! It's Mediterranean (which is my favorite) and also had a really cool vibe!

        After brunch we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge and headed to a park called DUMBO. I had no idea where we were going until we got there which was a very pleasant surprise! While on the bridge we saw a few vendors, we saw the beginnings of some love locks that people are trying to start doing on the bridge and we even saw someone propose! It was such a beautiful walk. 

       Once we got to DUMBO, emily took us to this super cool wall full of street art and she took some photos of us for my bday. I am so thankful for her because she helped make my day so special! Then we walked to the actual park where we found this amazing colorful glass house! I loved it. At that point we were blazing hot and decided to get some ice cream to cool us off and then we headed home to change for my birthday dinner with David and then to see the Lion King on Broadway. It was a perfect day!! 

Photo Credit: Emily Lewin Photography

Photo Credit: Emily Lewin Photography

Photo Credit: Emily Lewin Photography

DAY 3

        Day 3 was MY BIRTHDAY and was the official day I turned 25 and we had a lot of touring planned but first, we stopped by Emily's church to meet her friends and do some worshiping. She had to go do a shoot so while she was doing that we decided to tour around the Financial District where we got to see Trump Building on Wall Street(mostly because we walked past it), Tiffany & Co (and you better believe we stopped in), Trinity Church, the Charging Bull, the 9/11 memorial, and the Seaport District (which was probably my favorite part). Unlike Fridays sites, these were all within a couple blocks of each other so we got to see a lot and wander around the city. 

       Although everything we saw was amazing, my favorite part was the Seaport District. It's this cute little part of the city where there are cobble stone roads, farmers markets, coffee shops, boutiques and more. Everything was darling and the boutiques were picture perfect! I got to stop in one called Bowne&Co Stationers where I was able to pick up a few paper goodies. They had tons of wonderful letter press prints, buttons, yarn, pencils, stationary, posters, etc. I was in absolute heaven! Whenever we go back, I will definitely stop in again. 

       Then for dinner Emily took us to this cool restaurant where they only seat about 20 people at a time in the whole restaurant. What really made me feel special at this restaurant was the fact that when they put a candle in my delicious chocolate Tiramisu, they got all of those 20 people to sing Happy Birthday to me and boy was I blushing!

DAY 4

        At this point we only have two more days. Day 4 was.....interesting. We planned to tour the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island but when we woke up, it was raining. See, when you're in New York, you walk everywhere and also use the subway so the fact that it was raining made us a little bummed BUT, we decided to go for it anyway. After a subway ride, running in the rain and getting soaked, and demolishing and umbrella in the wind we finally got to the ferry headed to the Statue of Liberty. We were cold and wet and couldn't see anything out the windows so once we got close the statue, I stepped out with David to see the Statue come into site through the fog and rain and boy was it glorious! The ferry stopped and we toured the statue and her base and learned so much through, once again, the audio tour. After the audio tour I certainly felt proud to be an American! After some time spent at the statue we took the next ferry to Ellis Island where we would gather in the same room so many immigrants had once been in. It was truly an awesome experience and made us really feel connected to history. 

(note: I only have one photo because it was pouring rain and I didn't want to get my camera wet/ I forgot my SD card at home and couldn't take any photos anyway so I for this one I used my phone)

DAY 5

        This was our last day but probably one of my favorites. It was probably our most flexible day so we decided to end the trip by stopping by Grand Central Station, going to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), and then Emily took us to Williamsburg which was the land of the hipsters. 

        MoMA was cool in a lot of ways but kind of strange too. They had some weird/disturbing videos and exhibits but some of them were also incredible! My favorite part was getting to see the real Starry Night painting by Vincent Van Gogh. I couldn't believe it was there in the middle of New York. 

        After MoMA, Williamsburg came next and it was a really cool part of Brooklyn. Emily took us to have some super yummy Venezuelan food and then led us on to the Brooklyn Art Library which was heaven for me! It's basically a library full of art journals and if you read my blog then you know I love to art journal. You can see that here. You can request any topic that you like and they will most likely have multiple journals based on that topic. It was a-ma-zing! After that we stopped by Toby's Estate for some coffee and headed home. Our flight was at 10pm so we had lots of time to finish packing and say goodbye to Emily.

        So that was it! It took me forever to write this post because there was so much that we did and even more photos that I had to keep cutting stuff out so I wouldn't bombard you. Needless to say, New York was awesome and definitely worth going at least once in your life! If you want to see all of my photos from NYC you can check them out on my photography Facebook page here. Thanks lovies!!