New York Part One.
At the end of May, Nick and I were lucky enough to have a long weekend in New York. I'd been before in my early twenties but he'd never been, so it was pretty cool to watch him experience all the NYC awesomeness for the first time. The weather was unbelievable, perfect hot sunny days for our whole stay, so we were able to pack our days full of lots of fun things.
On our first day we arrived late afternoon and headed straight to a New York Mets baseball game, Nick is really into sports and we had pre booked the tickets before we came. The atmosphere was amazing, It was so relaxed with families and small groups of guys and girls just enjoying the game in the sun. The day we went, we were lucky enough to get a free memorabilia shirt, it was celebrating the 1986 World Championship 30th Anniversary Weekend. The stadium was huge and we wandered around during the game taking it all in. There are bars and food stands placed all around the stadium and you can wander about watching the game from all angles. There's lots of screens placed about for people that don't buy seated tickets. We wandered around for the first few innings before taking our seats and we couldn't believe our luck when we glanced up and saw ourselves on the big screen! We waved like crazy people with the rest of our little section. The guy behind told us he'd been coming for years and never managed to get on there. To top off the evening the Mets won so the crowd went crazy, we were getting high fives in all directions from the locals. The game was three hours long which I was a little unsure of at first but it flew by and was a fantastic experience that I would definitely repeat.
The second day started with an interesting wake up call when the fire alarm went off. Of course we had to evacuate and in the event of a fire they shut off the lifts, so we walked down twenty seven flights of stairs to exit the hotel (twenty seven flights!!!!) My legs were shaking when I got to the bottom! The sight that greeted us was pretty pleasing (well for me anyway). The New York fire department had sent some of their finest men to investigate. After half an hour we were let back in and told it was all clear, so we could officially start our day.
After a huge and extremely yummy breakfast of pancakes and berries.....and whipped cream, we headed off to Ground Zero and the 9/11 museum. This is something I would recommend if you find yourself in NYC but be prepared, it is heartbreaking. We both felt we wanted to go out of respect for those that had lost their lives that day but it was so incredibly sad to read the witness accounts, see the photos and lost belongings and even hear phone calls made by people within the towers and on the planes. We both came out feeling quite affected by what we had seen and read. It's something that I will never forget.
We didn't feel like jumping straight into anything too touristy after that so we decided to grab a pretzel from a street vender and take a stroll across the Brooklyn bridge to take in some of the breathtaking views of the city. On the way back we stopped at Starbucks for a strawberry refresher (the most amazing drink EVER!) and then made our way to the Statten Island ferry. A lot of people pay for tour boats to take them to the Statue of Liberty but if you jump on the Statten Island ferry which is a free service, you get equally amazing views at no cost. We picked a great spot on the outside part of the ferry and prepared ourselves to take some great pics. You have to get off at the other end and jump on the return ferry as it doesn't do a loop, of course you can stay on Statten Island for a bit and explore if you like but we just came straight back.
By this time we were getting pretty hungry again, so we went back to our hotel and quickly changed before setting off on a hunt for food. We stumbled across Virgils Barbecue Grill and with mouths watering, stepped inside. Downstairs had a large bar area but we were taken upstairs to the restaurant. The restaurant was filled with various screens showing all different sports such as baseball and basketball. Of course Nick was thrilled with this and we sat down to order. Naturally the portions are ginormous, I ordered ribs with pulled pork. When it arrived I was presented with a huge slab of ribs, a pile of pulled pork, fries, coleslaw and cornbread. Needless to say by the time I was full it didn't even look like I'd started. The very kind waiter asked if I'd like to take the leftovers home with me but I politely declined. The plan was to head back to the hotel for some sleep as we had an early start the next morning but I happened up on Sephora! My ever so sweet and innocent boyfriend said he was more than happy for me to pop in. Fast forward an hour and he wasn't so sweet and actually rather grumpy. I'm not sure why he didn't understand the importance of me trying each shade of Kat Von D's Everlasting Lipstick or inspecting every travel size/ mini item at the bit by the till!
Obviously he was a very relieved man whe we returned to the hotel, we set the alarm and hoped that the following morning would not be such an energetic start.
As always, thanks for taking the time to read my blog. I hope you enjoyed it and New York Part Two will be coming soon.
Take care
Kel x
On our first day we arrived late afternoon and headed straight to a New York Mets baseball game, Nick is really into sports and we had pre booked the tickets before we came. The atmosphere was amazing, It was so relaxed with families and small groups of guys and girls just enjoying the game in the sun. The day we went, we were lucky enough to get a free memorabilia shirt, it was celebrating the 1986 World Championship 30th Anniversary Weekend. The stadium was huge and we wandered around during the game taking it all in. There are bars and food stands placed all around the stadium and you can wander about watching the game from all angles. There's lots of screens placed about for people that don't buy seated tickets. We wandered around for the first few innings before taking our seats and we couldn't believe our luck when we glanced up and saw ourselves on the big screen! We waved like crazy people with the rest of our little section. The guy behind told us he'd been coming for years and never managed to get on there. To top off the evening the Mets won so the crowd went crazy, we were getting high fives in all directions from the locals. The game was three hours long which I was a little unsure of at first but it flew by and was a fantastic experience that I would definitely repeat.
The second day started with an interesting wake up call when the fire alarm went off. Of course we had to evacuate and in the event of a fire they shut off the lifts, so we walked down twenty seven flights of stairs to exit the hotel (twenty seven flights!!!!) My legs were shaking when I got to the bottom! The sight that greeted us was pretty pleasing (well for me anyway). The New York fire department had sent some of their finest men to investigate. After half an hour we were let back in and told it was all clear, so we could officially start our day.
After a huge and extremely yummy breakfast of pancakes and berries.....and whipped cream, we headed off to Ground Zero and the 9/11 museum. This is something I would recommend if you find yourself in NYC but be prepared, it is heartbreaking. We both felt we wanted to go out of respect for those that had lost their lives that day but it was so incredibly sad to read the witness accounts, see the photos and lost belongings and even hear phone calls made by people within the towers and on the planes. We both came out feeling quite affected by what we had seen and read. It's something that I will never forget.
We didn't feel like jumping straight into anything too touristy after that so we decided to grab a pretzel from a street vender and take a stroll across the Brooklyn bridge to take in some of the breathtaking views of the city. On the way back we stopped at Starbucks for a strawberry refresher (the most amazing drink EVER!) and then made our way to the Statten Island ferry. A lot of people pay for tour boats to take them to the Statue of Liberty but if you jump on the Statten Island ferry which is a free service, you get equally amazing views at no cost. We picked a great spot on the outside part of the ferry and prepared ourselves to take some great pics. You have to get off at the other end and jump on the return ferry as it doesn't do a loop, of course you can stay on Statten Island for a bit and explore if you like but we just came straight back.
By this time we were getting pretty hungry again, so we went back to our hotel and quickly changed before setting off on a hunt for food. We stumbled across Virgils Barbecue Grill and with mouths watering, stepped inside. Downstairs had a large bar area but we were taken upstairs to the restaurant. The restaurant was filled with various screens showing all different sports such as baseball and basketball. Of course Nick was thrilled with this and we sat down to order. Naturally the portions are ginormous, I ordered ribs with pulled pork. When it arrived I was presented with a huge slab of ribs, a pile of pulled pork, fries, coleslaw and cornbread. Needless to say by the time I was full it didn't even look like I'd started. The very kind waiter asked if I'd like to take the leftovers home with me but I politely declined. The plan was to head back to the hotel for some sleep as we had an early start the next morning but I happened up on Sephora! My ever so sweet and innocent boyfriend said he was more than happy for me to pop in. Fast forward an hour and he wasn't so sweet and actually rather grumpy. I'm not sure why he didn't understand the importance of me trying each shade of Kat Von D's Everlasting Lipstick or inspecting every travel size/ mini item at the bit by the till!
Obviously he was a very relieved man whe we returned to the hotel, we set the alarm and hoped that the following morning would not be such an energetic start.
As always, thanks for taking the time to read my blog. I hope you enjoyed it and New York Part Two will be coming soon.
Take care
Kel x
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