Yep. You guessed it. This post is all about New York!! I love New York. I've always really loved big cities and, well, you can't get much bigger than New York city. I love all the different people and cultures, I love the noises and the business of it all, and yes, sometimes I even love the smells.
A couple weekends ago I was able to go visit my brother and sister in law in NYC. It. was. fantastic. Seriously. I was blown away by how much we were able to do. We were only there for about 4 full days (and one of them was a Sunday so we didn't do a whole lot) but we did nearly everything that we wanted to. We ate at so many delicious places, we were always busy running from thing to thing, but my favorite part, as lame as this sounds, was being able to hang out with Matt, Jaime, and Simon- my brother and his fam. They were such great hosts and I can't thank them enough.
I honestly don't even know where to begin with this trip. I don't think I can do it justice. We did so many awesome things. Maybe I'll just give a little time line of what we did every day.
Wednesday: We flew out of the Salt Lake City airport towards JFK. It was a red eye and it started out rocky because our flight was delayed about an hour. I guess the brakes on our plane weren't working so they had to replace them. Kind of scary, right? Yeah, we were a little nervous. But still excited.
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| sistas in the airplane |
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| waiting waiting waiting |
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| FINALLY getting ready to board |
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| me and the Sanders sistas |
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| Me and Rae with our treats Lynell packed |
Thursday: So we got to New York about an hour later than expected and absolutely exhausted! Matt picked us up and we went back to his place to sleep. Jaime was so sweet and had breakfast and little presents waiting for us. We slept for a few hours then woke up ready to hit the town! First thing we did was go to this delicious restaurant called Max Brenar's the Chocolate Man. You walk in and the smell of chocolate gets you right away. In a good way. The whole place has a chocolate feel to it. It's seriously like Willy Wonka's choclate factory. There is a big mixer of chocolate with pipes that lead out of it and go up the ceiling into another mixer of chocolate. I grew up loving Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory so I felt a little bit like I was there. The fries are even dusted with cocoa powder. Sounds gross, but it's tasty! After we stuffed ourselves until we were basically overflowing we did a little bit of shopping. We also walked a lot! We went through Union Squre which was pretty great because there was an artist's fair going on so we got to see some cool things. Including a man wearing undies as a tee (serious. I'll post a pic). Then we walked into times sqaure and hung out there for a little bit. After that we did some more shopping at one of my favorite stores called Strawberry. It has super cute things for really cheap! I feel bad because we were there for a long time and I'm pretty sure it drove my brother kind of crazy. After getting our shopping fix we walked the Brooklyn bridge. This was something that none of us had ever done and it was really neat. I think the city looks absolutely beautiful at night so it was nice to get a good view of it. We started walking the bridge on the Manhattan side and ended in Brooklyn which was great because that's where Matt and Jaime live plus it's really close to the famous pizza place Grimaldi's. We ate there and it was DELISH! Sounds like a long day, huh? It isn't even over. We walked back to Matt and Jaime's and really close to their house there is a boarwalk called the promenade that looks over the city. So we walked there and looked at the perfect veiw of the Manhattan skyline. Then... we went home and crashed.
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| a cool pic of us in our slippers that Jaime bought for us |
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| gotta love the subway |
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| Jaime, Simon, and Matt- I sure do miss them |
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| Eating at the delicious chocolate place |
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| A hilarious guy wearing undies for a tee. I only wish I knew what it looked like in the front |
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| ha ha this pic cracks me up |
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| Walking the Brooklyn Bridge |
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| me and Sar |
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| Tried to do a jumping pic. Failed. |
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| cuties |
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| This is us eating at Grimaldi's |
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| This is us with a cool view of the city behind us. This boardwalk was really cool at it was maybe a 10 minute walk from Matt and Jaime's |
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| Same pic but the city looks a little cooler |
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| I love this pic. Our feet just look itty. | |
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| hangin at Times Square! |
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| Serious. This place was like real life Willy Wonka. |
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| A way cool building |
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| This is us at Union Square |
Friday: First thing we did was get some delicious donuts at a little place called the donut plant. They are apparently famous for their peanut butter and jelly donut. I don't know what that sounded so weird to me but I decided since it's their signature donut I should try it. Let me just say it's famous for a reason. It was REALLY good. After that we did something that I had been dying to do. I'm not sure how many of you are Cake Boss fans but I am a huge fan. Do you have something that you feel like is especially yours? Something that you feel like you discovered and you'll always have a special place for it? Well for me, that thing is Cake Boss. I found it one day while flipping through the channels and I instantly fell in love. Needless to say, I'm a little obsessed. So my one request for the trip was that we make a stop in Hoboken New Jersey and visit the Cake Boss. We had to wait in line outside of the bakery for maybe 45 minutes. When we went in I was devistated because I saw no one that I recognized. But then shortly after, Mary came out! I was like a little kid in a candy store. And of course I got one of their famous canolis. After that we went to this art exhibit called the earth room. It's literally just an apartment filled with dirt. But it was actuallly pretty cool. The dirt looked so perfect and it smelled really good. As weird as that is. Then we had lunch at this famous New York deli called Katz's deli. While in this deli we met probably the nicest guy in the world. We don't even know his name but he gave us his business card. He's a chef and he calls himself "Mr. Recipe". He was born and raised in New York so he knew all the best things to order. It was hilarious because I was going to get a philly cheese steak and I asked him if it was good. He looked at me and said "honey, you aren't in Philadelphia. You're in New York. Get something we're famous for. So I got the corned beef sammy. Normally I'm not a HUGE corned beef fan but I couldn't get enough of this stuff. It. was. so. dang. good. Seriously though, I feel like I'm not doing Mr. Recipe justice. He was so great! I could go on and on about him. But I won't. After the heavenly deli we went to a New York haunted house. We figured that not many people who don't live in New York can say that they've been to a haunted house there.
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| The NYC haunted house we went to. I must say, I think Utah haunted houses are much scarier. |
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| Mmmm.... DELICIOUS doughnuts! |
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| This was seriously a dream come true for me. |
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| <3 |
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| Delicious Carlo's Bakery treats |
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| MARY!! |
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| Eating the famous canolis |
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| this was a scary broken elevator that we tried to ride |
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| Oh goodness... words can't even say how much I loved this place. So good! |
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| Mr. Recipe with his biggest fans |
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| Another failed attempt at a jumping picture. At least Jess is rocking it. |
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| We wanted to go to Coney Island so bad but it was closed :( |
Saturday: We went to visit lady liberty! She was beautiful. I had been before but for some reason this time I loved it. I kind of almost cried when I first saw her. Guarunteed I would have bawled if there was a patriotic song going in the background. After the statue of liberty we visited ground zero and wall street. Then we went into little Italy for some dinner. There was a big festival going on in little Italy so it was fun to walk through. Matt took us to this place that claims to have the world's best canolis. I hate to say it but... they're right. The canoli I had there was even more delicious than the one Buddy made me. We did a quick little stop in China town after little Italy to pick up some purses. I mean seriously, what's a New York trip without a cute new purse? Then we spent the last hour or so of the night at times square. We even got on a billboard at times square. How many people can say that? Ok, probably a lot of people can say that. It was a billboard for Forever 21 and they took live shots of the streets so we found ourselves in the corner.
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| The ferry ride to the Statue of Liberty |
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| She's a beauty |
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| Wall Street!!! |
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| Sar, me, and the bull |
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| Little Italy! |
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| Rach, me, and Matt at dinner in Little Italy |
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| Shoppy girls |
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| We <3 the NYPD |
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| Standing by the red stairs at Times Square |
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| Our moment of fame! You can see us kind of in the middle at the bottom |
Sunday: We went to church with Matt and James. Then Rachel had to fly out because she couldn't miss school on Monday. So Matt and I drove her to the airport then we came home and just hung out at the house. We went on a little walk and had some delicious dinner. It was really nice to just relax.
Monday: Our last day in NYC :( We spent it well though. We had some lunch at a fantastic pizza place and got some ice cream and a little place called the farmacy that is just down the street from Matt and Jaime's. We were also able to walk around their neighborhood a bit and get a little bit of a feel for it. Then Matty took us to the airport. We were doing the curbside checkout and talking about how we didn't want to leave at all. The guy that was checking us in asked if I had a confirmation number because he couldn't find me on the flight. I handed him my paper and he goes "Angela, Angela, Angela. You really don't want to leave. According to this you aren't scheduled to fly out until October 25th." Yeah don't even ask me how in the world I was stupid enough to book a flight a month later then I actually wanted but somehow I did it. Luckily I was able to switch it and get home. It was pretty scary though.
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| The cute little farmacy |
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| I'm doing a scared face because I had the wrong ticket |
Anyway. That's my New York trip. If you made it through that long blog entry I will reward you with a funny little story. My nephew, Simon, is one of the funniest kids in the world. He had a really hard time at first telling the difference between Sarah and Jessica because they look a lot alike. So he would ask Jessica if she was Sarah and vice versa. One night when we were all just hanging out at their apartment Simon was being especially goofy and kept telling Jess that she was a fish. The next day we were about the eat and Matt asked Simon to give the blessing. Simon does this really cute thing where he will go around and bless everyone in the room. So he starts out his prayer and says, "Please bless daddy and Angie and Rae Rae and Sarah and.... Sarah and... that fish and mommy." It was seriously so funny! Poor little guy, just so confused about who is Sarah and then finally gives up and calls Jess that fish. It was funny.
