new york city - final day

our flight left jfk on friday at 4:40pm, so we had to leave our hotel around 2pm to catch a cab to the airport. that meant we had the morning to play around the city for just a few more hours! the weather was much less frigid (and 75 at home!). we went into super elite stores like bergdorf goodman and tiffany's to pick out our future engagement rings. we stopped at h&m as well where emmie and maggie found a few articles of clothing. oh and the world of disney! we walked down to rockefeller center and watched couples ice skating and falling all over themselves. it was quite entertaining just to laugh at them! we went below for lunch at pret, and emmie's roommate from when she was at nyu met us there.




next we caught a (way too expensive and jerk of a driver) cab to jfk that took an hour in traffic. emmie and i napped along the way and we checked in to our flight without glitch. emmie got a random pat-down search just as we were entering our gate, and we had to walk outside (but not really outside because we were in a tube type object all the way) to our plane. SOMEHOW, my license flew from my hand when we were in the tube object and slid through a tiny crack and landed OUTSIDE in a puddle of melted snow. only me, only me. thankfully, i got it back.

and this was waiting for us in raleigh when we returned!!



all in all in was an action-packed trip! i almost died a million times be it from my danskos or the ice and i'm pretty sure we've never been so cold ever before! i haven't been able to get enough sleep since we've been back, but we all had so much fun and saw so much around the city! thanks to emmie, we never had to look at a map. it was nice to be guided around the city without having to think! she was our very own tour guide! i can't wait to go back - we already made a list of things we didn't have time to see.

new york city - day five

thursday morning we left around ten again and headed toward ground zero and to the seaport. there we got some great shots of the brooklyn bridge.





next we took the staton island ferry (for FREE!) so that we could get some good shots of the statue of liberty and the skyline, without actually having to pay to go
to the statue of liberty. it was thirty minutes there and back. on the way back we braved the back of the ferry in the freezing cold in order to get better pictures!








from there we headed to little italy for lunch at a tiny place tucked away. real italian food! i had contacted a cousin of mine earlier that morning and we planned to meet him at his apartment. my cousin, carter, is a reporter for the stock exchange every morning on cnn, and he is married to courtney friel who works on the entertainment side of fox news. needless to say, seeing their apartment was a treat! it was only a block from times square and spacious for a ny apartment! these are the views from his balcony:






carter took us to a bar called the joshua tree, where we stayed for two hours in the afternoon! we were floored when he picked up the tab - and very grateful!



from carter we went to the empire state building! we have NEVER been SO COLD before. it was freezing and the amount of wind was RIDICULOUS. we were on the 86th floor and got these fun pictures!







that night we did the touristy stuff a little more and shopped in the tacky 'i heart ny' stores in times square. we went to m&m world and the virgin records closing sale. we just kinda took it slow for our last night. we were so exhausted! we grabbed dinner and took it back to the hotel to wrap up the evening. that was our last full day in ny!

new york city - day four

wednesday morning we slept in a bit again, and headed right to 'the little mermaid' to get tickets for the matinee performance that day. we had planned on lunch and shopping at macy's, but by the time we got all the way to macy's all we had time for was lunch! it was a great little place emmie had been before: martinique. after lunch we headed back across town to times square for the show, and stopped to take a few pictures along the way.







'the little mermaid' was cute and fun. those were student tickets, so we ended up on the very front row. our necks were a little sore from looking up but we had a lot of fun! all the actors are on 'heelies' so that it looks like they're gliding through the water. ariel had an excellent views and the little boy who was flounder was adorable. oh and ursula was the best! we all love ariel =)

that night was a concert of a favorite artist of mine: tyrone wells. when we found out he would be in nyc the same time as us, we knew we had to make the trip to see him! he performed in the meat packing district, and whitney's cousin, mark, came to the concert with us too!



we ate dinner during the show, so it was nice to have tables where everyone sat (instead standing and screaming for an entire show). the atmosphere was very chill. our table was right up front so it worked out perfectly! pat mcgee opened for tyrone, as well as another guy who was really talented (but i can't seem to remember his name). afterward we got to meet tyrone (for the second time in our lives) and take pictures with him!






we would have regretted not seeing tyrone when we were so close! after the concert, mark took us to a swanky bar and bought us a round (since he was the only employed person, and all). it was a great end to another great day.

new york city - day three

on tuesday morning we decided to sleep in until about ten, in order to avoid the level of exhaustion we reached on monday. we took the subway to china town, where we had an amazing (and huge) authentic chinese lunch. we then walked to heath ledger's (old) aparment (rip!). after that, we tore up the streets of china town! over all, we ended up with lots of pashminas, luggage, jewelry, perfume, and a ton of purses! people were constantly walking around saying 'gucci prada chanel coach' under their breath. emmie took one of them up on it and got a $60 REAL chanel bag. it had to be real. we priced it at bergdorf goodman a few days later and the exact same purse sells for $2,595. the best part was that her 'seller' gave us his phone number and said that if there was ever something we wanted, we should take a picture of it and send it to him. he said he would ship it to us! oh, and his name was jigger - that's j-i-g-g-e-r.

after shopping for a few hours, we were pooped. we went back to the hotel to get fancy for WICKED later that night. it was absolutely freezing outside; the coldest night yet. whitney and i decided to be ballers and wore heels! we walked all the way to the theater in them. the cold weather was in my favor at that point because my feet were completely numb.





we had 8th row seats and they were absolutely amazing. the show was unlike any i had seen before. the costume, the set, the actors; all of it together made for a dynamite performance. it helped that i only knew the music of wicked, so i had no idea about the plot. it was definitely the best show i have ever seen, and i bawled like a baby! after the show we stood outside in the FRIGID air to wait for the actors to come out! we posed with elphaba, and got the autograph with several of the actors. turns out one of them was glinda, we just didn't recognize her out of costume!

us with elphaba:




after the show we had dinner at ellen's stardust cafe. all the waiters and waitreses are off broadway actors. they sing the entire time you're eating! that was so much fun. we were seated next to three germans that turned out to be a hoot (and a little sketchy too) but it made for funny stories. we went to a pub with them for a little while after dinner, and while we were only 2 blocks from the hotel, we took a cab home because of the cold!





wicked was the best decision we made all week.

new york city - day two

on monday we woke up early (seven am - the ONLY time that happened our entire week in new york), only to open our window revealing a winter wonderland outside! and it was still coming down. we hiked FOREVER away (in the blizzard) to the set of 'the view' to try our hand at stand-by tickets.





because of the amount of snow coming down, plenty of flights into ny were canceled, meaning we got tickets to be on the show! we had to turn our phones off immediately, but we took trips to the bathroom to briefly text our families and let them know we would be on. we were numbers 104-107 in line, but we all had the letter 'm' written on the back of our tickets. we soon found out (when we were called by the letter 'm' before a lot of others in lines) that the letter meant we were young and cute! we were seated in prime spots to be shown by the cameras. i guess 'the view' wants to look like it has a young audience.




the show was pretty boring and i remembered why i hate it so much: they all yell so loud over each other that it's impossible to hear what anyone has to say. it was a 'hot topics' episode so no one famous came on, but we did get a free 'the view' spring mug! mom will really appreciate that! several friends from home saw us as the camera quickly panned the audience, so it ended up being worth the hike through the snow!





even though it was still snowing profusely, we decided a (long) walk through central park would make for cute pictures. while it did result in several fun pictures and lots of memories, we were absolutely FREEZING. i have never been so cold in my life!










we came out of central park near the mac store, and couldn't help stopping in to warm up and to check our e-mail. bad decision. my camera unfortunately met the cement floor and acted funny for the rest of the trip. luckily, emmie, maggie, and whitney took plenty of pictures that i was able to borrow, so the ones you see from here on out could belong to them. i did bring out my camera with my long lens along when i knew it would be useful, but otherwise i counted on the other cameras on the trip. after the mac store (rip) we checked out fao schwarz and whitney and i racked up on fun candy. by this point, we were all still frozen and STARVING, so on the way back to the hotel we stopped at a typical hot dog and pretzel stand and took it up to our room. then, we took a two hour nap! heaven. when we woke up it was about 6:30pm! we had planned for two weeks to watch the finale of the bachelor in our hotel room, even if we were in the middle of new york city! whitney wasn't feeling so hot, so she stayed behind while emmie, maggie, and I braved the cold to find dinner. we got made-to-order pasta and snacks and brought it back just in time for our favorite show to begin! i invited a friend, philip (and his girlfriend) to watch with us as well. it was a little party in our hotel room!






those were just some silly shots we all took of the tv while watching the (most dramatic yet) finale. after three hours of the bachelor, we went out for cheesecake with philip and kelly.





another fun-filled and exhausting day!