New York, Baby!!

Hi everyone,

I'm back now from New York and if I could describe it in one word? Amazing. The whole place completely blew me away. I never anticipated just how much of an effect it would have on me and now I'm longing to go back again!

Much as I'd love to waffle on and on for pages about what we did and saw, I'll try to keep it brief so as not to bore you all! We stayed in a gorgeous hotel on Park Avenue, just a few blocks away from Grand Central Station so we were well placed to be able to get to a lot of the things we wanted to see and do. Whilst I think Dad might have been concerned a lot of his holiday was going to be spent sitting outside changing rooms in Macy's and Bloomingdales waiting for mum and I to melt his credit card, we only spent a couple of hours in Macys and the rest of the time was spent sightseeing and soaking up the atmosphere.

The first day we were there we went up the Rockefeller centre and out onto the roof. The views were breathtaking and you could see for miles. Here we're looking north, onto Central Park:
After this we stopped off for a cupcake, then got on an open-top bus for a night tour of Manhattan and Brooklyn which was great. We went with Gray Line tours and had a three day pass and I'd highly recommend them to anyone visiting NY. Every tour guide we had was knowledgeable, friendly and obviously loved their city passionately.

Friday morning we hit the shops and I went to Beads on 5th and got some lovely beads that I hadn't seen at home (Will show them in another blogpost!) and then we went on to Macy's and got some beautiful christmas decorations. In the afternoon we visited the Chrysler Building, FAO Schwartz (lovely toy shop. Remember in the film 'Big' when Tom Hanks danced on the giant keyboard on the floor? That was in FAO Scwartz. I got to dance on it too!) and then we went up the Empire State Building. This was great, having seen the views during daylight the previous day at the Rockefeller, we saw it all at night from the Empire State.

Saturday we hopped on a bus tour which took us around downtown Manhattan. We got off at Battery Park where they were filming a movie (The Other Guys, a comedy due out next year. We saw a clip being made with Mark Wahlberg) and then walked round to the Staten Island Ferry which took us right past the Statue of Liberty. That was an amazing experience. Before that it had all felt like a dream, that we weren't really in New York but seeing Lady Liberty made it all very real - we were really here! After that we got back on the tour bus and carried on up through Manhattan and on into Harlem, seeing some great sights.

Sunday we went to Kate's Paperie shop. Anyone who knows me knows I love my stationery, so to find a store which had stationery AND my name over the door was great! I got a lovely desk calender with vintage New York images and some gorgeous paper and card which I hope to use in a scrapbook of our trip. Afterwards we went into Central Park where Dad and I had a hotdog (or a dirty water dog, as the locals call them!), something I'd always wanted to do. We then got a horse-drawn carriage around the park, which is something Mum had always wanted to experience and it really was lovely. That afternoon we walked back down 5th avenue, looking in the windows of the stores and we stopped off at the Rockefeller Centre again where they had opened the ice skating rink. We could have stood there all night, there were some fantastic skaters. (This is where they have a Christmas tree and is where the end to Home Alone 2 was filmed. Remember the reunion with Kevin and his mum infront of a Christmas tree?)

The next day was sadly our last. We popped into Bloomingdales for a quick look then back onto 5th. As it was Columbus Day there was a great parade all along 5th Avenue with dancers, singers and floats, all celebrating their Italian heritage. It was really great to see as we walked back to our hotel to collect our bags. It was a fantastic trip all in all and I'm already trying to save to go back again as soon as possible!

If you're still reading, thanks for staying till the end! I tried to make it a short post whilst including the main things we did, but believe me, I could have written soooo much more!

Will post again soon, thanks for reading,

Kate x