this was an old vacation i just thought was worth sharing! in march of 2013 we and the fam ventured north to the big apple. new york city is somewhere i've always wanted to visit- all of my favorite books seem to have some reference to it and any time i mention i've never been, people seem semi-shocked. so we finally got to see what all the fuss was about. thankfully j was there to serve as our tour guide as we whipped through everything we could think of in just 4 short days.

in no particular order our adventure included: seeing wall street, battery park and the bull at bowling green park, riding the subway for the first time, catching a broadway play (rock of ages...which was awesome!), cupcakes at magnolia bakery (a given), trying new york pizza (although in the future we will need to schedule some time to make the trek to brooklyn), seeing the statue of liberty, the brooklyn bridge, the world trade center memorial, central park and loeb's boathouse, fifth avenue, chinatown, trying out cheesecake at juniors (shockingly i had to strong-arm my family into this one...they wanted to check out what else was in the area...ludicrous.) the new york public library, a tour of nbc studios and the today show, tiffany & co, the empire state building, 30 rock, discovering "vegas fries" at guy fieri's restaurant american kitchen and bar, (why i've never thought to put buffalo sauce on french fries before now is beyond me), grand central station, bryant park, times square, AND my favorite discovery-le pain quotidien, a little french bakery whose name is french for "our daily bread."

we visited le pain (which i cannot believe is a chain!) every morning for the most decadent hot chocolate i've ever tasted, a cookie-like waffle, croissants, jam and warm coffee. the place is exactly what my personal heaven looks like with warm crusty bread, moist muffins the size of your face, chic coffee and pine scrubbed tables and floors. there was so much to soak up that we stayed on the hop pretty much the whole trip, and left very tired but full and happy. we can't wait for our next trip!

as an aside, i noticed when you vacation in cold climates and you wear dark pants/the same overcoat each day it literally looks like you wore the same outfit the whole trip. a lesson i learned the hard way, and just a little something to think about.

-l
made to border