NYC Recap

As promised, here is the full recap from our fabulous trip to NYC! 

We arrived on Friday early afternoon and quickly dropped off our bags at the hotel and headed out.  We spent most of the day walking down 5th Avenue in awe of all the people and lights.  We ventured in several stores, decided we couldn't afford a thing, and walked right back out.  I failed miserably on Friday with my camera and only managed to get one picture on my iPhone.  I snapped this while in Saks.... I think I could have stayed in there for hours if Ryan hadn't dragged me out...

That evening we took the subway out to Soho and dined at Balthazar.  Balthazar is a famous French Restaurant and it did not disappoint!  We were not able to get reservations but we put our name on the list to sit in the cafe/bar area and walked around the neighborhood for a while and stopped at a pub to grab a quick drink.  We actually ended up chatting with another guy there who happened to be an Aggie who had noticed Ryan's ring.  He gave us some great restaurant suggestions and places to hang out.  We finally made it back to the restaurant and enjoyed the food.  I would definitely recommend if you are ever headed to NY!

The next morning we woke up late, bundled up and headed out for a day of walking.  We first headed to Central Park which is by far my favorite part of the city.  Even though most of the trees were dead and most of the water was iced over, it was still a beautiful site.

I could not believe how many people were out that day.  People were jogging, walking and just hanging out.  I couldn't think of a better way to spend a Saturday.

We walked around for about an hour and decided to head towards one of our fave lunch spots in the city.  We ate at Shack Shack last time we were there in 2009 and simply had to go back.  This time we went to the location in the Upper West Side. 

Mmm my mouth is watering just thinking about this food...

We were sitting next to the window during lunch and we overheard a little boy say, "Look Mom, there's Santa!  And another one!"  This had our attention and we were quite amused to see several people dressed as Santa Claus headed down the block.  Didn't think too much about it though as this was New York and people were pretty crazy there...

After lunch we walked back through the park to get to the Upper East Side.  That's when we saw a few more Santas.....

And then I was really intrigued.  And I had to get this on film.  I couldn't believe how many there were! 
 
And then we stumbled upon this....

 
I've never seen so many red suits and white beards in my entire life.  And I loved it.  We kept our distance though as these Santas were not ones that you let your kid sit in their lap.   I think it was only 1 pm and most of these Santas had been boozing since who knows when.  Yes, it was a full on NYC Santa Pub Crawl.  And yes, we googled it...

We spent most of the afternoon walking around and then headed over to West Village via the subway to have a change of scenery.  We were hoping to find a cute pub to park ourselves in that afternoon but were oh so disappointed when we discovered Santa didn't only hang out in Central Park.

We did manage to find a quiet spot (finally!) and then ate an early dinner at Extra Virgin.  We received this recommendation from a friend and enjoyed another delicious meal :)

It was fairly early in the night at that point and I convinced Ryan to head back down 5th Avenue so I could snap a few pics at night. 

Snowflakes at Saks...

Beautiful bows at Tommy Hilfiger...

Red Ribbon at Cartier...

Then we decided to man the crowds at Rockefeller Center.  Big mistake.  I've never seen so many people in my life!  There was no convincing Ryan to stop for a pic so I was able to snap this one as we feared for our lives to get out.... I kinda like it though :)

At that point we headed back to the hotel to rest our feet from a loonnng day of walking.

We woke up Sunday morning, refreshed, and ready to head out.  But unfortunately, this day it was raining.... I had come prepared though and brought an umbrella and thankfully Ryan had a hood on his jacket.  We grabbed a quick Starbucks and headed to the subway....

We were  headed to Brooklyn to eat lunch at the original Grimaldis.  This place is legit.  Cash only and you have to wait outside in a line to get in.  Thankfully there was a covered area or we would have been soaked!  The food was well worth the wait and we enjoyed every slice...

At this point it had stopped raining and we decided to attempt to work off all the calories we had just consumed and walk back across the Brooklyn Bridge. 

Here's one of the few pictures we have together from the trip.  It's a little cloudy in the background but you can sorta see the Statue of Liberty on the left....

It actually cleared up some in the afternoon and we wandered around Soho Village. We had dinner reservations later that night so we cleaned up at the hotel and then set out.  We dined at Osteria Morini and I think this was a personal fave for me.  I loved the atmosphere and the food was amazing!  

 

It actually started raining again later that evening and Ryan and I decided to try Rockefellar Center one more time on our way home.  We were convinved it would not be near as crowded because of the rain and for the most part we were right.  

So instead of having beautiful snow in the background we have rain.  Oh well, we were happy and it was a great moment! 

I also decided it was a good idea to take a picture with the gigantic Nutcracker :)

And to end the trip, we grabbed one more drink downstairs at our hotel.  Cheers to a fabulous weekend getaway in NYC! 

In summary, we walked a lot, we ate a lot and we had the BEST time!