New York Trip – Part One of Two

I’m still playing catch up, but I finally had a chance to sit down and go through our New York pictures! There were too many for one post so I’ve split it up into two.

We flew out of Nashville bright and early Christmas morning and arrived in New York about 11A.M. Eastern time.

I should mention that Josh woke up that morning with a sore throat and as the day went on he continued to feel worse and worse. I’m not sure if he had the flu or just a bad cold, whatever it was… it set in and hung on.

(Picture Above: Area by our hotel near Grand Central Station)

Being sick was about the last thing we had planned for, but he was a trooper and made the most of it. We used Uber to get to the Grand Hyatt at Grand Central Station. It was literally adjoined with Grand Central Station, which was extremely convenient as we walked or took the subway everywhere.

(Picture Above: Bryant Park)

Another side note. After we booked our trip, some of our close friends made the decision to visit the city over the same dates as ourselves! Each couple had a list of “musts”, some of which we did separately, but we had a great time enjoying many of our overlapping “musts” together!

Please forgive me for the picture quality. With Josh not feeling well, we left the camera at the hotel rather than lugging it around everywhere, so all pictures were taken with my iPhone.

(Picture Above: Bryant Park)

I love that New York is such a walkable city. Josh read something the other day that compared walking New York City to listening to Classical music, while riding the subway is more like listening to Techno music. And while the subway was definitely convenient, there’s something so great about the classical music element of walking the city.

After we settled in to our hotel Christmas Day, we walked down to Bryant Park and met the Peters to walk around an outdoor Christmas shopping area. I had on my tights, boots, gloves, hand-warmers and scarf, but still couldn’t shake the chill. My toes were completely numb. I bought another pair of socks and we ducked into a Starbucks to warm up and add some layers.

(Picture Above: Walking around Lower Eastside)

After Starbucks we went back to our hotel to rest for a bit, Josh was really feeling bad at this point. Not the way we saw the first day of our trip going, but tried to make the most of it.

We got him some medicine from a DUANEreade, which is essentially a Walgreens, but they are everywhere there, and headed out to find some dinner. We ended up at Forcella, an authentic Italian pizza place in the East Village area. I wish I had some pictures to show you but I’m afraid we were all too hungry and ate before I thought to take them! Josh and I ordered their Quartieri Spagnoli pizza; tomato sauce, mozzarella, mushrooms, olives, ham, and artichokes. Could have been a touch hotter, but so good!

We pretty much called it an early night on Christmas, in hopes of getting Josh some rest for the remainder of the trip. We did check out a little holiday light show at Grand Central Station before calling it quits, it wasn’t much to talk about…

(Picture Above: Beautiful sky and architecture of the buildings in the area around Brooklyn Bridge and Canal Street)

Thursday morning was a bit sluggish. Poor Josh was really hit hard by whatever got a hold of him. We stayed in the hotel until nearly 11 before venturing out to meet up with the Peters. After walking around the Lower East Side for a short time, we headed over to walk the Brooklyn Bridge and check out Canal Street. The Bridge, amazing! Canal Street, not so much. But I did get a big bottle of Coach Poppy Blossom perfume for $19 that sells online for anywhere from $55 to $75. I was pretty happy with that deal.

(Picture Above: Delicatessen in Soho area)

At this point, it was nearing 4P.M. and we are all pretty much starving, my Greek yogurt and granola from the hotel shop had worn off, so we went looking for a place to eat.

We landed at Delicatessen in the Soho area. Am I the only one who didn’t know that deli was short for delicatessen? That’s a mouthful… no wonder they shortened it! Since our hotel breakfast wasn’t quite what we were hoping for, Josh and I ordered off their All Day Breakfast Menu. He got their apple french toast and I went for a veggie omelet with goat cheese and potatoes. Then we shared so we could each have a savory and a sweet, a little tip we learned from the Peters!

Now that our tummies were full and our energy regained, we made our way to the Rockefeller Plaza to see the big tree and ice skating rink. Josh was a little underwhelmed. We walked off the subway and he said “that’s not the tree, surely it’s bigger than that”. Funny how our expectations differ. I thought the tree was huge and wonderful! This part of the city was the first that really felt like Christmas!

After Rockefeller, we headed to Serendipity 3 (from the movie) to get their famous Frozen Hot Chocolate, only to find out they were closed for Christmas. We were bummed, but decided we’d check back the following night…little did we know this place has a typical two hour wait. More on that later!

That takes care of the first few days of the trip, I’ll get a post up later this week with the scoop on part two. I figured since the only food pictures I had to show you from the first couple of days was our breakfast for dinner at Delicatessen, it would be fitting to share with you one of our favorite breakfast for dinner options we eat here at home.

This is a Root Vegetable Hash with Aged Cheddar and Over-easy Eggs, check back tomorrow for the recipe!