Back To Reality

My trip has come to an end and I'm back in the real world. Plane got in around 10ish last night and I was super excited to get home and see hubby. The only real hitch of the entire trip is my luggage did not make my connector flight in Houston. So I'm hopefully getting it delivered this afternoon. I guess I'll do a rundown of the trip by day to make it easier.

Thursday evening T and I caught a bus to NYC for $22 round trip! It was a comfy bus and there were only 9 people on it. It takes about two hours from Philly to NYC, so we chatted, took pictures and laughed the whole time. Our friend who has an apartment in the city, C., met us at the bus stop and we headed to her place to drop off our luggage. By then it was around 8:30pm, and we decided to head to Chinatown to grab a cheap dinner at Penang, a Chinese restaurant. After we were stuffed, we walked around a bit and decided to call it a night.

Friday morning was rainy, so we decided to check out the Natural History Museum. It was a perfect day to be inside all day, plus you can pay what you can afford at the museum. We ended up spending about 5-6 hours wandering all around the museum. And yes, it is the museum from the first movie "Night At The Museum." My favorite exhibits were the dinosaur and sea life exhibits. They had great photo opportunities and very interesting facts and models. Another friend W., told us about a party at the Guggenheim museum that night, so we decided to go there. First we had dinner at POI POI, a Peruvian restaurant that was out of this world! The food was amazing and we stuffed ourselves. We were dressed to the nines and ready to get our dance on, so we headed to the Guggenheim, only to find out the party had been cancelled! No fear, the security guard at the History Museum told us they also had a party going on that evening and Moby was the guest DJ. It was held in the Planetarium, which was amazing. The music was pretty much techno, but that didn't stop us from getting our groove on! I got some great photos of Moby doing his thing, so that was pretty cool.

Saturday we got up and headed to Century 21 to do some shopping. I found a cool mint green shirt and that was about it. I wasn't prepared to spend $250 on a dress I liked. We then headed to Chinatown, my favorite place in NYC. We haggled over perfume, scarves, headbands, purses, wallets, etc. After we had dropped quite a bit of cash there, we meet up with W. in SoHo for some additional shopping and lunch at Bar 89. I had the most amazing BLA, which is a Bacon, Lettuce, Avocado sandwich. T. and C. had an equally amazing burger. After browsing the more expensive boutiques, we headed to Greenwich Village where we stopped at the local favorite Pinkberry. The yogurt is very tart, but I love the mochi balls, which are Chinese rice candy. So I ordered a side of those, minus the yogurt. Needless to say, they thought I was crazy. We also stopped at Crumbs, a bitchin' bakery that has the biggest cupcakes ever. I got the Hostess cupcake which was amazing. We people watched while sitting in the window for a few hours. The plan was to go to the Brooklyn Museum for a dance party that night, but we were exhausted from walking over 10 miles. We decided to eat at Cafestaria, which was a noodle house across the street. It was ridiculously yummy and only $16!

Sunday we got up and bought sandwiches for a picnic in Central Park. We found a shady spot and set out our blanket. The plan was to chill a few hours and then head to the MOMA (Museum of Modern Art). We all fell asleep and decided to skip the museum and just enjoy the beautiful weather. We chilled from about noon to 4pm and then went to check out a street fair that was going on. By 7pm we were hungry and stopped at Asia Grill, which specializes in Chinese and Vietnamese food. I tried the Pad Thai and it was fabulous! It was a huge portion and I tried to eat it all, but failed. By that time we were all exhausted from walking probably over 40 miles total this trip and had to go and pack to get ready to be at the bus stop by 9pm. Our bus left NYC around 9:15 and we began the journey home to Philly on a double-decker bus. We laughed and reminisced about the fun times we had had.

Monday we woke up leisurely and then ran some errands. T had an amazing blow dryer that I will talk about more tomorrow. I had to get one in DE, because I had never seen that type at home. I also made another pass at H&M to see if there were any more clothes I just had to have. Of course there was, so I bought more stuff! I headed home around 5:30pm and was very sad to go. I really do love NYC and it would be a dream to live there for at least 4 months to experience all it has to offer. Anyone want to go next year?!