New York is everything! It's the everything I hoped for and more. From our extremely fabulous and comfortable flight with BA which might I add, we shared with Jessie J who happened to be stood directly behind me in our queue on to the plane. She did ask for photo, but I had no time as I was ushered to my economy seat and she made her way up what I called the stairway to heaven. That's the upper section of the aircraft, it looked golden and beautiful and I know for a fact they had beds AND WiFi because I may or may not have depressed myself when booking by checking out how much it would cost for me to not sit next to people.
We spent a lovely five days in the Upper East Side of Manhattan. We were close by to most places including the Museum Mile which was my absolutely favourite day out, Central Park, Times Square, 5th and Park Ave. We decided not to stay in a hotel and hadn't planned on doing much of the typical sight-seeing, purely because we didn't want to be overly touristy and wanted to live like New Yorkers. We found our apartment using Airbnb, perfect for us. A cosy Carrie Bradshaw (Pre-Big) style apartment from which we drank champagne and ate birthday cupcakes. Again perfectly situated on 1st Avenue surrounded by lots of eateries, coffee shops, bars and retail stores.
During the five days we spent in the city Ben and I didn't really stick to any solid plans and really just went with the flow. We took trips to the Met Museum, Guggenheim and Natural History Museum. The Met really was my favourite as it has everything! I fell in love with a collection of furniture and pieces taken from old French hotels such as the Boiserie from Hotel De Cabris in Grasse along with the Grand Salon and Boiserie taken from hotels De Tesse and De Varengeville Paris. Needless to say after seeing such beautiful rooms the budget for our wedding had tripled in price!
We enjoyed a trip to Times Square which in all honesty was fab. It wasn't my favourite place to be but funnily enough was my favourite place to shop (and Bubba Gumps wasn't too bad either). I loved Forever21 and Urban Outfitters. I'm not fond at all of our UK Urban Outfitters and in the however many years our Manchester store has been open I can say I've probably visit the place no more than twice. Now, in New York I visit the store three times in five days! Honestly the vibe and set up is completely different than in the UK. I spent most of my time in the beauty section where it was like being a kid in a candy store. The product range is out of this world! Everything from Stila to Lime Crime and lots of cute Japanese brands too. The place is amazing and on my second trip there I was interviewed by a New York beauty magazine complete with a mini photo-shoot. What an amazing experience!
We were lucky enough to experience the New York Marathon and the atmosphere that day was great! Our apartment fire escape was situated right in the heart of it so Ben (the dude) and I managed to get our very own, front row seats. The city was on a natural high, everybody was happy and for me this was the experience I was looking for and somehow we managed to find it without even looking.
We walked everywhere and despite working hard to make room for a little extra weight before leaving for our trip, I somehow managed to come home 3lbs lighter. We took a long stroll through Central Park, for a lover of all things Autumn this was the perfect day. We had lunch at the ever-famous Boat House and continued our journey through the most beautiful park I've been in. It was so nice to watch the performers and I obviously lost my mind on more than one occasion when I realised I was walking through real movie locations. I think I managed to reenact scenes from Sweet Charity, Maid In Manhattan, Sex and the City and Home Alone to name a few. At one point I hid behind a rock and recreated a scene from Limitless and I definitely know I shouted out a few quotes from the Warriors but who cares?! In such a beautiful city there's bound to be a couple of thousand crazies and I was definitely one.
I could go on forever, but I'll let some of my favourite pictures do the talking. New York is the place to be and in five days I only scratched the surface. I fell in love and left a piece of my heart there. I honestly can't think of a better way of celebrating getting old.
I've added a few more photo's ... hope you like!
Love Beanie x x
