New York City Vacay

I am finally back in North Carolina after a slew of back-to-back work trips and vacations.

Recap:
November: Madison and New York City
December/January: Miami, D.C., Texas, NYC

I don't travel again until March when I go to Salt Lake City (work) and Scottsdale, AZ (Diana and Will's wedding!) I'm a bridesmaid and am soooo excited!

In other exciting news my best friend, Mali, is newly engaged to Sean. I get to be her bridesmaid (and help plan the bachelorette party.....oh the possibilities)

Trip to NYC:

The most recent NYC trip was a lot of fun, however it was FREEZING outside. It reminded me a lot of Wisconsin except less snow.

Liz and I arrived in NYC New Years Eve early in the morning and went straight to the West Side YMCA where we were staying. Well, we tried to go there. To avoid a $60 taxi ride, we took a bus ($2.25) to the subway ($2.25) and got out at 65th and Broadway (the YMCA was at 63rd and Broadway)

It was windy, snowing, wet and slushy on the ground and we could NOT find it! We spent almost an hour rolling our suitcases through the slush and muck, getting our feet soaking wet and cursing at Google maps on Liz's iPhone which could not make up its mind about where we were going.

Finally we just hopped in a cab and 3 minutes later were at our destination. Google Maps was trying to take us west when we were supposed to go east.

I must admit, it was a great location, right on Central Park near Lincoln Center and Columbus Circle, and it was also cheap ($50/person/night)....however it was NOT what we expected. We had heard stories of how awesome it was from a friend of Liz's, and when we got there we were told we had been "upgraded" from the room with bunkbeds we had reserved to a room with a "double bed".

"A double bed for each of us?", I asked.

"Uh...no, just one", answered the desk guy.

They were totally booked so we had no choice but to stay in THIS "room"

This was taken with me leaning against the door:
This view is right in front of the TV and heater.
I mean, WTF!?!?! The bed was definitely smaller than a double bed (my feet hung off the end) and I'm pretty sure the mattress was filled with concrete.

This so-called 'upgrade' was totally a scam and we think they called it that because of our view, which actually was pretty nice:
This is where we stayed on the map:
Anyway, we immediately started drinking as a way to manage our anger:
We spent New Years Eve in the Hell's Kitchen area, it was a lot of fun (I think).

Being the uneducated tourists that we are, we thought we better get to a bar early in case it got too crowded. The last thing we wanted to do was wait in long lines outside in the cold. So we finished off a bottle of champagne and a bottle of wine around 5pm, and then had another bottle of champagne......then more wine.....then some free donuts from the guys at Dunkin.....then the Irish Pub.....needless to say, we were not technically awake at midnight (don't worry, we did make it back to the room). Unfortunately I cannot blame this one on jetlag.

The next day we got up before noon (after a good twelve hours of sleep) and switched rooms. We got a room with bunk-beds which gave us a bit more space, however they were still made out of concrete. After moving rooms we found a place for breakfast which we ended up going to everyday (Whole Foods' breakfast buffet) and proceeded to wander through Central Park on the way to Saks 5th Avenue. It was COLD.
At Saks we tried on Burberry coats. Liz bought a beautiful black one and I was going to buy this one but it was too big (and I need the thousand bucks for rent):
On Friday we also went to Bergdorf Goodman, Bloomingdales, and FAO Schwartz. At Times Square we bought half-price tickets for Avenue Q, the BEST show I have ever seen. However this is the worst picture ever taken because I didn't want to use a flash:
But here is one taken of the net:
We were heavily reliant on the street map and the NYC subway app on Liz's iPhone:

On Saturday we took a tour of NBC studios and saw the sets for Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and the SNL studio. We also watched the iceskaters in the plaza, gazed up at the Tree and did some more shopping:

Then it was on to the Guggenheim. The line to get in wrapped around the building, however we found a quicker way in via the museum's restaurant and past a distracted security guard.
The building was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and is absolutely gorgeous:
Celeb siting out side the Gugg (Paul Giamatti buying a hot dog):
It was SO COLD and windy that we decided we should see a movie, we ended up at It's Complicated (pretty good). This was followed by an Italian dinner with a very flirty bartender waiting on us. We thought the free drinks and not-very-subtle winks were pretty cool until we saw him doing it with the people at the other end of the bar.

After mending our broken hearts over a glass of red wine, we eventually made it back to the hell hole of a room. Did I mention the bathrooms were down the hall and that the water was either freezing or scalding?

Sunday we ate breakfast and hopped on the Subway uptown, then a bus through Harlem to LGA, then a plane home. We were very proud that we only took one taxi ride ($5) the entire trip.

It was a great trip, but I'm glad to be home!