We are BACK from vacation. Chase said today he didn’t feel like he usually does when we get home from disney, like he needs a “vacation from his vacation” but I sure do. I’m exhausted, my legs are sore, and my face is chapped from walking around in the cold. And I’m stressed but that’s a story for another day.
Wednesday got off to a rough start. We had to be up at 3:30 in the morning to head to the airport. So we both went to bed really early and then… neither of us slept great. I slept for maybe 2 hours. Gave up around 1:30 and just messed around on my phone. It wasn’t excitement or anything, I think for me it was weather changing causing a migraine to kick off.
So we got on up and headed off to the airport. I haven’t been to the airport since 2019 and boy have they changed things. It looks nice and modern!
Big treat of the trip was we were in First Class. We had enough miles to upgrade. So that was exciting! They hung our coats up, got us drinks, snack boxes, etc. Only bummer is that the in-flight wifi wouldn’t work. I was stuck reading the one wikipedia page I had open (Elizabeth Taylor lol) or playing solitaire. Tried to sleep for a while, I think I maybe got an extra hour in.
Landed and got our luggage pretty much immediately. Got an uber and headed to the hotel. That was an adventurous trip, our driver at one point got stuck on a street with a delivery truck stopped and no way to get around it and cars honking, crazy.
But got through the traffic and to the hotel. Couldn’t check in yet so we checked out baggage and headed to lunch… or tried to.
Turns out there was a man threatening to jump out of this building right behind us – and right above where we had lunch plans. Police had the road blocked off, FBI on the scene. We couldn’t get to the Burger Joint for lunch.
So instead we went to carnegie deli where I had a chicken sandwich and Chase had a lobster roll. It was yummy.
So then we headed to MOMA for a few hours.
After we’d seen the highlights, we headed off to meet Chase’s cousin at her office, make plans for the rest of the night, and then we went back to the hotel to see if we could check in.
And we could! We stayed at the Warwick which we really liked. My only beef is they didn’t have enough places to plug in chargers near the nightstands.
Also view from our window was… nothing. It was the brick backside of another building LOL. It threw us off the next morning because we both woke up and were like oh it’s still dark out (look at clock) no it’s 8AM, so it must be really grey and dreary out. (go outside) Nope it’s sunny!
I slept in pincurls that night hoping to at least have 1 good day of curls and … this was my hair by about 4PM.
Boo!
We went to rockefeller center to meet Chase’s cousin for dinner.
She lead us through the subway to Union Square, where we had an amazing dinner at a Thai place:
And then we went to a play — Chase’s cousin had season tickets for this particular theater, so she gave us her 2 tickets and bought 1 extra for herself. It was called Black Odyssey:
And it was SO GOOD, I laughed, I cried, I cried again so hard my mask was wet. It was really truly beautiful and the place was so small it felt really really personal. I could sit here and say this actor was amazing or this actress was amazing but they all were. It just so damn good and it’ll stick with me for quite a while.
Made our way back “home” because it had been a LONG day on little sleep.
Thursday we got up and had a small breakfast right around the corner from our hotel – right down from the Ziegfeld Theater:
back to the room to finish getting ready and then we headed to the Burger Joint for lunch – where we’d planned to eat the day before.
So instead of central park we got our umbrellas ready and went shopping. Since this was Chase’s big bday trip we were mostly shopping for him. Went to all his favs, Nike, Lego, etc.
Nintendo store! I got a shirt for Kevin.
Made our way up to times square and the disney store…
I got a shirt at the disney store!
Spotted magnolia bakery on the way back towards the hotel so got some banana pudding and snacks:
We hadn’t made solid dinner plans for this day, so that morning we decided we wanted Italian food, googled around a found a place but at that point only reservation we could get was 9pm. So after a long shopping day, we had a nap, changed clothes, cleaned up and then found a bar to hang out in until dinner.
They had good drinks.
Also I have to say both google and apple maps SUCKED for walking directions. It would constantly send us walking the wrong direction or just spin. This time after we left the bar, we put in the restaurant name and it started walking us down the block and around the corner. Then suddenly changed. Turns out the restaurant was right across the street from the bar the whole time. It was really frustrating the whole trip.
Anyway – oh, my god
I have to preface by saying I don’t think really have good italian food here in the south. We have olive garden/macaroni grill levels of italian food and even all of our “fancier” italian places, it all just tastes like tomato sauce dumped on noodles to me. I absolutely fell in love with the lasagna at tutto italia in epcot, because it actually TASTES good and not like having a tomato shoved down your throat. So I was excited to try italian in NYC. And this totally lived up to my expectations and surpassed them. This lasagna was soo so so soo soooooooo good. OMG. I can’t remember what Chase had, but he loved his too.
They sang happy birthday to Chase but I messed up getting the video 🙁 They brought him a little cannoli with a birthday candle in it, which I ate because he wanted the tableside tira misu.
Anyway now my stomach is growling just thinking about it all again.
On the way back to the hotel we stopped to get drinks for the room and I met a bodega cat!
Friday we had plans with Chase’s cousin all day. I wore my new star wars spirit jersey from the disney store!
We rode the tram to Roosevelt Island…
Which turned out to have 2 amazing things right up my alley..
Um hello abandoned smallpox hospital??
And uh holy shit this FDR monument a few steps away was designed by Louis Kahn??
I tried a couple of times to get out to the Salk Institute when were in San Diego for comic con years ago but it never worked out. So I at least finally got to see a Louis Kahn design with my own eyeballs.
Then we went to serendipity 3 for lunch… I had this mac and cheese and it was ENORMOUS.
Like I only managed 5 or 6 more bites after this photo LOL
Then we headed to the Met for the afternoon.
In this case I’d been to the Met before so my main goal was seeing the FLW house which I’d missed the first time, and making sure Chase saw the highlights.
I could have spent an entire day here, start to finish, but alas we only had so much time on this trip.
The FLW room! Amazing!
In heaven
Saw Madame X
Washington
Spent a lot of time in the armor room, Chase loved it all. Here’s Henry VIII’s armor.
And a monkey stealing a baby
I didn’t know this art was there!! It was exciting to see, that’s what I based my green Belle library dress on back in 2019.
HEY that’s not Nadja
A Mucha
This copyist really knew how to set the whole scene beyond just the painting. The vibes are immaculate.
After a short break sitting out on the steps and eating a pretzel, we walked up to see the Guggenheim:
Maybe one day I’ll actually go in it.
And then it was dinner time, Chase’s cousin once again was our subway guide and we all went to this korean bbq place where they cook it at your table:
OMG it was all so good.
After that we headed up to Grand Central Station.
And we found the whisper corner!
Then saw the library…
And then we headed to Chase’s cousin’s apartment. We had the rooftop of her building to ourselves, had some drinks, took some photos…
Gorgeous
After that marathon of a day we were exhausted. Made our way back to the hotel (on the subway by ourselves!) and fell asleep without even turning the lights off LOL
Friday we ventured out onto the subway on our again… this time heading to Flippers.
We’ve been wanting to try these fluffy japanese pancakes for a looong time. We got there right before they opened so we didn’t have a long wait.
We both really really loved the pancakes. But Chase got these strawberry ones and felt like the 2 wasn’t enough and he wished he gotten a side – he left still hungry. My 3 was plenty for me, though I’d also ordered a coke which the waiter apparently missed. When we flagged someone down after I hadn’t gotten it by the time food came, the person we asked went away then came back and told us the coke wasn’t on our ticket. Did we want to add it? Uh yeah thats why we asked about it. That was kinda weird. Then it took FOREVER to get our ticket. The table next to us had turned twice and was on its 3rd couple by the time we finally left. Again, weird.
But food was amazing.
Anyway this was another day that got flipped upside down. We’d originally planned to go to the brooklyn museum and eat lunch in brooklyn this day, but after the previous day we were just too worn out and decided to take it easy and just do our fabric and camera shopping this morning instead of in the afternoon like we’d originally planned.
And then that got flipped on its head because while we were at breakfast, Chase realized the camera stores were closed saturdays.
So we did head on into the garment district so I could peruse fabric.
Went to mood. Didn’t find anything that caught my eye for any future projects.
Stretch house did have some thick blue neoprene I MAY use for Lothal Leia, so I got 3 yards of that. Thankfully I brought a space bag to really squish it down into my suitcase to get it home LOL So that was the extent of my fabric shopping.
After that it was rainy and gross so we stopped in a coffee shop for a snack. While we were there, Kristie texted us that the Macy’s flower show started the next day. We realized we weren’t too far away, and Chase has wanted to do some more fabric shopping, so even though the flower show hadn’t started yet, we headed to Macy’s.
The wooden elevators!
chase found 2 really cute shirts so it was a successful trip.
And then even though the flower show hadn’t started yet, they seemed to have already set up a bit of it, so we did get to see some of it.
We were again near the library so we decided to go check out the inside.
The Winnie the Pooh originals!
This MASSIVE Albrecht Durer print
Stopped in a few more stores on the walk back to the hotel, took a nap, then it was time for the BIG DINNER.
Dinner was right by Strand bookstore, so we decided to leave a little early and check that out first. Called an uber. Uber driver gave us a copy of the Quran since we were going to a bookstore.
Strand was really cool! So much to see. but also so crowded.
And then dinner was omakase at Shuko, which proved to be hard to find. This was the entrance with no signage or anything.
It was absolutely incredible, we started off with 3 small dishes, and then a series of chef’s choice sushi, each piece made for us by the chef working right in front of us.
Every piece was SO good. It was all so… thoughtful I think is the best word I could use to describe it. Thought went into every part of the meal.
Then dessert was this cocoa ice cream with rice puffs, and they brought Chase’s with a candle and a birthday card!
It was really fantastic.
Then we went back up to Times Square so Chase could see it at night.
Sunday morning we went BACK to Carnegie deli because Chase wanted breakfast this time. And this time I got the lobster roll.
Then we took the subway down to B&H photo
Chase had saved all his bday money for this so he bought a few things and had them shipped home.
Then we went back into times square to try our luck at the tkts booth.
It was a long line, but we were kept entertained by the people watching, and by the nice folks working the lines at the booth chatting with us about the shows they’ve seen.
I DO wish we could have seen this.
But as we looked at what was available, talked it over, we decided on Peter Pan Goes Wrong. We got 2 tickets center orchestra row G so that was fantastic!
Then it was finally time for Central Park. I’m REALLY glad we waited til Sunday because we couldn’t have asked for nicer weather. So many people out enjoying the park, walking dogs, it was so fun.
We took a pedicab tour which was THE BEST WAY to get around and see everything without killing ourselves. And our pedicab guide even took photos for us!
After that we walked to the Ralph Lauren flagship store
Which was way too fancy for us.
Sunday night dinner we waited til Saturday night to figure out. And most of the places we looked at going were already booked or didn’t open early enough for us to be able to do dinner before our show.
We finally stumbled upon Tuscany Steakhouse which was nearby and looked good, so we booked that. And it was good, the steak was incredible.
Then we walked down to get in line for our show…
Before the show started, some of the cast was in the audience doing bits and it was hilarious.
And then show was SO funny. I’m glad this is what we picked. But now we also apparently need to see The Play That Goes Wrong because Peter Pan Goes Wrong is its sequel!
Monday was mostly a travel day, packing, airport hectic-ness, dealing with the trolls from my IG drama, the nashville shooting, etc. What a crazy stressful day.
But I don’t want to go into any of that here, our trip was grand and fun and most importantly Chase really loved it. I think he had a really fabulous birthday! 🙂