I love that song. “Empire State of Mind” by Jay-Z & Alicia Keys, a good jam but unfortunately I didn’t get to listen to it while I was there. Actually I didn’t get to listen to any music except in the taxi coming from the airport into Manhattan. Our cabbie, “Mr. Yes”(who also could have been Funk Master Flex), was bumping some pretty good beats. NYC has the best urban radio stations! Other than that, the rest of the trip’s soundtrack consisted of soothing elevator muzak and the music mashup that was heard in Time Square. Gotta love it.
So I decided to surprise my boyfriend Devon with a trip to New York City for his 30th birthday! What a great trip! Eating amazing food, seeing NYC, being huge nerds and taking tons of photos, having celebrities encounters and waking up to the best view. Right, did I mention we were staying at a million dollar condo two blocks from Times Square for FREE? Now that was badass. Huge thanks to my friend who offered up his place for a few days while he was on vacation. You’ll see the amazing view we had in the photos below.
Alright, so whenever I watched those Food Network shows and they showed people eating and complimenting on how good the food was at a restaurant, I always thought how exaggerated it was. I mean really, is the food really “mind blowing” or is it just pretty good and you don’t want to get cut from the scene if you give a mediocre review. I’m telling you, there were no cameras or crazy famous chef’s cursing in the background but I was making those made-for-tv comments while dining at Chef Mario Batali’s restaurant Del Posto. Honestly, some of the most amazing food and flavour combinations I’ve ever had. The wood-grilled lobster with artichokes, hazelnuts & basil – one of the highlights of the whole trip! I wish it wasn’t so dark and I had a proper camera to take a photo of it. My iPhone 4 failed miserably here. If you ever go to New York City, you MUST go here. I’m not sure if you noticed but my trips usually revolve around food and you’ll probably end up reading about it on here too haha.
Some other highlights, we saw Ryan Reynolds our first day as he came out of the David Letterman show and later that day we randomly got approach by a young fellow who happened to work for the Letterman show and got tickets to the next taping. The guest for the show we saw was none other than Newmarket/York Region alum, Jim Carrey. There aren’t too many famous people from around here so in my moment of crazy and hometown pride, I thought it was only right that I would shout “NEWMARKET YEAH!” in his face as he came out to sign autographs after the show. From the photo, it looks like I scared him a little haha. Sorry Jim, didn’t mean to startle you but thanks for the great photo op and not having your security remove me from the premises :) The Ryan Reynolds photos will have to wait as I only had my film camera at the time. The film is currently being developed.
The trip was much too short, there’s just too much to see and do there that three days was not nearly enough. I felt like I power-walked for three days straight. A quick note to others, the Guggenheim Museum is closed on Thursdays. We found that out by reading the sign on the door at the Gugge :(
In any case, an excellent trip and there’s no one I would have rather been there with than my favourite nerd ♥
Enjoy the photos and leave a comment and let me know what you think! Ping!
These were the views from the condo :D
This is Jim Carrey looking scared.
