An Empire State of Mind

A while back I told Drew I would take him where ever he wanted to go for his 30th birthday, Drew loves big cities and New York was his pick!  As most of you can imagine, we had an amazing time in New York, New York!  The weather was pretty humid, much to our surprise, but it didn't slow us down.  Here's the rundown on our trip and a little taste of NY for all of my readers!


Thursday we took a direct flight out of New Orleans on JetBlue.  It's about a 2 hour and 45 min flight so it's pretty great and they have Direct TV for your viewing pleasure!  As soon as we left baggage claim we hailed a cab and were on our way to the condo.  If you've ever been to NY then you already know about the cab rides/drivers.  I love it!  To me it's half the fun of being in NY, horns blaring, yellow taxis darting in and out of traffic, drivers yelling at each other...ahhh the big city!  Now back to the condo, we were all a little worried about the condo situation because we rented it from an individual online.  Yikes, I know.  But the views were incredible and for the price we decided to take a chance despite all of the horror stories we heard.

 Our BF's, Matt and Britt

 The Birthday Boy and his Amazing Wife

Here is our building, Atelier

 As soon as we walked into this, we all breathed a sigh of relief!

 And here is our long weekend home away from home

Next we high-tailed it down to the 9/11 Memorial.  The city only allows 1500 people in at a time so you have to get tickets and be there for your designated time.  The memorial had been opened for 2 weeks, it was amazing and heart wrenchingly sad all at the same time.  One thing is for sure this city will never forget 9/11.  

"Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations

of our biggest buildings, but they cannot

touch the foundation of America.

These acts shatter steel, but they cannot dent

the steel of American resolve.

America was targeted for attack because

we are the brightest beacon for freedom

and opportunity in the world.

And no one will keep that light from shining."

President George W. Bush

September 11, 2001

The Survivor Tree:  This tree was still standing when the dust and smoke cleared on September 11th.  The museum was not open yet, but the World Trade Center "Tridents" will be housed there along with the "Survivor Stairs" and other remnants from the buildings.

Thursday night we walked over to 9th Ave in Hell's Kitchen to find something to eat.  9th Ave (from 37th-57th) in Hell's Kitchen is known for it's many ethnic restaurants.  We decided on an Italian restaurant called Basilica.  "If Lady and the Tramp had been filmed at a real Italian restaurant, it would have been this one."  We loved it, and they loved us!  We had Sangria, bruschetta, I had the Gamberoni Gambusiera, Drew had the Pumpkin Ravioli with Chicken (the Pumpkin Ravioli was to die for!), Matt had the Veal Marsala, and Britt had the Manicotti Bolognese .  For dessert we had handmade canoli, homemade pistachio ice cream, espresso, and on the house after dinner drinks.

 Britt's Manicotti Bolognese

 Gamberoni Gambusiera is served with black pasta.  It's homemade pasta dyed with squid ink and it was amazing!

 We fell in love with Hell's Kitchen, I don't think I would stay anywhere else!

At midnight, my love turned the big 3-0!

 Happy Birthday Kisses! XOXO

Friday morning we woke up to a foggy New York City and a 90% chance of rain.  So we decided to do some shopping on 5th Avenue.  Britt found a fabulous sussie at Louis Vuitton and I found a dazzling sussie at Tiffany's!  Thanks to our wonderful husbands!  Since, it rained all day I didn't take very many pictures Friday.

(All of these were taken from our condo.  Like I said we could see everything!)

 The Hudson River, from our kitchen window.

 That's the Empire State building, I still can't get over how much taller it is than every other skyscraper in NYC.

We had lunch at the Carnegie Delicatessen, their salty beef was out of this world.  Matt and I had The Woody Allen, name after the actor of course.  It was half corned beef, half pastrami....and huge!

 Drew had a foot-long hot dog. 

You can't really tell, but we were soak through and through from the rain.  So we headed back to the condo to dry off, relax, and get ready for Drew's birthday dinner at Keen's Steakhouse.

Keen's has been around since 1885 and has the largest collection churchwarden pipes in the world.  Men would check their pipes in with the pipe warden in the Pipe Room, because they were too fragile to carry in saddle bags.  Keen's is known for their lamb chops, my double lamb chops with mint jelly were delicious!

 Saturday morning we woke to a much prettier day!  

 The cruise ships came into the harbor.

Britt and I headed to H&M for some shopping while the boys tooled around town.  For lunch we headed to SoHo for some Lombardi's pizza...little did we know what we were in store for!

 The infamous White Pizza, this is by far one of the top 5 best things I've ever eaten!

 Next we headed to the Italian Heritage Festival, where we tried things like fried oreos, fried ding dongs, and of course more Canoli!

Then we rode the subway to Grand Central Station.

Look who we found on the streets of NYC!

 Legends!  This was one of the high lights of our trip.  LSU allumni from all over New York gather here on game days to eat, drink, be merry, and cheer on our TIGERS.  It's the most fun I've had outside of Tiger Stadium!  The atmosphere was incredible, the service was stellar, and the Tigers won...I don't think it gets much better than that.

 Sunday morning we went for a stroll in Central Park.  I love this park, there's just something about 843 green acres in the middle of that concrete and steel jungle that brings a smile to my face.

 Nice pose dear!

  

Next we headed over to the toy store to end all toy stores the NY FAO Schwarz!

Matt & Drew were not nice to the toy solider guarding the door. ;)

I think we had as much fun as the kids! 

We had to buy another piece of luggage just to get all of Andrew's sussies home!

Sunday afternoon was Broadway time!  Matt & Britt went to see Wicked and Drew & I went to see Spider-Man Turn Off the Dark.  It was amazing!  The whole time we were going Andrew would love this!  Maybe they'll tour and we can take him to see it.  The actors were flying around on cables, the stage engineering was incredible, definitely an action packed show!

Sunday night we took in a sail boat tour of Manhatten Island which took us out to Staten Island to see the Statue of Liberty.  My pictures did come out too great, what with the moving boat and the evening lighting.

 After our sail boat ride we made one more stop at Lombardi's just for good measure! :)

Finally, Monday morning before our flight home we toured the Empire State Building.

Like I said our trip was incredible!  Drew said this birthday was one of the best yet!  I am very blessed to be able to treat my hubs to a trip like this, we love traveling together, seeing new things, and creating memories that we will tell our grandchildren about.  New York is definitely a place like no other both historical and modern at the same time.  The food is amazing and the cultural difference throughout Manhattan makes for a mini tour around the world.  You should definitely go!