Fun Times in NYC

I spent a long fun weekend in New York city this past weekend as a re celebration of my 29th Birthday. (Above pic is cherry blossom tree just south of Central Park. They made the city smell so good.) I got into Newark on Thursday and went straight to my sisters office. Once she got off work, we headed down to the East Village to meet up with a few friends and my cousin Genna. We had some pretty good sushi and a great Patron Margarita. Then we headed to a Brazilian place had a beer then it was time to head back home.

Friday I did what I do best when I'm in NYC, SHOP! I hit up a couple of great places including Century 21. They have designer clothes from half the price. I also had to make a stop at H&M, love that place. Once my sister was off work, we headed to MOMA, on Friday's after 4 p.m. entrance to the museum is FREE! If you're in the city on a Friday, this is obviously a great deal. From there, we headed to the Upper West Side to go to the Guggenheim Museum. On Friday after 5:45 they have "pay what you want." The suggested donation is $10 per person (it's normally $18 per adult.) Most of the exhibits were the work of Cai Guo-Qiang. One of the exhibits was clay statues that were being created in the museum. They were inspired by pictures from China's fall from Communism. They were so realistic and amazing. The "Gunpowder Drawings" were also very interesting and way to hard to explain. Bottom line; If you're in NYC, make a trip to the Guggenheim before May 28th to see all of the great exhibits there now!

From http://www.guggenheim.org/:
Cai Guo-Qiang is internationally acclaimed as an artist whose creative transgressions and cultural provocations have literally exploded the accepted parameters of art making in our time. This is especially true of Inopportune: Stage One, Cai’s largest installation to date, which presents nine real cars in a cinematic progression that simulates a car bombing, occupying the central atrium of the Frank Lloyd Wright rotunda.

What would a trip to NYC be with out some great pizza. After our museum run, we grabbed a slice from Pizza 33 in Murry Hill. Yummy.

My cousin's Genna and Aaron were in town, so we headed back down to the East Village to meet up with them. We had a great time catching up.
On Saturday my sister and I did some more shopping, including a trip to the Chelsea Market. I LOVE this place. All of the fresh food, live music and free wine tasting, what's not to love. Here are a couple of may favorite, but to check it all out go to: http://www.chelseamarket.com/.

• Eleni's Cookies: My sister bought 2 cupcakes from this place and they were AMAZING!


• Amy's Bread: Hot and fresh out of the oven, you can watch them bake it next door to the store


• The other place, I can't remember the name, I want to say it had the word milk in it. Had fresh milk, milkshakes and a small menu. We had an organic free range chicken sandwich with avocado, bacon, cheese and a spicy aoli(sp?). I wish I could go back there for lunch today!

After all of that, we cooked dinner for 12 at my sister's apartment. After that we headed down to Greenwich Village to watch a couple bands at the Baggot Inn. If you get a chance check out Jose James, he did one song with one of the bands that was there.

This is the Church across the street from Ground Zero where they've finally started major construction. This church, St. Paul's Chapel, was completely unharmed during the 9/11 attacks. Pretty unbelievable. When you are down in that area of lower Manhattan it's hard to understand how this church didn't even have a broken window.

All in all, another great trip to NYC. Thanks for letting me crash at your place Katie!