New York, New York

I absolutely love flying. It's something I hope to learn to do one day, and is listed on my longer bucket list. The flight path into LaGuardia typically gives you an amazing view of the city, and our late night flight didn't disappoint.

I would be lying if I said the view didn't make me a little emotional. Here I am, this incredibly lucky girl, flying over the world, looking down at the lights of one of my favorite cities. I mean, when it's put it like that, it's kind of moving, am I right?

We didn't actually get into the city until after 11:00, so our original dinner plans were tossed aside. We ended meeting up with a good friend from Italy and had a great, late night dinner.

On Saturday, it was kind of weird not having a certain furry puppy waking us up at the crack of dawn. However, we took advantage of our quiet morning and slept in a little. Around 10:00 we headed out in search for some brunch. As I've said before, walking around a city is one of my favorite things to do. It was quite chilly (the first cold day of the year according to a cab driver) but the cold weather didn't stop us. Armed with our winter coats and scarves, we went on a lovely Saturday morning walk.

We found an Italian style restaurant in the West Village and it was amazing (in both the interior design/style, and food departments).

We did some people watching while enjoying some piping hot coffee. Mmm, mmm, mmmmm.

For food, Ralph had the Eggs Benedict, and I had poached eggs over potatoes, prosciutto, and mushrooms. I can't even begin to tell you how good it tasted. Definitely gave us the fuel we needed to power through some shopping.

Side note: Is it weird that I've always wanted to live in an apartment with a fire escape?

I had one thing on my "wish list" for this trip, which was to make a custom color of lipstick at Bite. Unfortunately, it just wasn't in the cards for me and the available appointment times didn't work out with our schedule. Since I was already in the area, I decided to check out the Birchbox store, and as if a Birchbox store isn't amazing enough, Ladurée was just down the street. I'm here to say, if you ever need a quick pick-me-up just buy a beautiful box of French macaroons. It will fix your lipstick woes every time.

By that point, Ralph needed a moment in a bar watching football so we stopped into a local pub to catch up on the Clemson game. We realized pretty quickly that the game was going south so we decided to head north and meet up with some friends at the Maritime Hotel bar.

The only appropriate drink to order when it's 40 degrees outside is a rum spiked cider. Obviously.

We were joined by some friends for a drink, and before heading back to our hotels to get ready for a concert we all went for a walk along the High Line. I think the High Line Park is such a cool idea. Basically, it's an old, elevated train track, turned into a walkway/green space. It's just under two miles long and gives some wonderful, unique views of the city.

I snapped the rest of these pictures while walking around during the day. Some are from the West Village, some are from the High Line, and some are from the walk back to our hotel. All of them make me want to move to New York.