Summer in the City

Honestly, who wouldn't love a day when you end up looking like this in the middle of Manhattan?  It's pretty hard to resist especially when you include a crafts fair at Lincoln center plaza, Daniel Dae Kim in The King and I and Burrata Ravioli for dinner.  So you know, just another awesome, hot (and not rainy!) day in New York!

Friday Five: Vacation Edition

1. Rosenfelds Jewish Deli: They recently opened in OCMD and I'm in love.  Their latkes and pastrami were to die for.  It was so darn yummy, we went twice in 2 days.  Now that's commitment.

2. Lights of Broadway Show Cards: I'm pretty obsessed with these card packs at the moment.  Each time I visit NYC, I feel the need to buy a pack for me, as well as one for the bestie - even though I'm not really sure she's even a fan like I am.  I'm fairly certain she's just humoring me at this point.  It's not like I've gotten really good packs either, but they just seem to get me.  The last pack I got among other people I didn't know, "Next to Normal"! and this time around, among other people I didn't really know I got "Falsettos".  Seriously!? One show I love and one show I'm hoping to love when it opens this Fall.  

3.  Liberty Island and a perfect view from Liberty Island: It's a way touristy thing to say, but on a perfect summer day, it was the perfect place to be.  Between the boat ride, the super sweet lemonade and the bright blue sky, we were in heaven!

4. Even though we were stacked behind the tallest people to ever walk the earth, having the chance to go to a Live #Ham4Ham and "see" (Ok, hear...) Lin Manuel Miranda was pretty awesome.  Now if only we had actually won...

He's tiny and blurry, but I swear that's Lin!

5. When it was cold, and windy and the line for Shake Shack was around the block after Matilda let out, finding out that our hotel had an adorable ice cream parlor in its lobby was total icing on the cake.  Some chocolate ice cream with a seat in the window to watch NY walk by was the perfect cap to the evening!

I Left my Heart in...

It was, once again, a lovely 2 days in NYC. And I'm still hopelessly in love with the city, however after having one day of gorgeous weather, and one day of dreadful weather, I'm willing to admit, New York is much easier to take when it's nice out than in the rain.  A whole cavalcade of things that you don't worry about when you have a car comes into play - broken umbrellas, cold, no coats, wind blowing in the face, cars splashing puddles at you.  It's a whole thing. But I digress, all in all it was wonderful!

I'm not sure I converted my travel companion, but she was willing to admit she liked the city and enjoyed all the city-ish things like the subway, seeing shows, people everywhere. Though she's still a bit skeptical of all the walking.  Meanwhile, after having some Subway issues that had nothing to do with me having no sense of direction and everything to do with the stupid Subway token machines, I'm even more happy to walk to everything from now on. It's just so much easier and less stressful!

While I'm sort of (by no means completely) an expert at getting around Manhattan, I was pretty confident that we'd be ok.  And we were. (We didn't get lost once even with signal failure delays and having to change trains - yay us!) We took the Subway from Grand Central, which was a first for me and just as gorgeous as everyone says it is, grabbed a boat over to Liberty Island, which since it was positively beautiful outside was a real treat, saw a show (Matilda is just a bit darker than I thought it would be...), ate NY pizza and capped it off with Ice Cream in our fabulous hotel.  All in all, a pretty jam packed first day.  

Cut to Wednesday.  We had a great breakfast at Pigalle, then had breakfast-dessert at Levain, stood in line for #Ham4Ham (and failed to win tickets.) This is where it all sort of went downhill - the rains came...and came and came. Suddenly the plan to explore Central Park went out the window.  What exactly do you do in NY when you have no desire to trudge around in the rain getting even more soaked than you already are?  You see another show - Hello Something Rotten! again - such a great time filler. Thankfully after the show it had stopped raining  and we could get ourselves uptown to Serendipity for some frozen hot chocolate and dinner. Then it was back downtown for our luggage and quick cab ride to our bus - which were both on time even though the President was in town.

So, what did we learn on our trip?  A few lessons that will come in handy, that's for sure:
~ The Subway assumes if you use your credit card for more than one single fare card in a 24 hour period, you must have stolen that credit card and it will not allow you to use your card in the machine again for 24 hours.  Also, the machines don't take cash.  Both of these facts, add up to mucho frustration.
~ New York in the rain, while still magical, is a bear to navigate.  Think of the million people you pass at any given time in a city, now give every one of those people a soggy umbrella.  Yep.  The only thing to do in the rain is get thee to somewhere warm and dry preferably in a quick manner.
~ The ferry terminal to Liberty Island has better security than some small airports I've been to.
~ And last but not least, getting to see the city from the eyes of a newbie is just as exciting as I thought it would be! And since there's so much more to explore, surely she's going to have to come back again so we can take another crack at it!

* These are a few of my fave shots from my camera, because I haven't gotten around to editing my phone shots yet.  Hope to have them up this weekend - if for no other reason than I can't wait to scrapbook them :)

Off on an Adventure

Tomorrow starts the second part of my vacation.  After spending a few days at the beach, I'm headed back to on of my favorite places - New York City.  Only, this time around I get to see it through the eyes of someone who's never been there before.  It's been about 17 years since I had my first New York moment.  And I've loved it ever since, but I'll never get that "first time" again.  This time I hope to be able to share a little of that New York magic and give someone the same experience I had all those years ago.  

Hopefully I'll be back on Wednesday with loads of pictures and even more memories!

Scrapping on the Go

Over the years I've read tons of articles of women that have learned to scrapbook on the go. Whether they use apps, or fancy equipment, or just their camera, their albums were super easy and gorgeous.  And I've been totally intrigued by the concept for a while.  I tried it in England, and it didn't go too while.  I had high hopes, but I just couldn't get into the rhythm of it.  

That was of course before I discovered the Pic Tap Go and bought my handy dandy Selphy printer.  Both of these things make scrapping on vacation a breeze.  The process is a fairly easy one - one I sort of just discovered on my own, and one that's probably exactly how the women I've been reading about have been using.  

I take the pictures - which is a pretty important step of course.  Then I edit them using Pic Tap Go (if I haven't said it enough, if you take loads of photos on your phone this is the app for you.  It's so simple to use and makes the shots look so much better than before!)  Then, if they're the 3x4" size, I use PicFrame to combine 2 into a 4x6" size.  Then I use the handy dandy Canon app to print to my Selphy. 

Once I've got my photos, I add a few notes about the pictures, and then embellish with some themed journal cards I've brought with me in my kit. And if I don't have something to fill a space, I leave a note to self so I remember what I want to fill it with when I get home.  The kit isn't anything special.  Just a small plastic container filled with the essentials: scissors, mini paper trimmer, glue, stamp pad, a few stamp sets with block, a few pens, and the cards that match the theme of my trip. Then that's it.  In about an hour today, I had 6 pages complete with all the shots of my trip. Why have I waited this long to learn this?  Such a great concept that I'll definitely be using in the future - of course, I also now have a reason to buy the travel bag for my Selphy now too. Shopping and Scrapping - the best of both worlds!  

Saturday Six

1. Finally (Finally!) getting enough sunshine and warmth to sit on the beach and get in the water.  With all the rain we've had in MD this year, it was great to have a full beach day!

2. Possibly (Possibly!) getting the chance to see #Ham4Ham next week in NYC.  I have high hopes they'll actually have the live #Ham4Ham, and Lin will have someone fun and fairly well-known so my first time NY visitor I'll have with me will get a great chance to see something awesome.  And of course, winning the lottery would be just icing on the cake.

3. I must admit that this ad for the Special Olympics made me tear up upon first watching it. So sweet!  I just love the message!

4. A few weeks ago when someone posted a picture of Lin Manuel Miranda doing Carpool Karaoke with James Corden, I was thrilled.  Now hearing who else will be doing it, I'm so darn excited it's not even funny!

5. I'm not entirely sure where the cat is in this video, but this pit bull is about the cutest thing ever.  The poor thing just looks terrified of a much smaller animal than himself.  How can anyone think an animal this goofy, would be dangerous?

6. Heat Embossing is my new favorite past time.  I may have spent an hour or 2 this week just searching Pinterest for ideas of things to emboss with my super cool heat gun.  It's just so darn addictive!

Zzzz

Enjoyed my vacation a little too much today and therefore I'm much too stuffed, exhausted, and downright ready for bed to put coherent thoughts down in any semblance of order.  See you tomorrow!