loveliness.

Part 2 of my visit to NYC in October.

On Saturday morning, we woke up early and moved out of the Empire to my friend’s aunts house on Park Avenue. It was the most adorable apartment I’ve ever seen, I never wanted to leave. It had so many rooms, but it wasn’t all modern and fixed up.

She had been renting it for decades, before Park Avenue was “Park Avenue” so it’s this quaint little place with long, sloping hallways and two whole rooms filled with books. My friends’ aunt travels all over the world doing volunteer work, so her entire apartment was decorated with things from her travels and pictures of her all over the world. Life goals, seriously.

Once we were all moved in and ready to go, we set out for the High-Line. I’d wanted to see that on our last visit but we ran out of time. Because it was a gorgeous October day, it was really busy, but I’m still glad we got to do it.

We walked the High-Line down to the Meatpacking District, where we stopped off at the Gansevoort Market to eat all the things. I could have spent hours in there, it was such a neat little space and every food stall looked more delicious than the last.

We spent the rest of the day wandering around, we did some shopping, went to Times Square to get show tickets from the TKTS booth and got caught up in a protest. The whole street was shut down by Black Lives Matter protesters, which was pretty crazy to see in person, there were so many people marching.

It was all very peaceful from what I saw, but the streets were lined with police, and there was a feeling in the air like something could happen, a heightened awareness. Nobody was on their phones or unaware, everyone was paying attention and talking to each other, which is rare these days. We stayed for a long time, but eventually we got hungry so we went to the Plaza for snacks.

There is a food court in the bottom of the hotel that had so many good desserts it was hard to choose. We ended up getting the most amazing hot chocolate of my life from a little stall in the back right corner. It was literally just melted bittersweet chocolate. I could feel myself getting sicker with every sip but it was so delicious I didn’t even care.

That night we went to The Phantom of the Opera on Broadway, and it was amazing. My older sister and I used to listen to the soundtrack on road trips and sing our little hearts out, so it was really amazing to see it performed live. I especially loved the scene where he takes her down to his lair under the opera house, the floor comes apart and flickering lanterns and smoke comes up everywhere.

At the end of the show, the Phantom (James Barber) came out to thank the audience and even his speaking voice was breathtaking.

On Sunday morning we had planned to go to Brooklyn, but we stopped off at Rockefeller Center and ended up getting sucked into the shopping in the area (I blame you, TopShop) then going up to the Top of the Rock. We almost went to the Empire State Building, but it was so expensive (like $80/person) and I’d been to Top of the Rock before and loved the view up there so we did that instead.

We made a quick stop off at Junior’s for the best cheesecake in the world, before heading for the airport. It was so nice to spend time with my friend and explore new parts of the city. Just writing this post has made me so excited for my next trip, which should be in January.