loveliness.

Tag: New York

• NYC summer

  Posted at 8:36 am by jasminedesirees, on August 15, 2016

  I was back in NYC in June for work for a few days, and it was my first time in the city in the summer. It was definitely hot and humid (my hair wasn’t impressed) but it was perfect for my agenda, which was work, run in the park and drink at as many rooftop bars as possible.

  I flew in on a Saturday afternoon, and met up with some friends on the upper west side for Mexican food, Magnolia’s, and all the rooftop wine. The view of the park was amazing.

  

  

  Sunday I wandered around, did some shopping,and watched the Pride parade. It was really neat to be there in person, and everyone was having such a great time. It was so hot though, and for some reason I was wearing jeans, so I eventually had to escape into the nearest air conditioned Zara.

  

  

  On Monday I finally got to try By Chloe, after hearing about it for almost a year. Everything on the menu is organic and vegan. I tried the Quinoa Taco salad, and it was really delicious. We also got one of the enormous chocolate chip cookies and some sweet potato fries, the beet ketchup was really good also, and such a pretty colour. After work we went to a much needed yoga class, and then I walked most of the way back to my hotel.

  

  One of my favourite things to do in the city is just wander around, there is always something going on, and I love people watching and seeing all of the restaurants, shops and galleries.

  

  

  Tuesday was my last night in town, and we really wanted to find a good rooftop bar. We tried a couple near the office, but all of them were so packed that we ended up wandering around and found ourselves at a German Beer Hall drinking enormous beers, at enormous tables, with enormous pretzels, watching groups of people do shot-skis, while listening to Polka music. It was really random, but really fun.

  

  

  

  After we left the beer hall, we made one last ditch effort to get on a rooftop, and found ourselves at Salvation Taco. The rooftop was crowded, but we managed to snag a table, some chips and salsa, and some delicious margaritas. The view from the rooftop was gorgeous, and I loved the decor.

  

  

  

  Writing this post has kind of made me sad, I’m starting Grad School in two days (!) so tomorrow is my last day at my current job. I’m going to miss everyone I’ve worked with for the last couple of years, and I don’t know when I’ll be making it back to NYC, so I’m really glad my last trip was such a great one.

  

  Posted in New York, travel, USA | 0 Comments | Tagged New York, nyc, pride, roof tops, summer, travel

• brooklyn

  Posted at 8:00 am by jasminedesirees, on June 14, 2016

  

  A few pictures from my last trip to NYC. I was finally able to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge, about half way through the day of eating all the things/ walking all the miles, and it was pretty wonderful.

  

  

  

  It’s something I wanted to do on both my previous trips, but the first time we basically ran out of time, and the second time, it was pouring, and I got distracted by shopping.

  Nothing was going to stop me this time, even though it was realllllly cold out, and I was dressed inappropriately for the weather, as per usual.

  

  

  

  

  There were kind of a lot of people there at the beginning, but not everyone walked all the way across, so it kind of thinned out towards the middle.

  I was trying to get to DUMBO (Down Under Manhattan Bridge Overpass) area, as instructed by a few of my co-workers who live in Brooklyn, but I didn’t know when exactly to get off the bridge so I’m pretty sure I walked an extra mile and a half, just for fun.

  

  

  

  

  DUMBO was cool, I liked all the graffiti, there are some cool shops, and a glass merry-go-round and the waterfront was gorgeous. It poured rain almost my whole trip, and it was grey and freezing when I walked across the bridge, but just as I was getting down to the waterfront, the sky came out and I got an amazing view of the NYC skyline.

  

  

  

  I came across the most adorable restaurant called The River Cafe, it was all covered with ivy, with its own little potting shed right beside it, right on the river. I almost decided to eat there, but it seemed like a pretty nice place, and I looked a bit crazy after spending most of the day walking in the wind and rain, so I decided against it.

  

  

  

  

  Lucky for me, because I found paradise around the corner in the form of Juliana’s pizza (I’m pretty sure heaven is just being in a cozy restaurant beside a pizza oven with a glass of red wine on a frosty day) but I would love to go back and check out The River Cafe next time I’m in town.

  

  

  

  

  

  I might be going soon, in the next couple weeks actually, and it’ll probably be my last trip for a while since I start grad school in August. I’m trying to make a list of things I want to do while I’m there, but so far all I have is to see the Book of Mormon, and to drink at a rooftop bar, and I think I’d be pretty satisfied if those are the only things I accomplished.

  

  

  Posted in New York, travel, USA | 0 Comments | Tagged Brooklyn, brooklyn bridge, New York, nyc, travel

• randomness in NYC

  Posted at 8:00 am by jasminedesirees, on April 1, 2016

  A few random pictures from my trip to NYC in February. I was there for work, and it absolutely poured for most of the time I was able to run in the park a few mornings, which was heavenly as always.

  I didn’t stay for the weekend this time, instead I took the latest flight home on Saturday so I would still have some time to creep around.

  

  

  

  I wanted to see a play on Friday night, I’ve been dying to see The Book of Mormon for years, but the only ticket I could find was standing, with a partially obstructed view for $100. I passed, but apparently I’m just going to have to suck it up and spend the money if I ever want to see it. They came to SF a couple of years ago and it was $800 a ticket, so $150 next time I’m in NYC probably isn’t terrible.

  

  

  

  I spent all of Saturday creeping (read: walking) all over the city, including a trip to Brooklyn, and eating ALL OF THE THINGS. It was the best day ever, but more to come on that. At the end of the best day ever, I still had some more time to kill before my flight so I decided to head to the Museum of Natural History, because I’ve wanted to go there for years.

  

  

  

  I didn’t realize they had a new exhibit on dinosaurs opening that day, so I was truly shocked to see a line that went on for 3 city blocks. I decided to skip it, and instead, I cut across the park and went to the Met.

  What people (including me) don’t realize about the Met is that there isn’t actually a ticket price, it’s a donation. I didn’t get it until the cashier asked me for the 5th time if I was sure I really wanted to pay $25. I’m sure I couldn’t have looked stupider as I pointed to the sign and stammered inarticulately at her, but in the end I just ended up paying the full price so that the interaction could be over. Money well spent.

  

  

  

  Being at the Met in person was amazing, I went from room to room taking in all of the pieces, and so many of them I had seen prints of before, which did absolutely no justice to the real thing. Some of my favourites were the Vigee Le Brun exhibit, she painted images of Marie Antoinette and her children (I’ve probably read every single book ever written on Marie Antoinette, it’s a problem) and the Monet paintings.

  

  

  My mom bought me an enormous waterlilies print when I was in high school, and it was so big it took up almost the whole wall of our bathroom. It didn’t really go with anything else in our house, but it was love at first sight and I begged until she gave in.

  

  Even just writing this post has me excited for my next trip. Truly love this city.

  

  Posted in art, exploring, New York, travel, USA | 2 Comments | Tagged Central Park, exploring, monet, New York, nyc, renoir, the met, travel

• autumn in new york: part 2

  Posted at 9:09 am by jasminedesirees, on December 17, 2015

  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.

  

  

  

  Posted in New York, travel, USA | 0 Comments | Tagged autumn, Central Park, Manhattan, New York, travel

• autumn in new york: part 1

  Posted at 8:37 am by jasminedesirees, on December 1, 2015

  I still have a couple more posts from Seattle to share (I may have mentioned how much I LOVED that city) but I’ve been traveling a lot lately, so I wanted to mix it up a bit.

  

  

  

  The week before Halloween I was lucky enough to get to fly to New York for a week to work out of the NY office for my job. A lot of the people I work with every day are there, so it was really nice to actually meet everyone in person after talking to them every day on the phone for months.

  

  

  

  I stayed at the Empire Hotel right near Central Park West, so every single morning (no matter how late I’d been out the night before) I forced myself to get up and go for a run. I was training for the triathlon at the time, but also it was just so beautiful there I felt like I could run for hours and never get tired.

  

  

  

  I was there the week before the New York Marathon, so every morning while I was running, there were groups of workers putting up bleachers and getting ready for the race, it kind of made me want to stay and run it. I probably would have died, but I did say after our last marathon a few years ago, the only way I would ever run another one would be if we did NY.

  

  

  

  

  

  I was so excited to go to NY in the fall, I’ve only been there once before, in March. The leaves were starting to change, but I was excited for some cold weather, and it was actually really nice out. At this point I should just get rid of all my winter clothes, it’s not in the cards for me, apparently.

  

  

  

  

  

  

  I worked in the office Tuesday-Friday, but didn’t book my flight home until Sunday night, so I had a couple of days to creep around the city and explore, and one of my very best friends came out to spend the weekend with me. She lives in Indianapolis now, and I hadn’t seen her since her wedding, over a year and a half ago, so it was an amazing weekend for lots of reasons.

  

  

  

  

  

  I’ll be traveling to NY a lot more starting in January, so I’m excited to spend more time in the city and explore a lot more. If you have any suggestions for cool places to visit or restaurants to check out, please let me know!

  

  

  

  

  Posted in New York, travel, USA | 2 Comments | Tagged autumn, Central Park, Manhattan, New York, travel

• 911

  Posted at 6:34 pm by jasminedesirees, on March 24, 2014

  Most of the things we did in New York were pretty surreal, I’ve wanted to go there all my life, and it was neat standing in front of places that I’ve seen millions of times in photos and movies.

  The most surreal thing was the 9/11 memorial. It’s such a beautiful, peaceful spot now with the water flowing and spraying in the wind, and people gathered silently around looking at the memorials and taking pictures. It’s very hard to picture it as the site of such a horrible thing.

  I really tried to just stand there quietly and take it all in, and tried to imagine how it must have felt to be there that day, going from feeling safe and secure, in a familiar place you go to every single day, to horrible pain, terror and uncertainty in a split second.

  I’m sure you can’t fully appreciate what it was truly like if you weren’t there, but I’m glad I was finally able to visit the site and see all of the names. Watching so much coverage of the attacks on the news, it almost felt like watching a movie, even though I knew it was actually happening. Being there in person reminds you that those were real people who died that day, somebody’s family, somebody’s friends. It could have been any of us.

  And seeing the pools in the shadow of the new World Trade Center 1 tower reminds you that people are resilient, and that even if  they’ll never forget, they will always rebuild.

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  Posted in life, New York, travel, USA | 0 Comments | Tagged 9/11, life, memorial, New York, rebuild, world trade center

• lady liberty

  Posted at 8:19 pm by jasminedesirees, on March 21, 2014

  On a bitterly cold morning in NYC, at the crack of dawn basically which seemed like a good plan when I was planning our trip, but didn’t take into account the drinking into the wee hours of the night before, we loaded onto a boat to go see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.

  We stood up at the very front of the boat, outside, to get the best view, but we were completely alone. Everyone else was inside the cabin, warm and toasty and looking at us like we were nuts. My mother pointed out that she lives in Canada and it’s way colder there. I reminded her that I’ve been living in Hawaii and California for the last seven years, and helpfully offered to push her in the water so she could remember what it felt like to be freezing.

  Once we got to Liberty Island, we climbed up about 250 stairs to the top of the platform. The Statue of Liberty is definitely smaller than I thought it was going to be, it looks absolutely enormous in all of the movies and shows I’ve ever seen, but it was still really neat to see it in person.

  I was also surprised and a little worried that I was the only person I could see to have posted an upskirt shot on Instagram. You learn new things about yourself everyday, apparently, like the fact that you are a kind of a pervert.`

  As we were leaving Liberty Island, we noticed an empty tour boat heading to New Jersey that nobody was on. We asked the guy where we would get tickets, thinking we might go over and have lunch in New Jersey, and he gave us the strangest look and said “New Jersey? You don’t need tickets for New Jersey. Who would pay to go to New Jersey?”. He was not wrong.

   

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  Posted in exploring, New York, travel | 3 Comments | Tagged exploring, New York, statue of liberty, tourists

• top of the rock

  Posted at 5:56 pm by jasminedesirees, on March 19, 2014

  One of the coolest things we did in NYC was go up to the top of Rockefeller Plaza and look out at the city. We actually had tickets to go up right before sunset so we could see the day, the sunset, and the night views, but we had some issues with the hotel we were at so we ended up having to go later.

  The view is really amazing from up there, you know there are a lot of people in New York, but seeing all of the lights stretching out for miles and miles in each direction is pretty humbling. It was a pretty warm night so we stayed up there for quite awhile just marveling at the beautiful view and taking pictures.

  I was fairly devastated when I saw this a few days later. It was on The Tonight Show on Monday, and we were up there on Saturday, so it was likely filmed sometime over the weekend.

  If we would have made our earlier ticket time, it would have been me he was photo bombing, and then I could have been in a photo with, and possibly met Jon Hamm. And then I would have probably just jumped off the roof and ended it, because there is really no where to go from there but down.

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  Posted in exploring, New York, travel, USA | 1 Comment | Tagged city lights, jimmy fallon, jon hamm, New York, photo bomb, rockefeller plaza, top of the rock

• manhattan

  Posted at 3:45 pm by jasminedesirees, on March 11, 2014

  Our time in New York is going so fast, only two more days and we’re off to Toronto. It’s been such a busy, fun week though.

  I worked from our Manhattan office today, it was really nice to finally meet a bunch of people in person that I’ve been talking to every day for months.

  Also, I found a place that makes really good lemon drops so I’m pretty much all set.

  

  Posted in exploring, life, New York, travel, USA | 0 Comments | Tagged lemon drop, Manhattan, New York, travel

• ny

  Posted at 4:23 pm by jasminedesirees, on March 6, 2014

  I actually can’t believe it even as I’m typing this, but we are leaving for New York tomorrow. Also I haven’t even started packing, so right on schedule then.

  Some of the things I want to see are:

  Statue of Liberty : This one is pretty obvious, I think it’ll be pretty neat to see in person after seeing so many images of it all my life. Or maybe it’ll be super underwhelming and actually be like 10 feet tall, like the Mona Lisa is apparently very tiny and unimpressive.

  Metropolitan Museum of Art: I’m really excited to visit The Met, and my mom is a painter, so it’ll be really fun to go see it with her.

  9/11 Memorial: I remember exactly what I was doing when I found out about the attack on the World Trade Center. I was sitting on the bathroom vanity doing my makeup, and I heard my dad yelling from upstairs.

  Central Park: I’ve always wanted to visit Central Park, especially Belvedere Castle. Even though it’s just going to be one big snowball, it’ll still be awesome to see. Actually I’m pretty excited about the snow, it’s been too long.

  The Plaza hotel: I’ve wanted to visit the Plaza for so long that I can’t even remember when it started. I suspect that it was when I was about 9 years old, when I started reading The Babysitter’s Club books my Ann M. Martin. Stacey was my favourite character, and her favourite book was Eloise, a story about a young girl that lived in the Plaza hotel. I’ve never even read Eloise, I guess I just assumed that if Stacey liked it, it was probably amazing. It probably is.

  And tons of other things. I know it’s all super touristy stuff, I’m also just excited to creep around and do some exploring, but I want to have a list just in case we do have some free time, we won’t waste it trying to think of what we want to do.

  We’re going to be staying with a friend in Brooklyn for most of our visit, and I’ll be working out of our Manhattan office, or as is more likely, getting lost on the subway and crying on a street corner.

  I’d love to hear any suggestions that anybody has for fun places to visit, or great restaurants!

  Posted in exploring, life, New York, travel, USA | 0 Comments | Tagged Brooklyn, Central Park, Chicago, explore, Manhattan, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, statue of liberty, Times Square, travel

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