Busy Girl's Guide to New York

Last weekend I took a trip to New York with my beautiful bestie, Kelsey.

We had a great time and savored every New York minute.

With every experience, comes lessons learned, so here are some of the lessons that I learned while in New York.

1) Always, always wear comfortable shoes. Don't go for the cuteness factor. I thought it would be cool to wear these cute little booties our first day there. WORST IDEA EVER. My feet STILL hurt.

2) Carry a portable charger with you. Because there are so many people in the city and 100,000's of them are using their phone you're phone can die pretty quickly. It's always good to have a backup! My phone never died while we were out, but Kelsey's did. 

3) Pick up a paper map of the subway system. Yeah, they've got apps for it, but they forget to tell you that you have no service when you're underground. And the subway system is the most confusing thing I have ever seen. It's good to have a map in front of you to reference. 

4) Brooklyn has good beer. Kelsey and I are beer lovers so we knew the one thing that we wanted to do was visit the Brooklyn Brewery. We had so much fun and the beer was delicious. You must go if you get a chance. 

5) Take a walk on the Brooklyn Bridge. They have a walking path that is perfect for running, walking, and taking in the beauty of New York. I highly suggest taking a walk on it.

6) Everything is expensive in New York. Cab rides, coffee, water, alcohol, food. EVERYTHING. Even salads were more than some entrees at a few of the restaurants that we went to. A $12 glass of wine? What? I budgeted about $200, including cab fare, anything that I wanted to buy, and food. And thankfully I was able to keep just under that. Expect to spend money and lots of it when you're in the city. 

7) Have an idea of what you want to do before you go. Kelsey started a GoogleDoc before we went and we jotted down all the places that we wanted to go. And to be honest, we pretty much did everything that we wanted to do.

8) Use Yelp. When we were figuring out where we wanted to eat for each meal, it was really helpful for Kelsey to look at Yelp. It tells you what kind of restaurants are around you and how much money you'll have to spend. 

9) Order Tickets beforehand. If you want to see a Broadway Show or go to a taping of a show, get your tickets before you go. They do sell cheap tickets beforehand, but you have to wait for hours in line and you're not even guaranteed a ticket. Kelsey and I thought about going to get tickets for SNL, but we didn't want to waste time to do that when we weren't even guaranteed a ticket anyway. 

10) Have a great time. New York is huge and there's no way to do everything in one day. Take your time. Figure out where you want to go and go do it. New York is an incredible city and has so much to offer so take advantage of it! 

For the Love of Nashville: Part 2

After a delightful Valentine's Day evening, the next morning I was more than excited to go explore Nashville.

First stop: The Frothy Monkey Coffeehouse. Oh, how I love coffee.

Gill got a bagel sandwich and I decided to giver their homemade hummus and chips. 

Next Stop: The Adventure Science Center. We're both pretty big nerds and act like kids all the time. We had such a great time. I'm so glad we went!

Next stop: Mas Tacos Por Favor. I had heard great things and wanted to give it a try. It was absolutely delicious but it quickly got very busy.

Tip: Get there early. 

Next Stop: Broadway St. The "strip" of Nashville. Gill and I enjoyed a drink and some great conversation at one of the brewhouses on the strip.

We walked on a gorgeous bridge that connects downtown to the Titans Stadium and to me, it's one of the best views of downtown.

After walking around downtown, we decided to try this new social club called Pinewood Social.

If you ever visit Nashville, you have to go to Pinewood Social.

Tip: Get your name on the list for bowling early. We got there about 5 pm and they already had a waiting list of 11 people on top of reservations. Hopefully, we'll be able to go back there sometime and bowl. It looked so cool! 

For the Love of Nashville: Part 1

I could go on and on about how much I am in love with my boyfriend, but that would take me forever to write. The sum of it. He's the love of my life, my soulmate and my best friend. And if he was a city, he would be Nashville. He "gave" me a trip to Nashville for my birthday back in October and because of school, work and previous commitments we decided that it would be great to spend Valentine's weekend there too.

Both he and I have done all the touristy stuff there is to do in Nashville, so we wanted to really experience Nashville, the way the locals do.

So we packed up, filled the gas tank and headed west hand in hand towards Nashville on Friday, February 14th. We arrived around 4 pm, checked into our room, got dressed up and headed out for dinner.

I used this great website, Roadtrippers to plan our trip. It's great, you should check it out.

For Valentine's dinner we went to Monell's Cafe. Later, we met a Nashville native that said that we chose to go to the wrong Monell's location. Nashvillians recommend Monell's in Germantown.

After dinner we decided to go to the Patterson House for drinks and dessert. Go there. Please. It was the coolest experience and the drinks were out of this world. And if you want to get food, get the S'mores. You'll understand why when you taste them. It was so dimly lit I wasn't able to get any good pictures, but here's a picture of Gill and I as we were leaving.

Tip: Get there early. We got there relatively early and still had to wait about an hour before being seated. It gets packed fast and they don't take reservations unless you have a party of 6 or more. Also, it's on the corner of the street and there's no sign. During the day it's a restaurant called The Catbird Seat. That's how you'll know you're at the right place.


Look for Part 2 Tomorrow!

Nashville Lovin'

Just had the best weekend ever, with the man that I love, in the city that I love, on the day of love. Look for more posts coming this week about my fun weekend in Music City, Tennessee.