The Big Apple Pt. 2

So, when we last left off, my friends and I had gone to the Empire State Building to cap off our first day in New York City.

The rest of our trip included a few excursions to Central Park, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Natural History, The Phantom of the Opera at the Majestic Theater, and the Strand Bookstore.

We managed to jam pack our itinerary of 3ish days in the Big Apple with the most iconic to-dos, but it was busy. This isn't even including the food we ate between places

When we picked The Blakely as our temporary residence for this trip, we picked it primarily because of the location. It was in walking distance to all of our major Manhattan excursions. We could walk to all of our desired locations listed above.

For our second day in the city, we strolled through the iconic park on our way to the Met!

Central Park is absolutely massive and full of local artists selling their craft, street performers, and even an entire castle! As a Gossip Girl fan myself, I was beyond excited to visit the Bethesda Terrace where Chuck and Blair iconically got married and ran away together amidst a huge New-York-sized scandal.

I genuinely thought that my life would never take me to such a place where I could be standing in such an iconic place, especially because we were on to the next destination (one that happens to be a Blair Waldorf favorite).

We delegated to go the Metropolitan Museum of Art on this day, which took our little group's collective breath away. It was jarring to think that we were walking on the same steps as the most iconic celebrities of our time for the Met Gala.

We made time to sit on the steps of the Met and have our very own Blair moment in front of the beautifully guilded building, which was a bucket list item (at least for me).

We were in the heart of the most precious collection of art in the United States. They had a life-sized Egyptian temple next to an indoor lake, many a Van Gogh piece, the famous sculpture of Perseus holding the head of Medusa, and so many others.

We spent hours perusing the building, even splitting up to go at our own pace. We had decided last-minute not to do the Met and the Museum of Natural History in the same day for this reason. Especially because we had a swanky dinner reservation and the main event of the trip later that evening; the Phantom of the Opera.

Knowing that, we grabbed some lunch and headed back to our hotel to change into our fancy Broadway-worthy apparel and head to dinner.

And so we got our one and only uber of the trip and got picked up in black-tie attire and headed to Scarpetta for our luxury NYC dining experience. To match the event, we got picked up in a super swanky black escalade.

Scarpetta was incredible. The portions were small, but the wine and food were absolutely incredible. I had the most tender duck of my life, the best locally-sourced wine, and the most succulent chocolate cake ever. The atmosphere, the food, the service, all of it was on point (to put it mildly).

After that, we disappeared into the city on our way to experience the music of the night.

To get to Broadway from where we were, we had to get through Times Square once again. In my silk dress, heels, pea coat, and meticulously-applied makeup; I was acutely aware that I was living in a moment I would remember forever. Orange silk billowing behind me, the city lights sparkling like so many stars above me, and life absolutely everywhere.

Just like that, we turned a corner and were confronted with the Broadway. The Lion King, Wicked, and the Phantom of the Opera signs were bannered everywhere. We, of course, were seeing Phantom at it's home theater; the Majestic Theater. I wondered if my great grandmother had seen it here as well and was acutely aware that I could never ask her. Neither her or my mom anymore, but I swear I could feel them with me in those city streets.

The show was incredible. They had Phantom themed drinks, an extra scene or two, and actually crashed the chandelier into the stage.

I had seen Phantom when it went on tour in 2017, but this experience was absolutely unique. The production value was stellar, the vocals and performance was mind-blowing. Broadway is also very intimate, the theaters are small and no seat feels like a bad one.

The beauty of the show brought me to tears more than once. It was nothing short of amazing and the main event of out trip. I adored it. I loved it. I'm so glad I got to see it before it left the grand Broadway stage for good.

We stumbled to our hotel that evening that night in absolute awe for the NYC performing arts district. We slept easily that night knowing that we had a full day yet to experience in the Big Apple, yet feeling full and completely content.

We woke up the next morning and headed to a sandwich shop that also sold breakfast food, a variety of coffees, and even basic pharmaceutical supplies (it was very versatile and I respect it so absurdly much).

It was finally time to visit the Museum of Natural History!

This museum has a wide range of insanely beautiful and educational exhibits. There is a sealed-off terrarium that has existed for 30+ years. It's a glass orb that has micro-shrimp and algae independently existing inside of it, which is pretty cool.

The largest meteorite every found in the world is housed here.

There is a giant slab of a type of mineral that is bioluminescent in the dark, and is also only found in New York? Pretty cool.

There is a room full of precious gemstones, similar to the one in Chicago. The only complaint I had about that is that the Tiffany Diamond wasn't there, but that's an extremely mild complaint.

There are life-sized models of the animals of the world.

Of course, there is also the iconic giant whale featuring a bandaid on its side to promote Covid vaccine awareness.

Long story short, this museum is a must-visit if you're in the city. It is full of something for everyone. It's beautiful.

Next, we knew that we wanted to do some kind of top-of-building experience. Of course, the first thing that came to mind was the Empire State Building. Upon further research, it's absurdly expensive. It's over $100 per person, so we delegated to do something a bit closer to us and something a lot cheaper.

We ended up going to the Top of the Rock, which was such a great decision. It's about 3 tiers of views, a small museum, and you get the Empire State Building as a backdrop to all of your photos!

Plus, it was about half the price.

We also enjoyed avoiding the crowds with this. There wasn't much competition with taking pictures, there was plenty of space to avoid the crowds and just enjoy the NYC skyline.

Next, we had one more thing to do on our NYC itinerary.

We headed to the Strand Bookstore, home of 9 miles of books.

Let me tell you, I felt like a kid in a candy store here. The smell of ink on pages was strong in the air. They had signed copies of some bestsellers, and I got my absolute favorite souvenir from here (see book reviews and check out A Scatter of Light by Malinda Lo). They had a Blind Date With a Book section, a section for banned books, and a section for rare books.

This place was heaven. I loved it so absurdly much. I loved that they had free Strand bookmarks for everyone to take. I loved that they had all types of books for all types of people.

What I really loved was the affordability. It even rivaled Barnes and Noble. Even the signed versions of books were very fairly priced, and it felt like this store really advocated for the vitality of reading as a part of the human experience.

After that, we began winding down our NYC experience. We went to the nearest Whole Foods, bought some bath bombs and bath salts, and headed home. We all soaked our feet in the big bath tub, reminisced about life and our trip, and headed to bed.

We boarded our plane the next day with the acute feeling of the ending of a small era for all of us, but all the better for experiencing it.