The Late Honeymoon/One Year Anniversary Recap Part 1: New York

After 10 days away, Eric and I made it back home in one piece.  While it's nice to sleep in our own bed and spend time relaxing in our own apartment, I don't think we were really ready to come back.  We could easily have spent another 10 days (or longer!) traveling through Europe, but, you know, we have those pesky things called jobs that help us pay bills and eat and keep a roof over our heads.  So we very reluctantly said goodbye to our very late honeymoon/one year anniversary trip and hello to our normal lives in Omaha, Nebraska.

But before I completely say goodbye to this vacation, I wanted to share some of our experiences and pictures from each of the 4 places we visited.  Since I'd like to avoid writing the longest blog post ever, I'll be breaking this up into 4 parts, each focused on one area of our trip.

Today's post is all about our time in New York, which was the first stop on our late honeymoon/one year anniversary trip.



New York has always been one of my favorite places.  I used to visit at least once a year (sometimes several times a year) when I was younger, but after I graduated from college I just didn't have many opportunities to go back.

Eric, on the other hand, had never been there.  When we were discussing places to visit on our trip, it just made sense to spend a few days there before heading off to Europe.  I hadn't been there since 2006 (which was crazy!), I really wanted to experience the city with Eric, and it was on his list of places to visit ... So, like I said, it just made sense to kick off our trip with some time in New York.

Eric and me on the plane when we landed at LaGuardia.  As you can see, we were really excited to start our adventure!

I took pictures of every hotel we stayed in.  It's probably weird, but I like to remember those places too.  Our New York hotel was the Hotel Belleclaire.  We got a really small, cozy room, but it was actually pretty perfect for us.  We got in plenty of cuddle time (yes, I'll probably get a little mushy from time to time in these recaps), it was in a nice location on the Upper West Side (it was shockingly quiet in our area), and it was incredibly affordable (which was really important since we dropped quite a bit of money on the European portion of our vacation!).

Our room at the Hotel Belleclaire.

We took turns taking pictures outside the hotel as well.  I'm not really sure what's going on with my foot in this picture, though.

I also tried to take pictures of the majority of our meals.  (If you've read any of my previous blog posts, you may have noticed that I like food.)  I didn't document every meal, but I took pictures of most of our food.

This was at Luke's Lobster, which was really close to our hotel.  We got the Noah's Ark, which (if you can't see the menu very well in this picture) was a meal for two that included a lobster roll, shrimp roll, and crab roll (each cut in half), two bags of chips, two drinks, and two pickles.  The food was awesome!

Why is Pinkberry so much better than any of the frozen yogurt places we have here?

We had Indian at Swagat (which was also very close to our hotel).  It was delicious!  Eric had the Lamb Saagwala and I had the Lamb Chettinad.

We had dinner at a little hole in the wall Irish Pub (O'Brien's) before we went to a show, and it was actually very good.  Eric had a pulled pork sandwich and fries and I had the Guinness beef stew with a side salad.

We spent a lot of time in museums while we were in New York.  Somehow we managed to hit up the Museum of Natural History, the MoMa, and 9/11 Memorial Museum in the 3 days we were there.  (I know ... I still can't believe we were able to squeeze all of that in!)

The dinosaurs were our favorite part of the Museum of Natural History.

I like to pretend the fossils are coming after me.

See?  It's just like Jurassic Park!  (Okay, not really.)

Eric was much less worried that these fossils would attack.

Some of my favorite pieces in the MoMa.  I was really excited that there were several paintings by Giorgio de Chirico on display!  (If you're not familiar with his work, one of his paintings is featured in this collage on the top right.  He's probably my favorite artist of all time.)

We took a few pictures inside the museum, but I thought these pictures from the memorial and surrounding area were more "blogworthy."  The museum itself was incredibly emotional, though ... I definitely shed some tears while we were there.

In addition to the museums, one of the highlights of our trip to New York was seeing Michael C. Hall star as Hedwig in Hedwig and the Angry Inch.  If you're not familiar with the story, I highly recommend at least seeing the movie (Michael Pitt has a small role, and you may remember how much I love his work!).  Michael C. Hall did an amazing job ... Eric and I were both blown away!  I had no idea he could sing like that!  If you're in the New York area and can snag tickets, I'd highly recommend checking this out (especially before Michael C. Hall finishes his run on January 18th!).

We weren't allowed to take any photos during the performance (not surprising), but we at least got a picture of the theater beforehand.

And, of course, no vacation recap would be complete without at least a few touristy pictures:

We really didn't take too many touristy pictures, but I thought these two turned out pretty well.

A "touristy" shot of me on the street.

And, of course, a "touristy" shot of Eric.

I'll end this post with just a couple more pictures (I know I've already posted about a million!).

We almost never take good pictures (especially when we try to take a picture together), but I actually thought this one turned out really well.  We took this in our hotel room before we left to hit up some museums on our second day in New York.

And finally a not as good, dark, grainy picture from the streets of New York.  (Yes, we went to New York and took a picture in front of Trader Joe's.)  We didn't care about Trader Joe's, though (I mean, we have one very close to our apartment here).  We cared about the turkey picture on the Trader Joe's window.  I haven't shared our turkey obsession on this blog, but trust me ... If you knew us in real life, this would make a lot of sense!  (I hate the way I look in this picture, but I just had to share it anyway.)

So there you have it ... A (somewhat) brief overview of our time in New York.  We walked about a million miles, ate a ton of delicious food, saw a lot of cool shit, and had so much fun.  We'll definitely be going back!