NYC - Day 4

Monday was one of my favorite days of our trip. We started the morning by grabbing more coffee and visiting Macy's, which was only a few blocks from our hotel. We quickly learned that it's not really fun to shop when stores are that big. Actually, it's horribly intimidating. I did enjoy the entire floor of shoes--no surprise there.

We continued walking north and made our way to Rockefeller Center. We are both HUGE 30 Rock fans and I looked high and low for Liz Lemmon (Tina Fey). After taking several pictures we wandered in some familiar stores: Banana Republic, Anthropologie, J. Crew and the like.





Even if you're not a fan of Anthropologie, I beg you to visit their stores in Manhattan. It was a great experience. The window decorations are gorgeous and the actual store is set up beautifully. I didn't buy anything due to the size (see paragraph above) but I could have stayed in there for hours discovering the odds and ends of the store.

Enough about that. Dad, still with me? We had lunch at Tri-Tip Grill in Rockefeller Center (not bad!) and then continued walking around the area. We also visited St. Patrick's Cathedral and Radio City Music Hall.

Once we finished looking around Rockefeller Center we made our way to 5th avenue. For 2 hours we went in store after store and were ignored by everyone. I realize our appearance/attire didn't scream "rich rich rich!!!" but I figured someone would acknowledge us. Nope, not one. I blame it on my blonde hair. Regardless, the stores were incredible.

Annie told us to head over to Dylan's Candy Bar (Dylan is Ralph Lauren's daughter) because their store windows were decorated for Fashion Week--dresses made entirely out of candy. Fabulous!


On the way to Dylan's we passed a Diesel store with their latest ad campaign, "Be Stupid." Are you kidding me? I want to punch whoever came up with it. It was so ridiculous that it made me think of Zoolander's Derelicte. ("Let me show you Derelicte. It is a fashion, a way of life inspired by the very homeless, the vagrants, the crack whores that make this wonderful city so unique.") :)


We also checked out Magnolia Bakery---ohhhhh glory. Those cupcakes were amazing. Definitely worth trying. I had red velvet and Michael had German chocolate.



As we were heading back to the hotel we stopped at Midtown Comics for Michael.
And then, my friends, we went to Mood (if you haven't seen Project Runway this means nothing to you). "Thank you, Mooooood."


We enjoyed the hotel's happy hour one more time and then it was time for Michael's birthday dinner.

We took the subway to Grand Central Terminal/Station (depends on who you ask) and it was gorgeous. I don't know what I was expecting but it blew me away.


I surprised Michael with dinner at the Oyster Bar in Grand Central Terminal (very good--not great). Michael is a huge fan of oysters and this place had approx 40 varieties.






Whew, this was a long day! We ended the night at the Empire State Building. The whole sharing an elevator with 5 billion people made me want to vomit but it was definitely worth it. Michael had never been to the top so I was really excited to show him. As soon as we were on the top deck I looked at his face to see his initial reaction. Michael's eyes lit up (good!), he said "Oh wow..." (better!), and continued with, "Is that a lightning bug?!" (FAIL.) I might have hit him. Once he got past the lightning bug that was 87 floors up he was impressed with the view. Not the romantic setting I had in mind but eh, it'd been a long day. We can't all be Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks in Sleepless in Seattle (although I do know we were MFEO).


It was hard walking back to our hotel knowing this was our last night in NY....