NYC, the last

Later than planned, later than expected, but nonetheless here: some more pictures from my NYC trip, a few highlights, a look or two and my favorite places to go. Some pictures I didn’t want to keep from you, like this one above, my favorite one from the entire trip, taken on top of Rockefeller Centre. Below some of my favorite places to go, favorite areas and some unpublished pictures, recommendations from my experiences and mainly a little peek into my trip! :)

The Villages, East and West Village, are probably my favorite areas. West Village for the cute streets, some great stores (scored a gorgeous jumper at the APC Surplus store which is sort of an outlet) and places to eat and drink, East Village for the same reason plus vintage shopping (a list of some of my favorite vintage stores in East Village here). Strolling around those two areas is how I spent almost 2 of my 7 days. Another thing I love to do when in NY is go to flea markets. This time I only went to Hells Kitchen flea market but there are a lot of good ones out there, just try Google :).

I was with my dad and luckily we have a lot in common and many shared interests. Although shopping is more my ‘thing’, and he enjoys art more than I do. It definitely wasn’t a punishment though to visit some musea with him, like the Metropolitan and my favorite: the Museum of Modern Art. No pictures from there, because I really think you can’t capture pieces you see in a museum by camera well. You’re going to have to go look for yourself! A little tip though: the New York CityPASS is a booklet you can buy which gives you admission to some great things to see in New York and getting it will save you over 40% compared to normal admission prices. Check it here for yourself.

I’m a big foodie, and couldn’t keep these 2 absolute highlights from the food part of my NYC adventure from you guys, although I made sure my food was good every day, of course.
One of my favorite things to do is eating taco’s. The best and most fun place I had them was at Tacombi at Fonda Nolita. You just walk into what looks like it used to be a garage, but is now how I imagine a Mexican taqueria to be. The cute Volkswagen Van definitely does something for the place as well, and there’s just a really fun atmosphere that is real and cozy and then there’s of course the main reason I went there for the first place: really good Mexican food.
Another one I couldn’t keep from you is Root & Bone in East Village, where you can get a basket of insanely good fried chicken (whole or half, guess which one we went for) with sides to die for. That bowl of mac and cheese in the picture on the right? You can wake me up in the middle of the night any time for it. A really cute and cozy place as well, definitely worth going to with friends to for a chicken dinner!

Whenever I go to New York I visit the High Line and Chelsea Market as well, the latter being the place where I found this ‘heartbeat’ ring I got as a gift to myself. The fact that it’s in the shape of a heartbeat has a special meaning to me after having gone through health problems in the past and at the same time it’s a reminder for me to ‘live a little’ more often :).

So of course there was shopping involved in the trip, which is inevitable when you go on a trip with me. Soho is still my favorite place to be, where this picture was taken on a day I strolled around that area and enjoyed going to stores like Supreme, Opening Ceremony, Diptique and the big Topshop that’s there so much that I didn’t even mind not getting anything. I often tell you how picky I’m getting when it comes to shopping which for me is a good thing so not coming back with a big haul isn’t really a big deal to me. I enjoy the activity just as much!

Taking a boat tour around manhattan might seem like a cheesy thing to do but the view of New York from the water never bores me. Also: why don’t we have more food trucks in the Netherlands?

As I told you (here) I also spent a day in Brooklyn, in the morning mainly strolling around Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg checking out some cute little (vintage) stores and after that, it was on Saturday, we went to Smorgasburg, a Brooklyn flea food market that a friend told me about. It was the best food market I’ve ever been to (but maybe that says more about Dutch Food Markets than about anything else) with about 50 stands selling insanely good street and comfort food. The quality and originality of the food definitely surprised me and the location is great as well, looking at Manhattan when eating tacos and fried chicken (or whatever else you can find there) was definitely a highlight and is something I’d recommend everyone. It takes place every weekend, find more info here.

And then of course New York has one of the best views in the world when you’re standing at one of the tallest buildings. I went both up the Empire State building and Rockefeller Centre (thanks to the New York CityPASS), but prefer the latter because the view is better and the Empire State building should be part of the view, if you ask me.

That was it! I’ve had a few rocky weeks, which is why my reports took a little longer to be published but I’m happy that you guys are always so supportive and understanding and I promise, this was really the last NYC post ;) From tomorrow, it’s back to business and I’ll try to update a little more often than I did in the last few weeks. So thanks for bearing with me, but also a big huge thanks to the best dad in the world that took me on this trip and whom I had so much fun with. He’s also the one taking all the pictures, for those of you who didn’t know already!
Another mention goes out to Bloggernet and NYC: The Official Guide (good one to check out before heading to the most beautiful city in the world) for making some of the mentioned experiences possible.