NYC weekend!

OMG so New York was amaazzzzzzzzinggggggg.

It's a full week later and I'm still having a hard time adjusting to real life after such a fantastic weekend. Don't you hate that? So bittersweet.

So, I took the train down to NYC last Thursday evening. After a good night's sleep, Fay and I got up, got some breakfast & coffee/tea, and went out shopping. I stupidly thought that the Noir Jewelry sample sale was LAST weekend not THIS weekend and so it made sense why the girl at the front desk seemed sort of perplexed when we popped out of the elevator. Errr... oops.

No worries! Instead we headed over to Opening Ceremony where I talked Fay into buying a really lovely Alexander Wang dress. She needed a new concert outfit! It was totally justified. Then we hit up Space.NK so I could get that Nuxe oil I've been yammering on about. After that, we had pre-Kpop-concert Korean (natch) lunch/dinner (linner? dunch?) on St. Mark's where I finally tried bibimbap (tofu!) and our waiter mixed it in front of me at our table for a hilariously and awkwardly long time. He was super nice and sort of adorable, though :)

And ohhhhhhhh the concert. It was SO, SO GOOD. I really have a thing for huge arena shows. They are so stupidly FUN, and I think that maybe BIGBANG has been the funnest one of all for me yet!




Pyrotechnics and backup dancers and blinged-out Segways and Korean popstars with giant angel wings flying over the audience? YES.

On Saturday, we slept in a little, then went to breakfast at Freemans on the LES. About halfway through our breakfast, I noticed a girl sit down next to us who looked really familiar. Turns out it as Amanda Seyfried. Pretty neat! Sometimes you forget that celebrities don't live in their own parallel universe on another planet somewhere.

After breakfast and armed with a fistful of cash from some friends (thanks again, guys!) we popped into a little pet shop and bought three bags of dog food, cat food (wet AND dry!) and dog toys and cat toys and walked them over to the Best Friends Animal Society supplies drive for pets affected by Superstorm Sandy. The sidewalk was LOADED with donated supplies and it made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside!!

They're still looking for donations if you're interested! - http://volunteer.bestfriends.org/gettingstarted/hurricanesandy

After that, it was time for some shopping. We headed uptown where we made a stop at Ladurée. I FINALLY got myself an Othello candle, and it is just as heavenly perfect as I expected. A tea-scented black wax candle in a black ceramic jar with a gilded gold Ladurée emblem? They really should just rename it the Jenny. Oh, I also got macarons, of course!

We window shopped a bit and I tried on a hat at Barneys that I can't stop thinking about, but at $335 it's a little bit out of my budget at the moment.

Later in the evening we went out for sushi and sat near a group of people doing hilariously loud sake-bombs, then went and saw the new James Bond film in Times Square. I've never seen any of the Bond films, but I quite liked it! I might check out some of the other ones (with Daniel Craig, at least).

My 1:00PM train back to Boston didn't leave us much time on Sunday morning to do anything but get an early brunch. Next time I have to remember to book a slightly later train!

Huge, enormous, gigantic, bubbly hugs to Fay for being the best hostess/tourguide/concert buddy a girl could ask for!

So yea, post-awesome-weekend letdown is no joke. Luckily I have a few things to keep me busy, including custom Margravine orders and a baby shower this weekend. And then it's Thanksgiving! This year is flying by.

And finally, my NYC "haul" (obnoxious, I know).

Travel hairdryer that Fay picked up for me because I didn't want to carry down my beast of a hairdryer and apparently I am a princess!??! - BIGBANG crown light (EL OH EL we couldn't not) - Oribe Aprés Beach spray that Fay didn't like and gave to me (I love it!!) - Klorane travel sized dry shampoo - Gaga's Workshop @ Barneys NY tea that Fay picked up for me LAST CHRISTMAS (UM way too long in between visits!!!!!!) - Nuxe oil - Ladurée Macarons - Excessive BIGBANG crown light box (okay, I love it, I admit it, whatever, so sue me) - bottle of BLK water (they carry it at Duane Reade but it's nearly impossible to find here WTF) - and my Ladurée Othello Candle & its box :D

the color run 2012

the problem with doing so many awesome things is that it's difficult to find the time to update about all the awesome things you're doing. but hey, i guess that's a good thing!

a week ago saturday, a few friends and i ran a 5k called the color run. it was my first 5k and i think it was a good introductory "race" for me (race is in quotations because the run wasn't actually timed or anything like that. it wasn't even technically 5k haha.)

megan, marissa, amy and i got up super early on saturday and drove up to amesbury for the run. we were only working on about 4 hours of sleep because we'd stayed up pretty late the night before at sarah's olympics opening ceremony party (no regrets).

we had to wait a couple of hours until they finally began the run at 10am, and then we were off in the first wave of 1000 runners out of 11,000 runners total. eleven thousand!!

the run really was fun. at certain intervals (at every kilometer, i guess?), volunteers would throw and spray colored powder at us and our white t-shirts. by the end, we looked a little bit like jawbreakers.

source

the finish line was at the amesbury sports park where they had plenty of water and juice and granola bars waiting for us. we hung out for a while with some of the other runners and got even more coated with colored powder. after about a half an hour, we decided we were filthy and tired and we'd had enough fun and wanted to go home. unfortunately, there was a bad accident on the highway which caused the shuttles taking us back to the parking lots to be very slow in picking us up, so we had to wait another hour or so in line in the blazing sun with a million sweaty, crabby runners (the 4 of us were all somehow in good moods, though!) before we finally made it back to the car.

i'm really glad that we got there early, which meant that we were among the first to start, the first to finish, the first to get refreshments at the end, and the first to line up for the shuttles to go home. it sounds like those who got there later didn't have as positive of an experience as we did, sadly.

after the color run, we drove back to salem where we dipped our toes in the water (and washed some of the powder off of us) and got pizza at salem willows. then megan and marissa and i drove back to somerville for showers and naps. later in the evening, we went to dinner at pizzeria regina, then to an opening for our friend salty dave and then a birthday party at lizzie's. JAM PACKED SATURDAY, for serious. i was so exhausted after all of that excitement that i don't remember what i did on sunday. i probably slept and watched breaking bad? OMG BREAKING BAD. so good.

man, i really just love jesse pinkman.

eurovision party (for everybody) 2012

last saturday, megan and i hosted a eurovision party!
 

my and megan's masterpieces - hand drawn country flags (photo courtesy of marissa)

we projected the livestream onto the wall at the wsac and ate snacks and read along to printed out lyrics and waved country flags glued to chopsticks and laughed a lot!

we were so silly for the entire day and it ended up being really, really fun.

photo courtesy of sarah

while i was sort of sad that neither jedward nor the russian grannies took the top spot (and that portugal didn't even make it to the finals), i was pretty pleased that sweden ended up being the winner in the end.

it's no secret that i do love a good euro-dance club-banger.

see you next year in sweden, eurovision!

nyc weekend

my weekend in nyc was an incredibly fun whirlwind of friends, fashion, food and serendipity!

on friday afternoon, i got off the bus from boston and went straight to see harry potter with fay where i drank most of a giant cherry slushie. i didn't intend on getting one, it just happened! i thought hp 7 pt 2 was very good. i think i'd like to watch part 1 and part 2 back-to-back sometime.

after the movie, we met up with fay's coworkers for drinks. what started out as just "stopping by" turned into three bars and a 2am cab ride home.

on saturday am, we got starbucks, went to the post office, got some lemonade...

...and then met up with megan, ed, marissa, mary and dave and ate sandwiches in the park and then went to the metropolitan museum of art. the line for the alexander mcqueen exhibit was at least an hour and a half wait, but because that was one of the main reasons i went to nyc in the first place, i resigned myself to spending the afternoon waiting in line and fay and i bid goodbye to the rest of the group.

the moment everyone left us in line, a nice couple came over and pulled fay and i out of line, telling us that they had a museum membership and asking us if we wanted to go with them directly into the exhibit. UM, YES. YES WE WOULD, THANK YOU. so we skipped the line and spent that hour and a half in the exhibit instead of sweltering among the masses in line. we were so lucky!!

(the exhibit was incredible. i'll make a separate post about that later.)

after the museum, the 7 of us sat for awhile in central park by the boathouse, then went for pasta dinner at eataly where there seemed to be quite a wait for a table. at first they told us 45 min to an hour, but then they said "wait... are all seven of you here?" to which we replied "yes!". and so they led us up the stairs to a little, curtained, virtually private room with a giant table and an open, breezy window. UM, what luck!?!? the food was amazing and the company was perfect :)

 

after dinner, we walked a few blocks to get some gelato, natch.

i had biscotti + nutella OM NOM.

on sunday morning, fay and i went to the essex for brunch. the place was super loud (loud music and everyone yelling loudly over the loud music and each other. loud loud loud.) but the food was really good. i got eggs benedict with gravlax.

after brunch, we did some shopping including a stop at chanel where i picked up a bottle of "graphite" polish (yay!!!). in one of the shops, i fell in love with this t by alexander wang sweater. so perfect! my anonymous benefactor can feel free to drop that on my doorstep any time.

after walking around soho for awhile, we decided to go uptown and accidentally bumped into mary and marissa in the subway! we found out we were all going to the same area and so we hung out with them for a bit. we all went to kinokuniya where i found a book on how to make tiny amigurumi daschunds!!! unfortunately the directions were all in japanese :/

after finding amigurumi dogs, we found some real ones!!

there was a tiny pekingese and he/she was SO CUTE OMG

after puppies, we stopped and got some delicious macarons. i got a blood orange & chocolate, and a lavender & honey. so good! (although not as good as ladurée, of course :))

and then it was time for me to head to penn station to catch the acela back to boston. i was advised by several friends to get a window seat on the right side of the train in the quiet car, so that's what i did.

it was such a great ride home and i don't know how i'll ever go back to riding the bus!