NYC- Day 1

Breakfast in bed, Brooklyn, Museum of Ice Cream, and dinner at Pietro Nolita! A perfect first day in the city.

Thursday: We landed!

In case you were wondering, it’s only an hour flight from Toronto to New York! If you have the patience you can drive to NYC from The Greater Toronto Area (GTA), it’s about 8 hours—depending where you’re leaving from.

We landed at John F. Kennedy International Airport around 9 PM and our Uber ride was an hour to our hotel. We booked 2 nights at The NoMo Soho. Rebecca found it by searching “boutique hotels in Soho.” I don’t know what I was expecting but it was the most warm and stylish space I could have imagined. Upon arrival it looked like I walked into a perfectly curated Pinterest board.

We asked to stay on a floor above the 10th level of the hotel. Rebecca found out through Instagram and the building plans that we would have a fantastic view of the NY skyline if our room was above the 10th story. I’m glad she took the time to do the research about the view, because in the morning it was absolutely breathtaking.

When we first got in our room it was dark. We could make out the twinkling lights of the city but we didn’t even know how magical it was going to look at sunrise.

Friday: Breakfast in bed, Brooklyn, Museum of Ice Cream, and dinner at Pietro Nolita!

Rebecca has always been an early riser. Even when we were kids, she’d be up between 7-8am… I know! The benefit of this in our adult lives is that she is able to get me up and out of bed when we are on vacation. She helps me get the most out of my day, especially in new cities! She had the great idea to start our first day in NYC with breakfast-in-bed. I had avo-toast (classic millennial) and she ordered pancakes.

Once we started digging in she swore that they were the best pancakes she had ever tasted. I tasted them… and I agree with her whole-heartedly. The NoMo Soho is not just a warm and stylish boutique hotel in NYC, but it is home to THE best pancakes in the world.

Brooklyn Bridge

After breakfast we made our way to the Brooklyn Bridge. I have never walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, but Rebecca has, and she knew we had to be there early if we didn’t want to be crowded among fellow tourists.

The bridge was a 15-minute walk away from The NoMo Soho. We left our hotel at 8:30 AM and were at the bridge around 8:45 AM. Rebecca was right, it wasn’t busy at all. There were a few early risers getting their photos taken, but not nearly as many people as you would expect on the Brooklyn Bridge.

Have you seen the Pinterest and Instagram girl pictures taken on The Brooklyn Bridge? A lot of the girls are sitting on the bridge or hanging from the cables. Those pics are really cute—until you get up on the bridge and look down. No thanks. I took all my photos with both of my feet securely on the ground. We saw a few girls sitting on the bridge. We even saw one lady climbing on one of the cables. And directly below them… traffic.

SO yeah— she was one rope burn away from oncoming traffic.

Our walk across the bridge took about 30 minutes. We stopped along the way to take some great pictures *on the ground*. Because it was really early, we were able to take pics without anyone in the background—what an Instagram dream, right?

DUMBO

Remember in Gossip Girl when Dan Humphrey cried the blues about being broke? Well, visiting DUMBO has proved him to be a liar. Dan lives in this building, and it is definitely prime real estate. Look at the view! He must have monetized GossipGirl.com because there is no way he was broke and living in this place!

Rebecca is onto something with this whole waking up early thing because although there were a few people walking around, it wasn’t nearly as busy as I have seen it be online.

I loved DUMBO so much. (I think it was my favorite place that we visited during the whole weekend)

We even went on a doll-house carousel. It is called Jane’s Carousel and it only cost me $2. What costs $2 anymore, let alone a ride!

We ate lunch at The TimeOut Market. I had the best quesadilla ever, and bought a bottle of water for $3… which cost more than my carousel ticket…

I sent myself a post card from Brooklyn because I wanted to remember how excited I was my first time in Brooklyn. I think that is something I will start doing—sending myself post cards from different destinations.

We had coffee One Girl Cookies, used the WIFI (because we have Canadian phone plans… duh!) and made our way back to the bridge. We were going to take an Uber back to Soho but I really wanted to walk the bridge again. I don’t know where my head was at because I am always the first to opt for an Uber… but there was something about The Brooklyn Bridge that made me want to go back.

The walk back was much more crowded than the morning. Again, good one Rebecca.

Because I was curious I asked a police officer on the bridge what the penalty was for climbing on the bridge for a picture and she said that if they see it then they have no choice but to arrest these tourists for “trespassing.”

Imagine paying for a trip to NYC just to be arrested for taking pics. I was hoping I would see an arrest but I wasn’t so lucky.

There is also a fine if you are caught attaching a lock to the bridge. $100 . I guess it really depends how much your immortalizing your love on the bridge means to you, right?

Museum of Ice Cream (MOIC)

The Museum of Ice Cream has made special pop-up appearances in Miami, LA and San Francisco but you can now visit their flagship location in NYC. We bought our tickets well in advance online because Rebecca had visited the MOIC in California and she knew it would be a pretty popular spot. The day we went was actually sold out. Thanks Rebecca!

Once we got back from Brooklyn we had enough time for a quick costume change before we went to The Museum of Ice Cream.

This is the only permanent location for the art installation. It isn’t your run-of-the-mill “Instagram Museum.” This museum is fun, interactive and home to the happiest employees in NYC. I have been to other pop-up installations before but they are designed exclusively for photo purposes only.

What was different about MOIC was that I stayed in some of the rooms to play. We even went down a slide at one point to get to the next room. As an added bonus, there was an ice cream sample at the exit of every room—yes please!

Instead of just being able to snap pics in their magically themed rooms, they were also interactive and fun to be in. We spent 2 hours in total in the exhibits. We didn’t just get pictures –we had fun together. There were swing sets, bouncy balls and a pool full of sprinkles!

My favorite room was the magnetic room. There were thousands of pink magnetic letters that guests were encouraged to rearrange. They had a few prompts like “what makes you smile” and “what is your favorite color” but Rebecca and I took a different route—we went rogue.

I think this really speaks to our intentions.

On my walk to the museum I was getting a few stares. I recognize that my boots made me look like a sex worker (I like to think I looked like a high-end sex worker who only caters to politicians and athletes).

Inside the museum I blended right in. Everyone was in exciting clothes and bright colors. We were all ready to fit into the scenery of rainbow sprinkles, larger than life props and colorful wallpaper. Many of the employees stopped and complimented our outfits.