So, the rumours are true. New York City is actually fairly awesome. And by fairly awesome, I actually mean probably the greatest city I have ever visited. Yes, it even trumped London but only because it didn't require large (nonexistent) reserves to get there, stay in a great hotel and eat well. London fails in all but one of those departments, cost-wise. It's pretty cheap to fly to London from here. That being said, I suppose inflated costs are worth the history...

We arrived on Friday morning and were at the hotel by around noon. We headed off in search of lunch but got so caught up in the exploring, shopping and compulsively taking photos of pretty much everything that we never did actually eat more than a street pretzel. Which, for the record, is one salty piece of street food if I've ever had one. It was pretty cold, probably just above zero, but the sky was clear and as long as we stuck to the sunny side of the street we were fine...so long as we also kept moving. We hit up all the stores - FAO Schwartz (I watched a Barbie fashion show), Coach's flagship store, A&F (total nightmare), a huge Nike store, Borders Books and Music, Tiffany, Henri Bendel, H&M, Apple's famous 5th Avenue store...the list goes on. I didn't want to spend the whole trip in stores, so we were trying to get our shopping over with before meeting up with the rest of the group. Thanks to my handy (nerd) map, we succeeded brilliantly, with 15 minutes to spare.

The streets of Manhattan are so well laid-out that it is virtually impossible to get lost. It is a great city for walking, which we did a LOT of, and never bothered with the Subway. We caught a cab to dinner on Saturday night and to the airport yesterday, but that was it. We had a couple amazing meals, exactly three delicious lattés (one of which was enjoyed in Trump Tower, though there was no sighting of the Donald, unfortunately), some great wine, and best of all, some quality time with a few of our all-time favorite people. It was so great to visit with them in such a cool place - they were able to navigate us around, and we really did fit a lot into our pretty tiny time frame. We know better now though, our 2009 trip, already in the works, will incorporate a few more days. And a few more Starbucks lattés. Yes. Starbucks.

I took a ridiculous number of photos, which I'm looking forward to going through tonight and posting the "best of". There was so much to see, and there is so much more to see...I'm really looking forward to going back when the leaves are on the trees. We did see all of the "major" sights - the amazing Empire State and Chrysler buildings, a corner of Central Park, the Plaza (no Eloise sightings either, unfortunately), the Waldorf Astoria, where Stephen Harper was apparently staying judging from the embarassingly tattered Canadian flag hanging in front of the door, the Brooklyn Bridge (blue steel), Grand Central Station, the Village, Macy's...my camera got a workout.

We might try to go back for a weekend in the fall if we can find a good deal.

So, the much-anticipated trip is over, but it was a huge success. We both came back feeling like we'd made the most of it, and we didn't even get slammed with duties when we came back, which was like the cherry on our Easter Sunday.

Photos to come.