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.

Kurt and I have approximately 52 hours to spend in New York city this weekend. Had I known that my boss was GOING ON VACATION, I would have booked an extra day, but there you have it. 52 hours in the Big Apple. What to do??

True to form, I have been researching our area for weeks. And from what I have gleaned from the WWW, it's pretty much awesome. Midtown East...shopping central. Within a 20 minute walking radius we have a 24/7 Apple Store (which we plan to visit in the middle of the night, just because we can and really...who wants to waste time sleeping?), Coach's flagship store, Saks, Tiffany, Henri Bendel, H&M, Borders Books & Music...among many, many others. In geek-fashion (because geeking is necessary when trying to fit the most possible into a short period of time), I have printed a map of the area, marked our hotel, and then mapped out where the stores are that we especially want to visit. We should be at the hotel around noon and have plans to meet for the "FDAW on location" at a local bar around 6, giving us 6 hours to cram in the shopping we'd like to get done so that the rest of the weekend can be spent seeing the sights, eating the eats and drinking the drinks with friends (and friends of friends). On my "must buy" list are jeans, books, an iPod Shuffle for the gym, *possibly* a new purse, and clothes, clothes, clothes. We're pretty much travelling with empty suitcases and will get slammed with duties like nobody's business, but that is just life on this small rock of inflated everything.

I hadn't exactly realized how starved I am for some retail therapy until I unleashed the beast last Friday at the local Nine West and took advantage of a corporate shopping night...to the very great advantage of my closet. As far as shopping goes, the island pretty much sucks. There are a few stores here and there that are semi-OK, but a lot of crap in between and very little selection. What they do have sells out quickly, especially if you happen to be of somewhat average size. Sure, they have that dress you want...but only in a size 0 or a size 14. Awesome! Or not. Books have a huge mark-up on them and normally require a special order (which isn't actually that bad...takes about a week). We have found some deals on items that are inexplicably cheaper here than in Canada, such as running shoes (about $30 less than Canada for all of the main brands i.e. Asics, Mizuno, Brooks, Saucony, etc.), and, to our surprise, maple syrup. Canadian maple syrup, which arrived here on a boat and is put on the shelves for $6.99 for about 500 mL.

I digress.

Obviously with this being my first trip to the city, I'm looking forward to seeing the "big" sites. And the big sights. I can comfortably skip Ground Zero this time around, but the group is thinking about doing one of those hop-on-hop-off bus tour things to get the main attractions at least captured on camera, if not explored a bit. The city is so huge that to try and see it all in 52 hours is actually totally impossible, so we're going to concentrate on our neighborhood this time around and then plan to stay in a different area on each return trip and do the same. For the record, round trip airfare to NYC for Kurt and I from here runs us less than $500 most of the time, for the two of us. This time around it was about $500, but I've seen deals go as low as $150 round-trip per person, so we'll be watching for those too. We bought this trip as a package on Expedia and were thrilled with the deal we got, so...yet another plug for them. I hear their customer service sucks if anything goes wrong, but so far we haven't had to deal with that.

It's going to be a grind to fit it all in, but we're both really looking forward to the whole trip. It may only be 52 hours, but we'll make the most of them.

And with that...I'm off to eat an apple.