What happens when you put two bloggers that have an insane obsession with coffee, clothes and Instagram in New York for a weekend? The obvious answer is photo-ops ontop of photo-ops!
This was not your typical NYC trip that entails sightseeing of the Empire State Building, Rockefeller Centre and Brooklyn Bridge – been there, done that. This trip had 2 missions, and 2 missions only. To shop our hearts out at consignment stores (these aren’t your basic Value Villages) and to have a full out girls’ weekend in blogger style. What that really means is to take tons of photos and to wear outfits that we wouldn’t typically be able to get away with in Toronto.
There’s no way that I could ever convince P to come along with me to NYC purely for the purpose of content, so I’m glad to have a blogger bestie, Mel, who gets me. We spent the entire night before hemming and hawing as to how many outfits we’d be able to fit into our carry-ons (the money needs to be saved for shopping not checked-in luggage).
I was surprisingly able to fit 7 outfits, 3 pairs of shoes, and 4 purses into my little luggage and still have room left over for all of the electronics. Traveling in the summer is gratifyingly easier to pack for when your clothes aren’t all made out of wool, denim, and down.
Come the morning, leaving Kobe home alone with P for the first time ever was the hardest part. I guess that’s kind of what it’s like to drop off your kid at the daycare for the first time ever. But hey, maybe it’s not really like that. I guess I’ll find out in a couple of years.
Our boarding process was surprisingly smooth and there wasn’t a single security hiccup along the way. I usually get lagged behind some people who need cavity searches, or am rushing to find my gate a couple of minutes before boarding, but this time it was as if the travel gods had bestowed upon us some sort of travel-happy spell.
Day I – XOXO Gossip Girl
With only a couple of hours of sunlight after landing, we hit up the Upper East Side to live it up à la Gossip Girl. Having grown up reading the books and watching the show, Mel and I seriously wanted a photo of ourselves sitting on the steps of the Met, but alas, steps in front of the New York Public Library would have to do. Fake it till you make it right? Unfortunately we completely forgot about it on the first day so it was made up for later on.
But no surprise here that the first place we visited was cafe. After any flight (regardless of how short it is), I need a solid latte within 2 hours of landing. Period. At least that’s my mantra.
Caffeine attained, our next task to complete was an outfit shot. We had location scouted prior to winding up at Ralph’s Coffee (which by the way is inside of the Ralph Lauren store on 5th Ave – how cute is that?!), and settled on shooting in front of St. Patrick’s Cathedral. The beautiful marble pillars and stone steps basically screamed #NYCOOTD, so as lame as it sounds, outfit shots were taken there. Here’s a sneak peak for now, but you’ll be able to see the full look within the next few days ;)!
Once we were done documentating our first of many outfits of the trip, shopping was next on the list. Not going to lie, many of the places that we popped into along 5th and Lexington were purely out of the intent of beautiful architecture as well as inavailability in Canada.
Do I sound domesticated yet when I say that I was easily the happiest of the entire day when we stumbled upon H&M Home? Having never to yet step into one, you can guess that I wanted to buy everything. I struggled with keeping the purchases minimal because shipping furniture back home is not within my current plans.
We also luckily found a ridiculously discounted Forever 21 that was being liquidated and were rewarded with some rock bottom prices. Well, Mel did at least. I saved my day’s spendings for Uniqlo where I landed myself a pair of stupidly comfortable army-green culottes. Some may say that they look like mommy shorts, but hey, sometimes I do choose function over fashion.
Would you be surprised if I told you that we spent more money on coffee than we did on food? If you knew where we stayed then you wouldn’t be. Staying in a little pseudo AirBnB over in Flushing, we lived about a 5 minute walk away from this Chinese cafe that for $5, provided us with a meal large enough for two portions.
And that’s basically what we did. Walked around town until it got too dark and then headed back uptown to grab a 2-meal deal that lasted us from dinner through to breakfast. We were already zonked from the early morning flying, so at this point all we wanted to do was pass out.
Day II – SOHO Thrifting
Bet you never thought that you’d hear those two words together. As much of an oxymoron as it sounds, it’s basically what we did (besides the obligatory cafe pitstops and outfit shots).
The first stop of the day was Greecologies for my latte (I’m super bummed that we didn’t have the time to try out their famous yoghurts that I’ve heard only good things about) and found the quaintest little sanctuary in their backyard. Clearly this meant that we set aside a little bit of time to shoot some content for our Instas.
Once again satisfyingly caffeinated, we set upon our path of destruction through the thrift stores that Mel had mapped out for us. I still can’t believe we went through 10+ stores and in each and every single one were beautiful designer pieces that were marked down anywhere from 20-90%. It’s crazy the selection that New York consignment stores have in comparison to the ones in Toronto. Like I said, this ain’t your Value Village.
Thanks to Mel’s well thoroughly planned route, our voyage across SOHO was probably the most efficient one that I’ve ever taken. We successfully hit up every single one of the places that we wanted to visit and others along the way (long, long before anything was even ready to close).
And although we went into 20+ different places, I held out until the end to go back to Fillmore & 5th for a pair of consigned but brand new silver Prada flats. Can you believe that I got these beauts for only $115?! Mel scored herself a pair of Gucci heels for $50, so I think it’s safe to say that our thrifting excusion was successful.
Before heading home for another round of Chinese take out, we shot an outfit at the New York Public Library and then I quickly popped into Happy Bones for a final dose of coffee. I had seen a lot of beautiful pictures coming out from this cafe, but the barista serving me at the time was not the most pleasant, so we ended up leaving just as quickly as we entered.
Day III – East Village Strolls
We spent our last full day in NYC walking around East Village for a calmer state of mind, but still stopped into a fair share of consignment stores. First stop of the day was the obligatory cafe – Ost Cafe. This time I purposefully came for the tiles (you just have to see them for yourself to understand how beautiful they are) #ihavethisthingwithfloors. Yep I said it.
Although I fell in love with some amazing white Céline pumps and an amazing Alexander Wang bag, I knew that it was time to calm it on the spending and to instead take in the sights for what they had to offer. I forgot that we also took more outfit shots – of course.
Rounding out the day with consignment store shopping until the sun went down, we popped into the Friterie on the way back to the subway to grab a bite to eat. And while Mel did (I wasn’t quite in the mood for fries), instead I took photos with the floors – again.
An early night in was in session since our flight out the next morning boarded at 8:50. Hello 5:30 AM call time. More like no sleep all night time but instead just pack and edit photos to kill time.
We actually ended up giving away our subway passes to a couple of girls getting off the plane that landed in our gate. Seems like karma was on our side because our seats just so happened to be immediately behind first class. If you’re wondering why I’m so excited for seats that aren’t even in first class, let’s clarify it with a photo.
The leg room was literally the longest of the entire aircraft – even more than first class itself! Talk about some karmic return. The flight home albiet early, was also easily one of the comfiest that I’ve ever been on.
For a quick 72 hour trip to the Big Apple that logged 50 km into my walking lifetime, I can thoroughly say that it was a weekend getaway well spent. I’ll be sharing all of the fun outfits that we shot while spending a weekend in NYC over the next week or so, and I have to preface that the backdrops are easily what makes them! So make sure to come back to find out what our location scouting led us to!
This looks like so much fun, I need a New York getaway!!
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