pheGNOMEnal vacation: day one

In celebration of our first year of marriage and John's 27th birthday, we packed our bags (and our gnomie) for a quick trip to the east coast.

... waiting around to board while Johnny did his homework. What a snoozefest!

Have you ever flown with Virgin Airlines? Black leather seats, cool purple mood lighting, great entertainment system. It could have been a super smooth flight to New York, except for the fact that this plane was filled with bad passenger cliches: the arm rest hog, the cougher/sneezer, screaming baby, non stop talking teenager. 'Twas an interesting flight.

Then, we finally got to New York at 5:30 in the morning and caught a taxi to our buddy, Nick's house.

He's got a great view from his kitchen window. ;) We crashed on his living floor for a few hours and then we were off to tour NYC!

Tour given by this weirdo, our dear friend Nick aka Lick No. John and I met him at church years ago and he now lives in New York working as an Occupational Therapist. You know those friends you don't get to talk to and see often, but when you do see them, you just pick up where you left off? He's one of those friends. We're lucky to have him in our lives.... even though he's a weirdo.


My dear friend, Tang was in NYC with his girlfriend at the same time as us! It was so nice to hang with them.

Nick totally being the 5th wheel.

I didn't even try to learn the subway system because 1. We had our very own tour guide! 2. John's a geographer! I just followed them around.

Not only did we have our own tour guide, but we also had our own photographer! Check out Nick's work! I handed over my point and shoot and Gnomie and let Nick bust it out. All the good pictures that you see below are the ones he took.

WOW. My husband manages to look like a creeper in all our pictures. It truly is a gift. I can never get a normal picture of us!

On the way to get some yummy chicken and rice.

and finally... the delicious chicken and rice! I love spicy food and usually there is no such thing as "too spicy" but that hot sauce was no joke! Sooooo spicy but soooo good! My mouth is watering as I think about it.


Then off to Magnolia Bakery!

Their bread pudding was to die for! I may have to get Johnny to drive to the L.A. one day and pick me up several tubs. SO GOOD!

Some more sight seeing...

Then off to Bouchon for massive macaroons!

HUGE! The size of my palm. One peanut butter and jelly and one lemon poppy. PB&J beat the lemon poppy.

A quick check into our hotel, Empire Hotel, then off to dinner at Momofuku Noodle Bar.

If you think we ate a lot on day 1, wait til you see what we ate on day 2! Major detox time now!