Thanksgiving in New York City

I had a week long Thanksgiving break this year and was able to spend its entirety in the city with my lovely sister!


The week went by so quickly and we did so much fun stuff, but mainly it was great to just have some (very much needed) sister-time. I took a bunch of pictures, and here are some of my favorites!


I took the bus down to NYC on Saturday, and was so happy to finally see Elora. After doing a lot of hugging and smiling we went back to our hotel and got settled. After, we went and did a bit of shopping, and I was overwhelmed by how large all of the stores were. The Forever 21 is 3 or 4 stories! We ended the night at Columbus Circle, which was very festive for the winter holiday season.

The next morning we headed up to Elle's neighborhood on the Upper West Side for breakfast and a bit of exploring. We had brunch at Alice's Tea Cup, a little tea shop with a small restaurant in the back. We had the most delicious green tea and Eggs Benedict. The whole place is decorated with Alice in Wonderland stuff, ranging from small Disney figures to Alice-inspired illustrations on the menu and photographs on the wall. Towards the end of our meal, a group of little girls came in for a birthday party and upon their arrival were all promptly sprinkled with glitter and given fairy wings to wear. This was definitely our kind of place. We loved it so much that we actually came back a week later!

The next day Elora had class until the evening, so I went over to the Museum of Modern Art and spent the entire afternoon there. This was my second time ever going to MOMA, and it is easily one of my favorite museums in NYC. There was an exhibit that had a lot of Georgia O'Keefe paintings, a whole floor focused on industrial design (which I found particularly interesting because of my Dialogue on Design class that I am in this semester) where I saw some very cool sculptures as well as the famous glass window by Frank Lloyd Wright. Later, I got to see some old favorites of mine, the always crowded around Starry Night by Van Gogh and some of the water lilies by Monet. Monet is one of my absolute favorite painters and I felt so lucky to be able to see these paintings. I actually have a poster of the Monet painting of the little purple flowers (the square painting is shown below) on my dorm room wall, and it was amazing to be able to see it in real life. 

That night, Elora and I went to the famous Carnegie Deli where we split one of their massive sandwiches and slices of cheesecake. We were so full by the end of it, but it was all absolutely delicious.

The next day, Elle had class all day. But we got delicious NY bagels that morning before she had to leave. Then I was left to entertain myself. I ended up napping for a little bit (which was glorious) and then utilized the interesting decor in our hotel room to work on my photography final. I don't want to spoil some of my photographs for my final project yet, so here is just a preview…

That night we had delicious Chinese food, which sadly we did not get a picture of, but we were so happy and full afterwards. We then walked down to Times Square again and played around in the giant Disney store for a little bit and then did some other shopping. 

Wednesday, we woke up early and went down to the Cinderella theater to get Student Rush tickets. Here is a sister selfie of us being very excited:

After we successfully got our tickets, we went up to the Upper East Side, so Elle could stop by her dorm and change coats and pick up stuff for her classes that day. We stopped at the Magnolia Bakery for some sweets (a very practical lunch idea…) and I had the most delicious little carmel pecan cheesecake. We also picked up muffins to eat the next morning. All of the stuff in this little bakery looked so delicious and beautiful, and I definitely want to go again the next time I'm in the city.

Elle then walked me to the movie theater before going to her class and I was able to see The Book Thief movie, which is based off of my favorite book (everyone please go read it), which was a nice little treat because it's not playing at any of the little theaters in Ithaca at the moment. I have mixed feelings about the movie, and if anyone has read the book and seen the movie and wants to have a discussion about it, let me know!! After the movie, I walked around Lincoln Center for a little bit until Elle and I were reunited and we headed back downtown. We then had a very comical, but at the time frustrating, experience at a pizza place where they took forever to give us our pizza and we were confused the whole time and the restaurant was packed with people performing in the Macy's Parade the next day. Eventually we got our pizza and it was well worth the wait as it was absolutely delicious. NY style pizza is my favorite kind of pizza, aside from my dad's homemade pizza of course! 

We then saw Cinderella and I absolutely loved it! It was so special to see this show with Elle because it is one of her favorites and a dream role of hers. We were lucky and had amazing seats too!

The next day was Thanksgiving! We woke up and watched the Broadway performances on the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and then bundled up and walked over and joined the crowds at the parade. 

We Skyped with our parents later and it was so nice to get to see their faces on Thanksgiving. We then had our Thanksgiving dinner at Ellen's Stardust Diner, where the waitstaff sing and dance to a wide array of pop and broadway songs. Elle had been here before, and thought it would be a cute and quirky thing to go do on Thanksgiving. We had so much fun! 

We then went back to the hotel to watch Love Actually (one of my favorite movies) where I promptly fell asleep. Thanks for the picture, Elle. After I woke up, we Skyped with our parents and Nana, Papa John, and Uncle John, which was such a treat. 

Friday morning we had delicious crepes for breakfast and then took a lovely stroll through Central Park before we went to have tea with Vicki and Dominic!

I absolutely loved Central Park and took some other great photos for my photography class (you'll see them eventually!) and I also attempted to take some head shots for Elle. The weather was beautiful and had such a lovely time. We then got tea with Vicki and Dominic and it was so nice to see some familiar faces from home! We had such a nice time talking with them, and I am so grateful that it worked out for us to see them while they were on their vacation. Elle had chosen the place that we met at without having been there before, and although it was called MacaroOn, we didn't quite know what to expect.  It really was just a tiny little place that sold coffee and tea and a massive array of macaroons. Now for those of you who don't know, macaroons are one of my absolute favorite things, so I was delighted at the assortment and bought a little box of them for me and Elle to share. Don't worry, they will make another appearance later in this post.

We then went on to try the lottery for tickets to try to see Matilda. We didn't quite understand how the organization of the ticket lottery was going to go, and stood outside in the cold for an extremely long time and we both got chilled to the bone. Unfortunately, we did not win the lottery to see the show that night, but we were so cold and hungry by the end of the process that all we really wanted was to grab some food and get somewhere warm. We ended up revisiting the pizza place and took a couple slices back to our hotel room where we promptly climbed under all the covers and ate our pizza in bed while we tried to warm up. I can't stress enough how cold we were. It took a hot bath for me to be able to shake the chill out of my core. We ended up having a really nice night of sister bonding and snuggling.

The next morning we woke up and got breakfast at Alice's Tea Cup again, and it was all just as delicious as before. We tried a new type of tea, but had the same Eggs Benedict as before. The last time we were there we had been eyeing their little cupcakes and decided to split a red velvet cupcake. It was delicious. 

We then did some shopping on the Upper West Side to try and find me a nice warm hat to take back with me to Ithaca. We were successful! I also purchased some fleece-lined tights, which will be very helpful in the upcoming winter weeks. Later we got back to the hotel and decided to try our little sampling of macaroons. Our flavors were white chocolate, raspberry, caramel, rose lychee, mocha, wedding almond, honey lavender, and nutella. 

On that last night we decided we would try to the lottery for Matilda again, and this time my name was called! We won a set of tickets to an entirely sold out show, and had pretty amazing seats. I loved the show!

Elle and I had such a wonderful week together, and it was a great way to spend Thanksgiving together.  I also put together a little video of some of the video clips that I collected over the course of the week.

Happy thanksgiving, everyone!