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I had a really fun (but exhausting) last full week at work as I tried to see everyone/do everything before it was time to leave. I didn’t manage to take many photos but I did two restaurant week dinners – one with Cynthia, Alex and Amy (4 girls out to dinner so we pretended we were in Sex and the City) at Lavo which is an amazing Italian restaurant and one with Dara at the 21 Club which we loved for it’s old New York style and amazing food! The most surprising was the frozen yoghurt sundae for dessert with champagne jelly – a grown up jelly and ice cream!

Work also organised a leaving meal for me out in White Plains which was such a nice send off – everyone made an effort to come along and we were able to sit out on the water for hours sipping margaritas and eating tacos. It was great to see everyone out together having a good time. I feel so lucky to have worked with such great people this year and I’m sure I will stay in touch with them all.

We’ve had some amazing weather in New York but sometimes the city itself can get pretty unbearable in the heat so when that happens, you head to the beach. Cynthia and I took the train out to Long Island on Saturday for one last dose of sunshine and had a great time swimming, sunbathing and eating under perfect blue skies and water!

Beach babes

Keen to show my patriotism to America, this may have happened just before we left …. definitely attracted a few curious looks but I wear my (adopted) flag with pride.

And we rounded off the day with Ralph’s famous Italian Ices – a delicious cross between sorbet and a slushie! What a way to spend the weekend!

It was soon time to say goodbye to all my friends and it’s definitely feeling real that I am moving back now. I gathered my nearest and dearest to head the one and only Lobster boat – it only seemed fitting to go to a place that has given me so much happiness over the last couple of months. It was the perfect evening for it – a little too hot on land but beautiful on the water.

These guys managed to coordinate perfectly in pastels and happened to stand all in a row!

The sun slipped below the horizon and the city lit up in all its glory. How am I ever going to leave this behind? It was a perfect send off and I’m telling myself it’s not goodbye, just “Until next time”.

Cynthia couldn’t make it to my drinks (the die-hard Mets fan that she is, she had bought tickets to the game months ago) so we had our own goodbye yesterday at her favourite restaurant, La Lanterna di Vittorio, in the West Village. We met up in Washington Square Park – another iconic New York spot – and had a photo by the arch while groups of NYU students lounged on the grass, a juggling class took place and 3 little bands all played at once – truly full of New York character!

Before heading into the cutest restaurant with a glass roof and the most amazing pizza and real Italian cheesecake (nothing like the cheesecake we normally eat but oh so delicious):

We also had a go at customising our own popsicles in a shop around the corner for a second dessert – see Cynthia’s more restrained coconut in dark chocolate and my mint with dark chocolate and candy corn (deliciously minty/salty/sweet). Cynthia has been a great friend while I’m here so we’re just waiting to see if her dad will donate his air miles so she can come and see me in London!

And now the day is finally here – my last day in New York – 11 great months in this place has been more amazing than I ever dreamed it would be. As they say, if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere. New York, I made it, but now it’s time for me to go home. I have loved living here, getting to know the city as a local rather than a visitor, in all weathers! People have been so welcoming and the friends I have made have added so much to the experience I have had. I’ve also loved having my various visitors and showing them around the city I love. Hopefully when I go back, I will see London through new eyes and take the same approach to life there as I have had here. There will be one more post of my favourite places and discoveries so watch this space and be sure to reference it if you ever head here for a holiday yourself! New York, you’ve been amazing. I’ll be back soon xx

So it turns out I was needed at work back in London earlier than originally thought and suddenly I found myself with only three weeks left in New York, instead of the seven I thought I had. This only meant one thing – it was now or never when it came to doing all those things I had been meaning to do but not got around to!

First up, getting a cwoffee and a doughnut from a street cart in the iconic “We are happy to serve you” cups. This was my breakfast one morning on the train to work – I definitely had a sugar crash two hours later but no regrets for starting my day with icing and sprinkles!

I also wanted to swim in the Atlantic from this side so that meant a trip to the beach was on the cards. Dara, Emily and I decided not to drive and instead hopped on a ferry to the Sandy Hook beach on the Jersey Shore (not the part from the reality TV show!) We got some amazing views pulling away from New York!

 And when we arrived, I got to ride on a school bus as a shuttle to the beach – very exciting! There was even someone kicking the back of my seat to add to the authenticity!

The beach was lovely and calm, without too much in the way of amenities so you definitely want to take a picnic but you also benefit from uninterrupted views of the water with picture-perfect blue skies and water.

I had a dip (or three) in the sea…. I still hold by the philosophy that swimming in the sea is good for the soul and should be done at least once per year.

And all too soon it was time to call it a day and get on the ferry home – the ride was equally beautiful as the sun silhouetted the Statue of Liberty – all we were missing were some dolphins leaping in the wake! However, the wind did turn my already-salty hair into a knotted mess – the first time I’ve had to do shampoo, rinse, repeat, condition, then brush when I got home!

And then we rounded off the day by selflessly offering to help Dara check out after-party venues for her wedding by watching the sunset at Pier A and then digging into some lobster – what a hard life we lead!

“Watching the sunset”

I’m also stocking up on all the things which are cheaper here than in the UK before I leave, including new running shoes which necessitated a run round the reservoir to test them out – it looks cloudy here but it was a balmy 30 degrees at 7pm… I made lots of new running friends as we all kept spurring each other on to keep going in the heat!

The lobster boat has now got a level of notoriety amongst my friends (maybe I’ve talked about it a bit too much) and Keryn and Cynthia were both keen to give it a try so I happily accompanied them one sunny Sunday!

Cynthia and I always struggle to keep the b(u)oys away when we’re together…

Believe it or not, the photo below is just taken using Cynthia’s incredibly long arms – who needs a selfie stick?!

We kept the ice cold drinks coming and filled up on shrimp and lobster tacos – not a bad way to pass an afternoon while taking a sail on the Hudson!

I think there’ll be one or two more posts to cover this week’s adventures and my final days here and then I will be back in London. My time here in New York will always be a part of me and I hope I can stay in touch with the friends I’ve made here!

After two days back at work, it was time to settle in for a long weekend so we wasted no time and started the celebrations on Thursday night. I met Becca and Hannah down at the Southstreet Seaport for a little happy hour cruise. We didn’t really know what to expect from the route so we settled in with a cocktail and crossed our fingers that we would go past the statue of Liberty (and no, I didn’t match my drink with my jacket on purpose but it goes pretty well!)

The music got louder as we took a trip up the East side past the Manhattan bridge and enjoyed views of the skyline…And then our excitement built as we turned around and sailed right past the end of the island to Lady Liberty herself! Cheers! (sponsored by Bud Lite)

We gave ourselves the luxury of a lie in on Friday morning and then decided it was a boat kind of day once again and made our way to the North River Lobster Company – it recently featured in Time Out Magazine (guess they’ve been following my blog…) so it’s probably going to start getting busier but I feel smug at having discovered it before! This picture cracks me up:

#crustaceans

Everyone knows that one boat in a day is not enough so our next stop was the Frying Pan where we lazed on the end of the pier and enjoyed some moules frites – good job we weren’t too shellfish to share… Wow, I’m on a roll here…

Ok, ok, I’ll stop with the shellfish puns for now…

Now, 4th July is all about celebrating America and what could be more American than a night at the baseball. We took the train up to the Bronx for a Yankees game where we arrived to see a gospel choir singing the national anthem… Yankee hats were needed to fit in…

And of course we bought the biggest bag of popcorn ever (the guy at the checkout looked concerned that we wouldn’t have enough and suggested the jumbo bucket instead…) A great American activity to start the 4th July weekend! We even made it onto the screen thanks to the crazy dancing guy in front of us!

We ate brunch at Clinton Street Baking Company on Saturday morning where we had the most amazing biscuits and then spent the rest of the day on 4th July preparations. We quickly got into the spirit of it thanks to our banner, red cups and Pimms on the roof (well, we are all English after all and it’s the rule that in the summer, one must drink Pimms).

Brennan invited us to his rooftop for some pre-fireworks drinks and we marvelled at the view once again! Slightly awkward that we (the Brits) were the only ones dressed up in stars and stripes on a day celebrating American independence but we embraced it!

America: Land of the free and home of the Brave:

From there, we walked to the river to watch the fireworks which were amazing but difficult to photograph and better enjoyed not through the screen of an iPhone so I’ll leave them to your imagination!

All too soon it was our last day together so we treated ourselves to brunch at the boathouse, strolling down Literary Walk and past Bethesda fountain – definitely one of my favourite places in the park:

And then there was time for one last champagne cocktail by the water to toast the end of a great week!

I’m down to my final two weeks in New York so I’m aiming to make the most of it before I come back – look out for my final few adventures!

The visit had been quite food and drink heavy so far so we decided it was about time for some culture. The great thing about New York in the summer is that the city suddenly decides all events should be free, including the annual Shakespeare in the Park performances. There’s something special about watching theatre outside, and this year’s production of The Tempest was no exception. We took our chances in the online ticket lottery and then settled into the heart of Central Park to be transported away by Shakespeare for the evening in a fantastic play.

There’s even a theory that the English accent at the time of Shakespeare’s writing sounded closer to the American accent than the current English accent so you could say we had a more authentic experience by seeing it here!

We continued to make the most of being able to go out and about in the middle of the week by visiting places which have crazy queues on weekends including Buvette, a famous French brunch place in the West Village that lived up to its reputation. Becca arrived on slightly more glamorous transportation than Hannah and I…

Definitely some of the best food we had, we nestled into a cosy room with exposed brick walls and feasted on granola, steamed eggs with prosciutto and a waffle sandwich…

I found my perfect form of transport just around the corner …

and then it was time to burn off our brunch with a spot of rowing / turtle spotting on the lake (also to snoop at The Boathouse which we were planning to go to on the last day):

You may be thinking today has been somewhat lacking views after the top of the Standard in the previous post. Well, fear not. We used my corporate membership for free entry to the Met Museum, with the sole intention of going to the roof garden to marvel at Central Park and the skyline beyond – this definitely called for a panorama:

And then after a quick dinner at Shakeshack, we took a trip up the newly opened Freedom Tower. You whizz up to a height of 541m in a very speedy lift, and are rewarded with uninterrupted views that come from being the tallest building in any direction:

Not forgetting the token sepia photo:

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With the view made even better when the sky turned all moody and the setting sun filtered through over New Jersey:

It was back to work on Wednesday and Thursday for me, but Becca and Hannah’s adventures continued to Washington DC and beyond! Check back soon for a 4th July update!

The day finally arrived for my last two visitors in New York before my return to London. Hannah was the first off the plane, landing on Friday night, so I was ready and waiting to welcome her to my Times Square home. Our first stop on Saturday was brunch at Penelope’s (where else?), which, as always, delivered on the Nutella French Toast. 

Sadly, while London was getting a heatwave, New York was experiencing torrential downpours so we had to amuse ourselves on a  route with plenty of indoor stops. We started by wandering down to the Flatiron building and stopping off at my favourite homeware shops where we lusted over beautiful items to decorate our future homes.

After a quick stop to watch some chess in Union Square (you can challenge the guy in the Brooklyn top for $5 although sadly my chess champion days are over so I didn’t step up), we made our way down to the Meatpacking district….

and had fun in a great gallery with the theme “life is beautiful”.

We whiled away a couple of hours drinking prosecco in a great bar called Hudson Clearwater while we waited for the rain to stop and then it was off to the Campbell Apartment for some cocktails and jazz.

An action-packed and non-traditional first day in New York!

We wandered down to the West Village for a delicious French brunch on Sunday morning, although navigating around was made slightly more difficult as we hadn’t realised it was the Pride Parade – made an even bigger event this year following the recent Supreme Court Ruling legalising same-sex marriage in all states.

It was back to Times Square in time for Becca’s arrival and we whisked her off for a slew of activities fresh off the plane! We took a classic stroll (or tourist-dodging mission) across the Brooklyn Bridge….

ate an enormous pizza at Grimaldi’s famous pizza joint…

and played with the street art…

With the energy for just one more drink, we headed to Beauty and Essex which you enter through a pawn shop for cocktails to toast the week ahead! (Full credit to Hannah for the arty photo!)

Monday morning started at Ellen’s Stardust diner where we enjoyed being serenaded with classics such as “Let It Go” while eating chocolate chip pancakes. We stopped off at the Ace Hotel which has a very trendy coffee lounge where it is almost compulsory to turn up with a macbook and dr dre headphones, for iced coffees and enjoyed their photo booth! 

And then it was time for a stroll down the high line as the weather had decided to play nicely again! They have just opened up a new section of it so we enjoyed exploring and seeing the artwork along the way!

Don’t know where these little aliens popped up from…

They’ve just reopened the Whitney Museum in the Meatpacking District which has a great selection of American art as well as a cool outdoor balcony bit so we joined the ladies that lunch on a Monday afternoon and headed inside – we particularly enjoyed being part of the art:

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And taking pictures on the balcony!

Our next stop for the day was the top of the Standard Hotel where we nabbed the best seats in the house and settled down with prosecco – not a bad view really…

P.s. if you ever go, make sure you check out the view from the loo – yes, this is what you see while you are sat on the toilet (don’t worry, there is a curtain that pulls across the lower half of the window!)

I’ll leave it there for now as this has been a very long post but more adventures to come over the next few days!

So today is the summer solstice, and officially the “start of summer”. If summer has only just started, who knows what temperatures we will see over the next couple of months as it definitely feels like summer is already in full swing here in New York.

I started the week with an outdoor cinema event with the girls on the East River. It was hosted by Whitney Cummings (who created the TV series Two Broke Girls) and the film was “16 Candles”, a 1980s classic American chick flick. We drank local beers and listened to a band as the sun set, and then settled in for the film once it got dark…

I’ll definitely try to get to some more outdoor showings before the summer is over!

A couple of friends from university were also in town this week, so, seizing the chance to try another rooftop, I took them to the Spyglass for some cocktails – shame the view wasn’t better though….

We saw some jazz at the Rum House afterwards, and as my friend said, you feel like you’re on the set of Mad Men. I think I won their “best tour guide award”, or at least I like to think I do.

Now, when living in a big city like New York, it’s important to be conscious of the environment, so this weekend, me and my friends decided to do our bit and recycle some grapes… i.e. drink some wine! We hopped on a bus to Pennsylvania, which, although you may not think of it as a famous wine region, is recognised as an American Viticultural Area (whatever that means), for a wine-tasting tour.

We started off by posing for our girl band cover amongst the vines…

Before moving on to our first tasting… It started off sophisticated…

But quickly led to pulling funny faces with our tour guide:

We went to three different vineyards, and although were given a few too many Chardonnays for our liking, but we did enjoy some Chambourcins and a very nice dry Riesling which I think most of us bought a bottle of as it was so different to what you normally associate with Riesling. There was the chance to sample some wines made from blueberries, strawberries and cherries but we all found these a bit too sweet.

We mainly just had fun playing in the vines… Album cover number 2: 

And number 3: “walk into the distance and turn around”:

Our favourite winery was the last one which was a really family-run business that had been handed down through the generations and had some great sparkling wines.

A lovely day with some great friends – by the third winery they were all promising to come and visit me in London next year so I will hold them to that!

Just remember, Amys still run the world…

I’ve got some special guests arriving next weekend so expect many more exciting things on here that I have been saving to do with them.

Well, that title pretty much sums up my weekend – it’s a hard life hey?! When the mercury hits 30 degrees C, you do the sensible thing and head for the water. It’s been a scorcher here so I dragged my friend Brennan along to try out the North River Lobster Company boat for a test run before some friends come to stay at the end of the month. It’s a boat bar which sets sail on the Hudson for a 45 minute jaunt every couple of hours while you drink beer, eat lobster and enjoy a view of the New York skyline with a gentle breeze. What more could you want?

You skip down the boardwalk in anticipation of the boat of fun that awaits…

You grab yourself a bucket of beer and head up to the top deck while the boat leaves behind the shoreline and make a toast to this city…

You take a tourist photo because it is a truth universally acknowledged that one can never have too many photos with the Empire State Building…

and then when the boat docks into the harbour again, you order the biggest lobster they have and by the time it arrives you are cruising around the bay again…

I would say this is one of those days which embodies “living the dream” and makes you want to sing Alesha Keys’ “Empire State of Mind”.

But one boat wasn’t enough in this heat. I started Sunday with brunch with one of my co-workers at a place not too far from me where they used “deep dish French Toast” as a way to serve up a hunk of cake with bacon and syrup – no complaints from me on this!

But after sitting in the sun for a couple of hours, I was looking for another boat and that beautiful river breeze. I had arranged to meet my friend Anastasia at the Frying Pan boat bar which is wayyy over on the West Side. I burnt off the French Toast walking there as one thing New York lacks is cross-town transportation, but I saw some great street art on the way, as well as some skywriting which spelled out “Justin Bieber is a Smileophile”. This currently has New York very confused according to Twitter… clearly one of life’s biggest concerns…

Finally, we made it to the bar and settled in for the afternoon with cold beer and moules frites (yes, I somehow still had room after my French Toast).

I had heard it could be a bit of a ‘scene’ full of frat boys but actually I thought it had a really fun atmosphere and it’s a great place to while away an afternoon!

I have been greatly enjoying post-cfa freedom so I was able to meet up with Jackie earlier in the week for some ramen at Momofuku noodle bar and then as it was her last night in New York, we found some extra energy for a trip to The Blind Barber, one of New York’s speakeasies where you enter through a barbershop (where people were still getting their hair cut) to what looks like someone’s 1960s sitting room. Slightly odd but they make a mean cocktail and it’s happy hour until 9pm every night!

It looks like we’re gonna get muggy, stormy weather this week so the heatwave might break but here’s to many more boats in the not-to-distant future!

You may have noticed (or not) that the blog posts somewhat subsided during May as I put my head down and studied for my CFA exam, and blogging just felt like a bit too much of a luxury. Anyway, the good news is that the exam was yesterday so I’m back and free to have guilt-free fun again!

I’ll start by filling you in on some of my May adventures (or scheduled “revision breaks” if you prefer).

I hear that if you’re a true baseball fan in NYC, you actually support the Mets, not the Yankees, as the Mets are typically the underdog team so their fans are more dedicated, with a stadium that is more out-of-the-way in Flushing. Dara and I took a couple of English friends to a Mets game and saw them thrash their opponents but the big excitement was that we got on the screen, twice!! That was a first for all of us! Watching sport so much more fun here than in the UK, as you basically go to cheer, eat deep fried dough and hotdogs and drink beer, with frequent breaks for singing, catching t-shirts being fired into the crowd and general merriment. Let’s Go Mets!

It was also Memorial Day weekend and I figured as we had three days off, I could take a day off studying to go to my friend Alex’s pool party…. We all hopped on the train out to New Jersey and were blessed with the best weather of the whole weekend. We quickly started on the cocktails and Cynthia whipped up these marvellous creations: Champagne garnished with a popsicle (one of my favourite American words):

I also introduced everyone to Pimms for the first time which they LOVED so I’ll have to source another bottle in NYC as my supplies are low! Here’s the girls with the birthday girl (and her dad):

Testing the (not so warm) pool…

And the Amy raft (we’re both called Amy, although taking the float also induced a lot of British colonising jokes….) I could have lived in that pool…

But the one thing guaranteed to lure us out of  the water? Alex’s mum’s famous southern fried chicken and BBQ ribs which all my friends had been talking about for weeks. A great day out of the city with good friends, sunshine and barbecue!

If you need me, I’ll be here from now on….

My social life really had to wind down in the final two weeks before my exam so I don’t have too much else to report but now I am free and plan to make the most of that between now and August by visiting as many rooftop bars in New York as I can… starting last night with a barbecue at my friend Brennan’s apartment where I made loads of new Canadian friends on his amazing roof terrace!! Somehow photos never seem to do these views justice but if you look below, you can see the Freedom Tower, the river and general rooftop beauty!  I think I’m getting better at these panorama shots!

We also had great fun watching this… which we thought was a proposal but it was so windy that the letters kept getting blown away – as far as we could see, it read “Zero heart” and then disappeared behind a tall building – very cryptic!

Today, I woke up with a spring in my step that comes from having a day stretching out ahead of you with nothing you need to do. I took a novel (a welcome change from my CFA books) up to Conservatory Gardens, one of the parts of Central Park I hadn’t yet made it to yet and a place so tranquil that you wouldn’t even know you were still in Manhattan. You enter though Vanderbilt Gate, which used to be in front of Vanderbilt mansion on Fifth Avenue and 58th Street and see ahead of you the beautiful view below.

The southern part of the Garden is in an “English” style – a little taste of home with a  big oak tree to provide welcome shade and statue of Mary and Dickon from The Secret Garden. 

Everyone there is quietly sitting, reading or strolling and it’s a welcome sanctuary from the buzz of the city.

I made some more progress on my rooftop bar quest this evening with some friends who were in town from London, starting at the Library Hotel Rooftop which is cute and does a great champagne cocktail, even if it doesn’t have the best views in the city. It’s right next to Grand Central so this may be one I frequent a bit more often from now on!

After a quick tourist stop in Grand Central (which I may have joined in even though I go there every day….)

…we headed to another rooftop which is alllllll about the view – The Refinery Rooftop which looks right onto my old friend, the Empire State Building! It hasn’t featured on my blog much recently so I’ll put two photos to make up for that!

And here’s an arty shot I took on my walk home – living centrally can have its advantages!

Back to reality from tomorrow but expect more sunshine, rooftops and fun on here from now on! Bring on the summer!

There’s a high likelihood that you may have heard me mention a recent trip to Nashville which I was very excited about. Well, gather round y’all, and I’ll tell you all about it!

The welcome competition at Nashville airport immediately reminds you that you aren’t in New York anymore: What a prize! There’s definitely an element of truth to the Kenny Chesney song “She thinks my tractor’s sexy” though…

We stayed in an Air Bnb in Edgehill which is a cool neighbourhood with its own bar and cafe scene so we channeled Toby Keith’s Whiskey Girl and kept it local on the first night with a few rounds of whiskey-based cocktails at a bar called Tavern while admiring the edgy locals.

A southern brunch was our first stop on Saturday morning, so we put on our Daisy Dukes (sadly no cowboy boots) and headed to Edgehill Cafe for biscuits with eggs and bacon – Yum!

We had a bit of time to kill for our cultural bike tour of Nashville so we wandered round Vanderbilt which is beautiful but appears to have no students… we’d be happy to enrol though! (hope you appreciate my panorama below – it look a lot of attempts!)

And then it was time for a bike adventure featuring Nashville’s “Batman Building”, the beautiful Union Station, squeaky brakes and lots of treacherous cycling across highways…. 

Don’t worry though, if you did happen to hit an innocent cyclist whizzing across a highway with the truck you won in the airport competition, you deserve to be paid – here’s who to call:

So far, so civilised. Then it was time to head downtown to Broadway, Nashville’s heart where the country music is. We started with a quick line dancing lesson at the Wild Horse Saloon to make sure we weren’t too out of practice and soon had the moves down so we were ready for bigger and better things. That led us to Honky Tonk Central, three floors of live music with people spilling out onto the balconies. We grabbed some Corona’s and basked in the sun while country tunes drifted out… this is the place when knowing all the country songs makes you cool, rather than the other way around!

Feeling left out with our lack of cowboy boots, we went across to Boot Barn (“Buy 1 pair, get 2 free”- yep, seriously) to have a browse. Sadly the others couldn’t be persuaded and I didn’t find the perfect pair so I’m empty handed this time but I promise you that one day, I will be honky-tonking on Broadway in those boots:

Now, all that dancing and shopping had made us hungry and you know I like my chicken fried so that took us next door to Merchants where I got me some friiiiieeedd chicken – happy Amy right there!

No night on Broadway is complete without a visit to Tootsies so that was our next stop where we weaved our way between the floors, listening to the amazing talent on show. They even played my favourite song, Rain is a good thing!

Things were starting to get a little messy on Broadway around 10.30pm (where around 60% of the people there are on hen parties) so we headed off the beaten track on a local recommendation to Printer’s Alley and a bar called Bourbon St where once again we were amazed by the live music on show! And they gave us free beads! We were definitely amongst more locals here and had a great time.

We were slightly late to brunch on Sunday morning and walked round to a place called Fido which served up this delicious creation with a large serving of much-needed iced coffee.

Look what we stumbled upon: School of Taylor Swift!! If only we could enrol…

And then for the big excitement of the weekend (after Taylor Swift, of course), a trip to The Bluebird, Nashville’s most famous listening room, incidentally owned by a lady called Amy. (I greatly enjoyed this fact as all the signed pictures on the wall are addressed to Amy.) We had to queue for about an hour but it was 100% worth it! The venue has very strict capacity so it was borderline whether we would make it inside – this photo captures our excitement at making it in!

The band was called Sons’n’Britches (see what they did there) and they were fantastic! So fantastic in fact, that when they signed my CD and started asking me about The Beatles (clearly my accent is as strong as ever), I told them they were better than The Beatles… This might have been a slightly sweeping statement but I bet they’ll be telling people at their next gig! I would definitely check out the not-quite-as-good-as-the-Beatles band though – my favourite songs were The Real Dirty South (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcd4YKwR-Ao&spfreload=10) and Live Bait, Cold Beer and Gasoline. Turns out their videos are pretty hilarious too. (And yes, my CD does say “To Amy, Go Beatles.”)

Nashville, you were awesome and made all my country dreams come true!

Well, a lot has happened since I last wrote… Mainly, it was my birthday and I take birthdays very seriously indeed! Yes, I am now writing as a fully-fledged 24-year old so expect mature words of wisdom in my posts from now on. Anyway, more of that later. Here’s what has been happening in the meantime!

My friend Hannah was back in town after a little detour to DC and Philadelphia, and Ruth was here at the same time so we took the opportunity to head to Chicago for some blues … ok, well the closest equivalent in New York: Terra Blues! We sipped on prosecco while we listened to a soulful, easy-listening acoustic set, and then the more lively band who came on afterwards. I always feel you have to make the most of the great live music options on offer in New York and this place never disappoints!

Speaking of live music, I have another must-visit place for you all. Next time you’re in town, head down to Ellen’s Stardust Diner in Times Square where talented musical theatre performers serve breakfast whilst serenading you – the perfect combination! You cannot stop yourself from smiling no matter how grumpy or coffee-deprived you where when you arrived! Look below for evidence (we were definitely coffee-deprived):

You eat this…

While watching/listening to this! A few of my favourites were Elephant Love Medley and One Day More.

The staff are seriously talented – apparently they lost 16 servers last year to Broadway shows! This is way more fun that a musical, plus there is the opportunity for French Toast and pancakes which can only be a good thing!

Anyway, enough about singing diner staff and back to nature! I took a trip to Brooklyn Botanical Gardens with one of my co-workers on Saturday to escape the concrete jungle of Manhattan and see the cherry blossoms in bloom.

The tulips were out in all their glory:

Apparently Washington DC is the place to go for the cherry blossoms, but Brooklyn, I have no complaints here…

As I move into the next year of my life, I definitely feel I am starting to blossom in New York (sorry, couldn’t resist…) and wonder what adventures the next few months will bring!

I had an awesome American birthday where I rounded up my closest friends and headed down to a bar called The Fat Cat in the West Village. Now, this is no ordinary bar. It has a live band, table tennis tables, pool tables, darts, a bar and my new favourite sport, shuffleboard (like curling but on a table). Everyone got to know each other with some friendly competition and we all had a great time!

Here’s Cynthia demonstrating shuffleboard – turns out we were pretty awesome at this:  

And here’s the rest of the group! Apologies for the blurry photos but hopefully gives you an idea 

I’m off to pack for my trip to Nashville this weekend so watch out for the next blog instalment with more fun adventures to come!