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!