New York, New York - DAY 1

Hello Friends,

I cannot wait to tell you about my trip to New York city. First of all, it was a trip 'sans kids', meaning that for the next 48 hours I didn't have to worry about wiping little munchkin asses cute bottoms or picking their half-chewed/spit out food off of the floor. This was an 'adults' trip, filled with adult things like shopping, dining at adult restaurants where you do not trip over high chairs and staying in adult hotels that do not offer crayons at check-in. Truth be told as much as I love my kids sometimes mommy and daddy need a break, and what better place to take it then one of the most fashionable, exciting places in the world? Unfortunately there is no way that I could describe our fun-filed adventure in one post, so I've decided to break it up into 2. And here's how our fabulous vacation went:

Day 1:

Upon arriving at the airport we found out that our flight was cancelled and that the re-booked flight was an hour delayed. Did Air Canada realize that these delays were cutting into my shopping time? Anyways, 6 hours and one ativan later we found ourselves in a NYC cab heading over to our very chic hotel. And any type of stress that I had regarding our flight was let go once I stepped into a truly magical place that is, the W hotel:

I mean, look at how cute the ceiling is. It's got birds suspended from the ceiling and the lobby is just so sophisticated and stylish. And our room was just amazing:

The motto at this hotel is 'whatever, whenever' and although the room was small it made up for in amenities (such as the bliss spa products and rain showerhead in the bathroom). We also had a view of the famous Waldorf Astoria from our room and you could literally see into the rooms across from you. The voyeuristic side of me was very happy.

So literally seconds after we settled into the hotel hubby and I decide to be adventurous and to go and visit a store called 'Obscura and Oddities' which is a reality based show on The Discovery Channel.

Truthfully this store is really f**ked up. True to it's name it sells nothing but the weirdest stuff that you have ever seen, like mummified cats, real human kidney stones and plaques with a two headed stuffed cow head on it. They also like sell anything related to death, like pictures of dead people and tons of taxidermy. Don't believe me, take a look:





My favorite item in the store was the rectal dilator (last pic). Did you know that this handy item claims to help with insomnia, eczema and malnutrition? Yeah, I'm not ready to test that theory out quite yet. This store is really off the beaten path, but really is a must see if you are ever looking for that one of a kind gift that you know you won't find anywhere else. So after picking up some souvenirs, (don't worry, nothing dead although that fox in the first pic did look very similar to the fur on my jacket) it was time to walk 50 blocks back to the hotel for dinner.

Since hubby and I hadn't had a date night in what seemed like forever I decided to sex it up with my $35 Rodarte for target dress (pictured below) and we headed to a nice romantic italian restaurant called Pescatore's.

Yum..... doesn't all that food look so good! I know that the dish (pictured second from left) looks like a big pile of black worms but it's actually black squid ink linguini sauteed in a spicy tomato sauce with shrimp and calamari. If you have never had black ink linguini I highly suggest you try some. With our first day in the big apple drawing to a close hubby and I decided to cheers over happiness and being grateful for our life and everything that we had.

So stay tuned for my next post, where we'll visit some of the most iconic stores in the world and what I thought of the Kardashians' store 'Dash'. Can't wait to share!