NYC - Day 4

After our first subway ride, we felt like we were experts, so we took a subway up to the Bronx to see Yankee Stadium. Unfortunately the tour was sold out so we weren't able to see much inside of the stadium but the outside was nice! Since there wasn't much for us to do in the Bronx, we took the train back down to Greenwich Village and did some shopping along Bleecker Street. We stopped for lunch at a mexican place called Bamboleo--- it was really good!

We went into the American Apparel store (used to be a Banana Republic on SATC) and bought more gloves and socks and then ended up in the NYU area, and spent time in SOHO, NOHO and ended up in the East Village. When we were on Bleecker, I thought we were going west towards the Meatpacking district, but we ended up going east somehow.... We went down a side street and found a coffee shop where we stopped to look at our map and see where we were. We sat in there for a while, realized we were definitely in a "local spot" because the owner knew every single person that walked through the door. She finally asked us where we were from, and we ended up talking to her for over an hour. It was such a great time and the first time I didn't feel like a tourist... I loved it!

We then walked from the East Village over to the West Village and the Meatpacking district (about 25 long blocks) and did a little shopping. We went to the Chelsea Market which is similar to Pike's Place Market in Seattle, but completely indoor, and more focused on different specialty foods instead of local vendors selling random little tourist gifts. We had dinner at Pastis and then took the train back to 5th Avenue for more shopping.

When we got back to our hotel, I logged onto the internet from the lobby (it was free) and Stefan started wandering... He came back and got me and then we wandered the halls together. He found the grand ballroom (which was absolutely incredible) and then there was a door unlocked that led to all of the fancy suites in the hotel (including the Presidential Suite). The King Louis suite was open (lights were out) and there was a north entrance and a south entrance. As soon as we tried to sneak in to look around, a guy that worked in the hotel walked out of one of the entrances so we figured it might not be the best idea... we still wanted to stay there the rest of the week. We pretended that we knew where we were going and thankfully weren't questioned.

Only two full days left of our trip.... it's been incredible, and tomorrow is Christmas Eve!!