Alright, so if y’all read my last blog, you should know I went to New York City for the….I think it was the 6th or 7th time. I’ve lost count at this point. I had kept telling myself that I wasn’t going to keep going there and instead would vacation elsewhere, but when your dad buys you courtside tickets to the 50th Anniversary of the US Open, you go to the US Open. (More on that later, though.) I’m writing this blog to really just fill in my peeps (that’s you guys) on the things I did while I was up there. If anyone is going to NYC anytime soon, I highly recommend doing any of the same activities because they were all fantastic.

Fun fact: we did about 30 miles of walking from Friday to Tuesday. My feet have some lovely blisters to prove it.

We were staying at a hotel on the corner of Lexington and 48th, so on Friday, I planned for us to check out midtown. My dad hadn’t been to NYC in like 25 years, so things were much different for him. We walked to Central Park and spent quite a bit of time there before making our way down to Times Square and then to Rockefeller Center. Friday night was our night to go on a dinner cruise, so we dressed up nice and did that. Our dinner cruise gave us some breathtaking views of the city while feeding us amazing food at the same time. 10/10 experience.

Saturday, we spent the morning walking the Chelsea High Line then went to the Chelsea Market, both spectacular places to check out! Mars and some old family friends of mine met us at a restaurant nearby and we spent the remainder of the evening drinking local beer, chatting and catching up. It was a very wholesome day!

Sunday’s activities consisted of the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, tooling around in Brooklyn, and walking to One World Observatory by way of the Brooklyn Bridge. (Loads of walking!) If you ever want to walk the Brooklyn Bridge, I recommend wearing comfortable shoes…although I have done it in freezing temperatures wearing heels before, so to each his own. I like to wear nice outfits for the photos, so I was okay with suffering through the foot pain. That evening after having spent some time at the top of the tallest building on this side of the world, we had an appointment at the Color Factory, and although I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect with this event, I booked us spots anyways. (The weekend was on the verge of selling out when I booked on the Wednesday before.) Turns out, it was a fantastic time filled with creativity and picture taking and playing in a giant ball pit. Spectacular.

(Head over to my Insta for more photos of my NYC adventures.)

Monday. Monday was spectacular. We had front row seats at the US Open in the Louis Armstrong stadium all day long. I watched Nishikori’s sweat drip off him as he beat Kohlschreiber as well as having the same intense view watching 2014 US Open winner, Cilic beat Goffin later that day. Of course, I watched some women’s tennis too and let me tell you, women’s tennis is much more intense when you’re basically sitting on the court. Some other big names you might recognize that we watched play on other courts: Nadal, Federer, Millman, Sharapova, Djokovic, and so many more. It was a spectacularly long 14 hour day, but it was the experience of a lifetime.

Now, I hadn’t ever really tried to tackle taking the subway to get around, but my dad insisted we give it a shot, so after some resistance, I gave in. One of my best friends, Mars, lives up there and recommended an app called City Mapper to help navigate the city subway system, and let me tell you, it was a lifesaver. I owe both Mars and that app for my learning the subway system. By the end of our trip, I would consider myself pretty adept at navigating the subway. I surprised myself. 🙂

I’m aware that this blog is longer than usual, and I apologize. I tried not to ramble too much, but sometimes I just lose track of how much I’m writing. Anyways, hope you enjoyed my little vacation update. This is my third big vacation this year, and I absolutely love it. I love traveling.

Have a great Thursday!

xx – A

P.S. Videos from the Color Factory included below. More to come on my social media. 🙂