Jenni goes stateside: New York, so good they named it twice

And so good they visited twice...so far. Having ticked an impressive 5 new countries off my list in 2021 (even more impressive since I went on 6 holidays in total), it was time to end the year in one of my favourite places that I've ever been to; New York City. When I last visited for my 21st birthday, it was all of my dreams come true and more. We drank champagne on a yacht circling lady liberty, we had breakfast at Tiffany's while we collected my birthday present, we hit all the TV and film hotspots, we watched the Pride parade and we wandered along the high line in the sunshine. It was everything I could've ever hoped for and I wrote in my blog post at the time that I hoped to return in the "not-too-distant-future". Well, I would say just shy of 5 years qualifies, wouldn't you? And this time, I was excited about having a totally different kind of trip. Not only was I headed there with Ollie rather than my parents, but we were also going in winter rather than summer, opening up a whole new host of potential activities to enjoy. And let's be honest, it's everyone's dream to be in New York over the festive period at least once right?

It's also (probably) everyone's worst nightmare to miss their flight there! Although my timekeeping is the best of all my friends, that's still a pretty low bar so when I go anywhere with Ollie or family, I'm still late. This apparently even extended to being ready late when we needed to drive to Heathrow and when we were hit by an extra 45 minutes of traffic, we only just ran into departures about 25 minutes before our flight was due to take off. Shockingly they wouldn't let us get on it (rude) but they did luckily bump us onto the next flight in the morning for no extra cost so the universe was atleast still partially shining on me that day. It just meant we had an unexpected night staying at the highly luxurious destination of the Ibis Heathrow (practically living that influencer lifestyle am I right?).

12 hours later than planned but we were off! And after a 8 hour Virgin Atlantic flight, we landed in NYC! Thankfully because of the 5 hour time difference, we hadn't actually lost out on much time in New York; just the night in the hotel and a few hours of the morning. And serendipitously, the activity we had booked for the morning had actually emailed to say they needed to rearrange anyway (more on that later). So we headed straight to our hotel to check in and drop off our luggage (the perk to arriving late was that our room was already ready for us). We were staying at the Hilton Midtown which was on 6th avenue so a really great location and the room was super spacious. I certainly noticed the difference between staying in Midtown and staying on the Upper West Side (like we did last time) because you got a lot more room for your money! I don't how much the hotel part of the holiday actually cost though because the whole holiday was actually a wowcher deal! So the twin-centre holiday (New York and Mexico; Mexico details to follow in the next blog post), including the international flights, the connecting flights and the 2 hotel stays all came in at £1,500 and then we paid an extra £200 for better, more direct flights. If you've never looked on wowcher for holidays before then you might want to get yourself over there (just saying).

We had just under an hour before our first activity was booked so we headed out in search of food. It can always be risky not researching beforehand I think, as you can waste one of very few meals there on something you're not mad about. But we got lucky, as we stumbled into the cutest little pub right near the Rockefeller centre. Covered in fairy lights and cute Christmas decorations, I got a french dip sandwich which was amazing (although those crazy American portions crept up to surprise me again).

And then we were heading up 60 floors to the viewing deck at the Top of the Rock! The view was as stunning as I'd remembered it and it was one of those beautiful frosty but sunny winter days. For our first day in New York, I'd gone with light blue skinny jeans (new look), black high neck top with mesh sleeves (river island), burgundy fur coat (new look) and burgundy ankle boots (ASOS). I didn't actually have any flat boots but got these for only £15 in the sale over Christmas because I felt like I definitely needed a comfortable walking shoe for our trip!

Once we were back at ground level, we made the most of being in New York over the Christmas period by admiring all the amazing lights. The tree at the Rockefeller centre was as impressive as it's made out to be and we looked at them all at the perfect time (IMO); just as the sun's setting so the lights really pop but it's still light enough to appreciate everything.

I'd had in my head for ages that I wanted to do outdoor ice skating while we were there and I'd read about a few possible options including the Rockefeller rink (crazy expensive), central park (bigger and busier) and Bryant park. Given that the one at Bryant park was part of a winter village with stalls and food stands and a bar area, we thought we'd head there to check it out. And then ironically changed our mind on the ice skating all together! Given that I'm terrible at ice skating and the rink was really busy, it seemed like one of those things that sounds romantic and fun in your head but would actually be ~hell~ in real life. So we settled for watching everyone else do it instead while we enjoyed some mulled wine!

Then we headed back to the hotel to get ready for the part of the trip that I was possibly most excited about; Hamilton. I'm obsessed with Hamilton and have been since my brother Aidan introduced me to it at the start of 2019. Anyone attentive might know that me and my family have already been to see it twice on the west end in London and the soundtrack made up all of my top played songs on my Spotify Wrapped like 2 years running. Ollie is not into musicals at all and after I got him to barely sit through it with me on Disney+, I didn't think he'd ever be interested in going to see it in person. Then he surprised me with the best Christmas present ever as he'd booked us tickets to go and see it in New York! The best part of the present I guess, was knowing he was willing to go to a pretty long and (seriously) expensive show that he wasn't interested in himself, purely because he knew how much I loved it. That's true love guys.

The show was everything I'd hoped it would be and more; seeing it in the place that it both originated and is set, made for an incredible atmosphere and it truly felt like a magical night. I did have to laugh at my outfit choice. Even as I packed this skirt, I did think it made me look like I was trying to dress as the cast in the first act (seriously, google it). But maybe it just helped to show everyone I was a super fan? I paired the skirt (shein) with this mesh sleeve floral top (I saw it first), and black tights and heels.

I worried we might be limited on food options after the show as it didn't end until 11pm but we were in the city that never sleeps after all! So we managed to find the cutest little hidden Italian restaurant just round the corner, where we enjoyed big bowls of pasta and an even bigger glass of wine!

The next day was new years eve and we had a jam-packed schedule to end the year on a high. Our day started at the serendipity cafe (from the film), which I visited last time I was in New York but didn't eat at. Since then, they've refurbed the whole place so it no longer looks how it did in the film (it's lost some of it's magic for it I think) but it was still super cute. The portions were absolutely insane though; I wish our server had warned us when we were ordering because we made an embarrassingly small dent on our waffles and "frozen hot chocolates" (they were roughly the size of my head - which is very large).

Next we headed right down to the bottom of Manhattan because we were going on a helicopter ride!! This was the activity that had rearranged on us and I'm SO glad we didn't miss out on it. We got to fly over Brooklyn bridge, the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, Governors Island and up the entire length of Manhattan with incredible skyline views and interesting facts and commentary as we went. Having been to the statue of liberty last time, I have to say that this was a much better way to see her!

We hadn't booked anything for the afternoon because we wanted some time to just wander around and soak it all in, rather than back-to-back activities. After admiring some more of the Christmas lights, we had a stroll though central park before ending up in a cute little bar for a drink. For our last day in New York, I went with a black tights outfit; dusty blue long sleeve top, dalmatian print ruched skirt (both shein) and then the same burgundy fur coat and burgundy boots. I only wanted to take 1 coat with me as we were having to pack for both cold and hot weather for 10 days, so this one was a perfect choice as it's super warm and works just as well in the day as it does dressed up at night.

And then it was time to start celebrating new years eve! I had bought a *wow* dress especially for the occasion; it wouldn't feel like New Years if I wasn't wearing sequins. We were booked in for dinner at a restaurant called Butcher and Banker which was really cool as it was underground inside an old bank vault. The food was amazing, although once again there was way too much of it; clearly we were being ambitious ordering appetisers!

After dinner, it was party time! We'd done a lot of searching for events etc after knowing from the get-go we didn't want to do the infamous NYE in Times Square. I'd read you should arrive to that no later than 3pm to get a good spot and standing in the cold with no drink for 9 hours did not sound like a very festive way to celebrate to me. So instead, we turned our attentions to rooftop parties and eventually booked one at Yotel, which was right near times square and had a view of the fireworks. We had a bottle of champagne, an open bar, chocolate covered strawberries, and a view of the Manhattan skyline from our table. But the best part wasn't included in the ticket; the best part was entering another year with the love of my life by my side. And we certainly got the new year off to a fab start, as a few hours after our party ended, we were on a flight to our next destination...