Real Tourists of NYC aka Amy, Pig in the City

Get it? I went to the home of Jill Zarin (yay!) and the transplanted Whitney Port (ew), for a few days at the beginning of this month with Brandon. BTW, NYC Prep on Bravo is a television show made just for me. I love watching over-privileged youth complain about the atrocities of their lives on the UES while wearing Lanvin flats and Milly sundresses and riding in their town cars through the streets of Manhattan.

But I digress, New York City is the best city in the world. I love it, even though every one of its residency programs dissed me like will.i.am dissed Perez Hilton. Well, not exactly, but close.

We checked into our hotel in Times Square and immediately went a walkin' through the Garment District in search of Papaya King. We ended up eating at a similar hot dog eatery in Penn Station, then we made our way to the Empire State Building and went up since Brandon had never been.

Then we went to my all time favorite, the NY Public Library. It's like that scene in Breakfast at Tiffany's every time I go to the Rose reading room. Sigh. NY is so romantic. Esp with St Patrick's and Rockefeller Center and Paley Park (the teeniest park ever). Brandon then obliged my shopaholic side in the UES, and I got some Pinkberry. I miss it. We walked through Central Park (read: a lot through Central Park) and then back down through Hell's Kitchen in search of some pizza. That first night, we subwayed it down to Chinatown, where Brandon was thoroughly disgusted, and ate at my favorite Vietnamese Restaurant in NYC, Thai Son. Then we covered Little Italy, LES (shed a tear at the former site of CBGBs, damn you John Varvatos), Nolita, Soho, Noho (should've stopped at Pravda), the Village, then up to Union Square Park (and the Strand!) where my legs threatened me with a knife to stop walking and get back on the subway.

On Day two, my legs threatened to strike, but I ignored them like Stacy Karosi ignored those Mexican cooks and walked like an uncoordinated robot the entire day. We trucked it down to the LES and ate bagels and lox at Katz's Deli. Of course, we had what she was having. After breakfast, we went to Washington Square Park which is one of my favorite places ever. After that, we went back to Soho so I could grab some chocolate madeleines from my ultimate fav Balthazar and go to the only US Top Shop location. We rode downtown to Ground Zero and walked around Wall Street and went down to Battery Park to look at the Statue of Liberty. Then we went back up to Bowling Green where we saw a man dressed as a giant panda asking for money. He wasn't actually doing anything, he was just dressed as a panda. Only in NY.

We stopped by the Chanel store where I replaced my lost signature sunglasses. We then cut through Central Park again, stopping in front of the Dakota, and went to Lincoln Center, walking back down to our hotel after stopping at Carnegie Deli. Best pastrami sandwich ever. And the pickles. God, the pickles. That was worth the trip alone. We later met up with our friend Jessica who took us to the East Village for drinks at this awesome little pub called Dempsey's where they were having like a fiddle concert and then to a fantastic Italian dinner at Frank. Dude, my meatloaf/ginormous meatball was amazing. We totally had a NY moment when we were seated thisclose to the table next to us and the woman scoffed at our discussion of the pros/cons of High School Musical. Yeah, she can f off, even if I am not team Efron. I'm jealous though, Jessica's living the dream...ah to be young and chic in NY. Instead, I'm an aging semi-hipster in Kansas City. FML.

The next day, we ate some more deli food before heading to the MOMA where I totally dug the piece with the Smith's album covers and "Portrait of the Laryngologist Dr. Mayer-Hermann." That's me, I'm doing ENT.


Anyway, we shopped a little before going to 'Wich craft (amazing tomato soup!) in Bryant Park. I missed Robert Pattinson by a few hours, he had been in Bryant Park that morning. This is like the 80th time I've said that. It still irks me. It irks me because undeserving little teenyboppers are like pushing him into the street so that he gets clipped by cabs, but I can't even maul him. I swear to Carlisle Cullen, if one perfect hair on his perfect head is harmed, I will smack a twitch (I think you can figure out what combo of two words that is).


We actually cabbed it up to the Met, so that I could eat lunch on the steps and have my Blair Waldorf moment before going in. The Met is my favorite museum in the world. I've spent days in this museum, literally. I love the Temple of Dendur. They also had this cool exhibit on supermodels and were like blaring George Michael's Freedom 90. In the eternal words of Lisa Turtle, "I love art. Are we art? Is art, art?"

We then went up to Jessica's place on the UWS for a wine and cheese party. It was very New Yorky, with a varied cast of characters. Even though I don't think I was the oldest, I felt old. Everyone was like a member of the workforce. Although, I'm not really sure what working in quote unquote finance really entails, everyone seems to do it. They had a really great deck where we drank wine and listened to MGMT; it's a huge apt for NY standards. We went to Shake Shack for a midnight dinner, and it was so the East Coast stepchild of In-N-Out. It was good though.

Last AM, we went to Cafe Metro, these cute little chain of breakfast cafeterias. Then I got the world's best cupcakes (Hummingbird) at Magnolia bakery. I love this city.