April 9-April 18 Liz Visits NYC!

Monday morning I headed back to the city but I was very excited because my best friend Liz had off from student teaching so she came with me to visit! We took the train into Penn Station and went to my apartment before dinner. I showed her around and then we met Sarah at Novita where we had delicious pasta dishes. Of course we had to get dessert and due to celebrating Liz being in the city we weren't shy about indulging! We enjoyed a frozen hazelnut nougat, a slice of 20 crepes layered with custard, and vanilla gelato covered with hot espresso. 

We went back to the apartment to change and we walked to Beauty & Essex restaurant/lounge to go out for a little while!

It is cool because if you look in the window or walk in you just see cases of different items like a pawn shop but then you go up to the bouncers at a door on the back wall and you walk into a beautiful huge place. 

First we hung out at the bar on the first floor and we noticed that one of the cocktail waitresses looked like Brooke Hogan's friend Ashley from the Brooke Knows Best television show and it turned out to be her. She was super nice and we got a picture with her.

Then we ventured around including upstairs where there was a nice lounge and bar area. We hung out for a while and had a good time there!

The next morning we took a nice walk to Soho where we went through some parks and Union Square. We did a little bit of shopping there and then we got hungry and went to Max Brenner restaurant! They are known for their chocolate dishes so we got a pizza for our meal and then chocolate pizza for dessert! We got one slice with chocolate, peanut butter and bananas and the other with chocolate, bananas and hazelnut crumbs. They were very sweet and so indescribably delicious!

Afterwards Liz said that she could go for some coffee since she drinks multiple cups a day haha so we went to a neat little cafe called The Grey Dog. It was really cute there and we hung out and chatted for a while.

Later we went to dinner at La Esquina Mexican restaurant that Ritz had told me about. The interior was really cool and the food was really good, especially their corn on the cob which is covered with a mixture of mayonnaise, salt, and a certain cheese... it was incredible!

When we left, outside there was a huge film crew and we found out that they were filming an Adidas commercial. We kept walking and looking around to see what we should do next and then we saw two females and a male modeling the Adidas shoes on the meridian of the street. The models were about my height so it gave me hope! haha

Then we saw a place that looked interesting because it had pictures of pirates on the outside and had a sign that said karaoke so we decided to stop in. It was a really cool place and we hung out for a little while and watched people sing karaoke which was really amusing!

The next morning we got up and went to see Times Square and some stores in the area with Sarah! We had a lot of fun in Toys R Us walking through the huge Barbie house store and The Avengers exhibit!

Before Liz had to catch her train home we decided to get something quick to eat so we went to Friday's near Times Square. Even though we ordered soup and salad we were sitting there for 20 minutes and we really had to go so our server told the kitchen to make our order to-go and we paid and ran! We should have known that Times Square is the worst area to try to get food quickly because there are so many people. We literally ran to the subway station and then through Penn Station and Liz made it on the train three minutes before it left!

I was so happy that she made a trip to visit me and it was a lot of fun!

The next few days I worked a lot and some of the guests we had were Maya Thurman-Hawke who is Uma Thurman's daughter and that same night the actor Spencer Boldman.

April 15th was Tax Day so I made sure previously that I had everything turned in and I also opened up a Roth IRA to start saving for retirement. Later I went to the gym with Sarah because she gave me a free three day pass to see if I like it there. We signed up for a class called Chisel and it was so intense! About fifteen minutes into the class I had to walk out and breath for a minute. I am proud that we stayed for the whole class but I woke up the next morning extremely sore.

Since the pass had to be used for three consecutive days we went back to the gym the very next day and took a bike riding class. It was cool because the class is in a room with all black fluorescent lights and they play music with good beats. Again it was very intense and difficult to get through the whole class, but we did and the next morning I woke up and it hurt so badly to even walk or sit or do anything!

It was difficult going back to work being so sore but finally the pain went away and it felt good to have worked out!