I had an amazing day in New York City yesterday with my friend Leah. I have never really liked New York City even though I have only lived a short train ride away from it for my entire life. I realized yesterday that it was because I never really knew the city or had someone to really show me the city in a way that I could really enjoy it. I saw the city yesterday in a way that I never have before.

It was amazing.

First of all, I have to admit a few things. I don’t know how I have even called myself a New Yorker all of these years. I’ve never ridden the subway. I have never visited the Museum of National History. Heck, even though I could find my way around the city, I never really knew the city.

This post is going to have about a bazillion pictures, by the way.

The first thing we did was get hot dogs. I always crave a good NYC hot dog. Okay, so I guess I’m kind of a good New Yorker. I do some things right. Living here for 26 years and a few things do rub off on me.

Gray’s Papaya makes some damn good hot dogs. Oh, and just so we’re clear I definitely threw my diet out the window yesterday. I think I deserved it especially since I probably burned about 1000 calories just walking around the city all day. Oh, and running after my cab but we’ll get to that later.

Next stop? Chocolate. Duh. We didn’t waste any time! At this point Leah stole my camera and pretended she was a professional photographer. It was really adorable. I joined her while she was taking some mirror shots. We are pretty much just huge dorks.

We didn’t buy any chocolate, but we did get some free samples. We decided that free samples are probably why they have to upsell everything so much. Probably not. It’s probably just because it’s New York City. Oh well. At least we get free chocolate. Mmm.

THEN I TOOK MY FIRST SUBWAY RIDE.
It was pretty uneventful. I didn’t see any rats or even see any crazy things happen but hey at least I did it. I even stood! Crazy, I know.

Next stop? Museum of National History. Leah made me pose outside with this statue. Leah is good for making me lose all my inhibitions. I probably wouldn’t normally do crazy things like this but let me tell you, it feels awesome and I probably should. Ha!

There were about 20 school buses just while we were entering the museum. We decided that sharing a museum with kids was better than sharing it with tourists. No offense to tourists or anything but tourists are usually loud and kids are on their best behavior on field trips.

Okay, I’m giving you fair warning right now. The dinosaurs were one of my favorite exhibits so you are going to see lots of dinosaurs.

OOOOOH! I can only imagine if I came here as a kid. I probably would have died. Yup.

I walked around and pointed at all the dinosaurs and showed Leah how cool everything was. Pretty much like a child. Other children were staring at me. I didn’t care. I was excited. YAY! EXCITEMENT!! This is the field trip that I never had! These kids have no idea how lucky they really are. Silly kids.

I made Leah pose with the dinosaurs too. She probably wasn’t excited as me and she also has been here before but I think she was still pretty happy and I think some of my glee (the emotion, not the television show) was rubbing off on her.

Leah is part of the dinosaur family tree. This is what she has named it.

The mammoth cousin running after Leah. Leah is making scared face. Or something. AHHH!

Then it was my turn. I did not know what to do.

Looking out of the 4th floor of the museum. :)
I like how there is a random guy rolling a tire along the sidewalk.
Gotta love New York.

Leah thought this guy needed some shades.

Extinct kangaroo!

This is Moschops. He is my favorite exhibit. Moschops is NOT a dinosaur and he is totally cool with that. Moschops butts you with his head. Moschops is COOL. I talked about Moschops for a long time and I think it started to drive Leah a little bit nuts. I had laughing fits about Moschops. DUDE. Moshops is freaking AWESOME. You wish you were Moschops.

My other favourite exhibits were the animal ones. I loved them all! YAY! Here is one of my favourite pictures from them.

This is Leah beating up a grey fox. A live grey fox killed her cat. It is a sad yet funny story because her dad was the only one to see the grey fox for a few years and nobody else in their family believed him that a grey fox existed until Leah saw a grey fox recently. So it is a big joke now about the mysterious grey fox.

Native American exhibit.

I think that my barbies would have liked to have this instead of the Barbie Dreamhouse. How much cooler would this have been? WAY COOLER, that’s how. This is so much better than the Barbie Dreamhouse. Leah agrees. They should make stuff like this instead.

THEN, I found the Maori exhibit and I was really excited. :D

Leah basically had to pull me away from it. I took so many pictures of it and was just staring at it. It made me really happy. I was all like YAY NEW ZEALAND!!!

Last but not least was the gem exhibit.

There were so many beautiful gems. I stopped taking gems because we were talking about birthstones and how I hate my emerald birthstone and wish it was sapphires instead. We were disappointed that the hope diamond wasn’t there but we saw so many amazing gems. I pretty much thought I was going to die staring at all the SPARKLES!!!!!!

After that, we were really hungry. Before we even left the museum, we decided we needed Mexican food and perhaps some margaritas! So, we found this tiny little place and it turned out to be amazing. We got some chips and salsa and the iced tea I got just really hit the spot. I don’t think I realized how thirsty I was. The waitress just kept filling my glass.

This is the best chili I ever had. EVER. The picture doesn’t do it justice but it was AMAZING.

We walked around for a while and did some window shopping. I didn’t take any pictures here but it was really fun. :)

Oh, did someone say food network shops? Yes.

The nominee cookies! They were so adorable!

Also CUPCAKES! I was really craving cupcakes at this point. However, we were waiting. Just picture taking at this point.

These made me happy. Rainbow sprinkles are pretty much my favourite thing ever. I told Leah that rainbows are my favourite colour. She laughed.

Next stop. Spaghetti cupcakes.

This was my favourite. Do you know why?
If you said rainbow sprinkles, you are right.

CUTE! They also had Sesame Street cupcakes. I almost thought about getting a Grover cupcake but I resisted.

Then I saw the most awesome thing I have ever seen. Alice In Wonderland Cake. I told everyone in the store that I wanted it to be my birthday cake every year for the rest of my life. Some random guy was like, “REALLY? EVERY YEAR?” I was like, “YES THAT IS WHAT I SAID!!” It was kind of weird once I realized what was going on. That’s New York.

Next up? This blew my mind. A raw vegan store called One Lucky Duck. It was absolutely amazing and I didn’t want to leave.

Leah and I bought this there and split it. It was one of the most amazing things I have ever eaten. Best desert ever, vegan or non. SO GREAT. I wanted to buy a bazillion of them. We also looked through the One Lucky Duck cookbook and I took their pamphlet. I was super excited about this stop we made and I am glad Leah knew about this place. She knew I’d love it and she was right.

We walked two steps from the vegan shop and we see an Aussie meat pie store. I have to admit, I was a bit excited about this too. I loved eating meat pies in New Zealand. I had to go have a look. I know, two extremes, right?

I looked at the board and laughed. Ha! You’re doing it wrong silly Aussies! They didn’t even have steak and cheese pies! The best of all pies! Fail! Some of the other things on the board also made me laugh. I giggled and smiled to myself and walked away with my wannabe-kiwi pride.

We took a cab after this to the other side of town. Guess what I did? I LEFT MY CELL PHONE IN THE CAB! We called my phone right away from Leah’s phone and the cab driver answered it. I almost had a heart attack. The cab driver told us he was in a hurry and that we should run the two blocks that he had driven to get the phone! Leah and I RAN two blocks to get the phone. It was freezing, haha! But we got my phone back. That was an adventure. It was so exhilarating and fun! What a story to tell!

The vegan stops weren’t done yet. We also went to Babycakes! I got a cupcake and it was actually really good. I was glad I finally ate a Babycakes cupcake even if I’m not technically vegan right now because I have been wanting to for a long time.

We also got a manicure! It was a random decision! I have never had a real manicure at a place before let alone in New York City. That was definitely an experience, too. I never paint my nails. First, the Korean nail lady told me that the colour I picked was bad because it was a spring or summer colour. I had picked out a light lavender colour and she brought back this dark purple. I didn’t hate it so I just figured she knew better so I agreed. Haha! Leah liked it too so I went with it. I kinda like it now. The lady got mad at me for reasons I have no idea about. I think maybe I paid her wrong or maybe it was because I didn’t want to add on the great massage she wanted to give me or maybe it was just because she didn’t like me but she definitely started talking about me to her friend in Korean which I obviously do not speak. I thought the whole thing was hilarious and I just was so excited to be experiencing something new and exciting!

Later on that evening, we ate pizza at Motorino Pizza! It was so amazing. Plus, you can’t go to NYC and not get pizza, right?

I had an awesome day. I feel like I’m leaving out a million things.
I hope I do this again soon.