New York City (December 2019)

I was blessed with a whirlwind 24ish hour trip to NYC to be part of a daytime talk show, and so without much time to research as well as not a set amount of time to explore, I found myself blindly boarding the plane on a Wednesday afternoon in mid-December and letting my expectations fly out the window. There is a whole other set of posts about this trip on my Personal/Family blog (Part 1, Part 2), but this is more of an overview of the places I stayed, where I ate, etc.

Accommodations

I stayed at the Fairfield Inn & Suites by Marriott New York Manhattan/Central Park, which was a great location while remaining fairly "quiet" overall, considering I was in the city that never sleeps. The room was comfortable and quiet and clean, and I had no concerns about it at all. I will say that it was a bit awkward as far as how to get in. Maybe it's like this in most hotels in the city, but in order to get to the elevator bay, you have to go through the bar and then use your key to get through a door. Once inside, I was a little confused as to where to go. Maybe I wasn't listening well enough when they explained, but I went down this long hallway before a maintenance worker directed me back to the elevator. Then, when I got up to my floor, there were 3 other workers up there apparently going in to perform maintenance on a room just down the hall from mine. I just found that odd as it was already about 7pm, and it seemed an odd time to be performing maintenance to the degree that it required 3 guys.
All was fine, though, and I settled in. The staff was friendly and I have no real complaints about the place at all! I appreciated that no one could just walk right in and go to my room, but that they had to have a key to even get to the part where there were rooms. The extra security measure when you're visiting a city like NYC for the first time helped me feel more safe as a single woman by myself in the city.

Dining

Having such limited time in NYC, I was only able to really eat two meals there: Supper the first night and Lunch the next day. I *could* have had breakfast if I hadn't stayed out so late exploring, but I woke up later than anticipated and didn't have a plan, so I just went to the studio right away, where they thankfully had some snacks for me.

The Greek Kitchen

website

I didn't really take pictures here, but I tried the traditional Greek dish Mousaka for supper, which was very tasty, but I later regretted as it not only had tomatoes but also cheese, and I recently discovered that I have both a tomato and dairy sensitivity. But it was yummy for those who don't have that for sure! The staff was very friendly and kind, it wasn't too busy on a Wednesday evening, and the service was quick. Our drinks were filled regularly as well. I'd definitely return. They had a great menu as well!

Tender Restaurant

website

After exploring Times Square and Rockefeller Center and strolling up and down Broadway, we opted to find some sushi, and while searching for Sushi by Bou, we stumbled into Tender and were so glad we did! We tried their Dragon Roll, Rockfeller and Tender Roll, and all three were delicious!

Exploring

I really didn't know that I was going to have the rest of an afternoon to explore the city, so the first night in town, although it was fairly late when I finished supper, I opted to walk down to see what the hype was about down on Broadway and to go see the tree all lit up in Rockefeller Plaza. I'll give you my general opinion on what I saw, then go into detail a tinge about the highlights.

First of all, NYC was not even sort of a little bit scary for me as a single woman to walk around in the evening. Not even slightly. There were so many friendly people, and the atmosphere was so fun! There were street vendors all over the place selling REALLY great quality hats, scarves, gloves, handbags and other trinkets.

Broadway Street

You'll laugh at this, but it dawned on me when I hit about 62nd Avenue that I was walking on THE Broadway. Like...The Broadway that everyone talks about and sings about and all that. Don't ask me why I hadn't realized that or thought about it before, but let's just say that even just walking up and down the street was entertainment enough for me for probably the entire night. It was impressive. It was so cool! And it really is true that this is the "city that never sleeps". By 11:30pm, there were still TONS of people out exploring the city, all the street vendors were still out, and the atmosphere was electric! Oh, and the vendors selling gloves and hats? Oh my word are they great quality! I bought a LOT of hats and mittens and gloves haha :)

Rockefeller Plaza

Okay, now THIS was cool! A couple random observations about the area are that the tree seemed much smaller than I had anticipated. I wish I had MUCH longer to explore the shops around the area. It is not even sort of remotely worth it to have your picture taken by the dudes with the little DSLR camera by the tree lol My phone died and my backup battery pack died and I didn't have any pictures and was almost ready to pay $20 to get a single picture when I came to my senses. For one, they have no idea what they're doing. But also, they basically just run down the street to the nearest drugstore to print the picture, so...yeah. It was weird. And they don't know how to shoot with a DSLR at all.

I could've spent a few hours here, having a drink and people watching. Very fun, very cool place!

Times Square

I feel like this was a bit of a let down, honestly. It was cool and impressive and all, but it was basically like you just are walking down the street, and then there it is, and you take a picture and it's cool and then you leave. Maybe I missed something, but there wasn't anything to actually "do" there. I mean, there's were some guys dressed up in costumes that you can take your picture with, but they worked for tips, and made it very clear that $20 was the expected tip if we got to take our picture with them, and well...no.