Happy Belated Birthday to Me!

So I am finally 21! I had a great weekend with my parents. They came in on Saturday evening and I met up with them at the Palace Hotel. I went right up to the 39th Floor, otherwise known as the executive lounge. Yeah, that's right. There was all these little appetizers set out and cookies and top shelf liquor. The crazy thing was, you could make your own drinks. I told Courtney I was going to bring in empty water bottles and fill them up with top notch vodka and bring them back to our dorm. Classy, right?

We went out to dinner on Saturday to a Lebanese (Shout out to Hannah!) restaurant called Naya. It is actually right around the corner from where I live. The restaurant itself is no wider than a car. It turns out Lebanese (shout out to Hannah!) is really good and the meat at the restaurant was amazing.

Of course we had to cleanse our palate with a little pinkberry. I took the unhealthy route and got fruity pebbles on mine. Oh, well.

On Sunday we got up and went upstairs to breakfast. They had so much food out ranging from bacon, brioche french toast, pastries, eggs, potatoes, and fresh fruit. It was so good! I tried to keep it to a minimum though because in the afternoon we had our food walking tour of Greenwich Village. The tour was over 3 hours long --but that's not a bad thing when food is involved. We had pizza, rice balls (Amazing!), cookies, chocolate, and bread to name a few samples. I have pictures that I will be loading eventually. During our tour the Gay Pride Parade was going on down the street. The parade itself was actually all over Manhattan so you really couldn't miss it.

After all that food and walking I took a nap and of course woke up in a cranky mood. I decided to go to the Palace gym --which overlooked St. Patrick's Cathedral.

Sunday evening we didn't really eat dinner since we were still so stuffed from our food tour. We went and saw "Next to Normal" at night. It's a Broadway show about a mentally-ill women. Sounds fun, huh? It actually was really good and the music was great.
T
hen Monday came! AKA MY BIRTHDAY! YAY! GO ME! I got some breakfast upstairs and then I headed out with my parents for a little afternoon shopping. We went all over but mostly down to SoHo. Even though it was a Monday that area was still really crowded. It got annoying after awhile, especially in TopShop. Which, by the way, I swear every other girl in that store is like a twig and seven feet tall. How many models do we need?!

I also went to Dylan's Candy Bar which is pretty much my heaven. Yup, I'm 21 and I still get excited going into candy stores. They have every candy you can think of. Three floors full of candy. Just imagine.

Sunday evening I went up to the executive lounge with my parents to get my first legal drink. I had champagne with raspberry in it. oooo fancy. Actually, the manager of food and drinks had been talking to us the past few evenings and kinda got to know me and my rents. When I came up to the lounge the first thing he said was, "Happy Birthday." WHAAA?! He remembers everything! Then he asked if I would be staying with my parents for the night and I was nervous to answer. Why, you ask? Because technically our hotel was just for 2 ppl, so we would get charged extra if they knew I was staying there. So, I slowly said "yessss?" and he just turned to his computer and said OK. OH NO I'M CAUGHT!! That's what I thought...More on that later...

So then I had dinner at an Italian restaurant called Apizz. My first drink was a raspberry cosmo. You couldn't even take the alcohol. Dangerousss. For dinner I got handkerchief pasta with a tomato creme sauce with crab meat. It was amazing because you could tell the pasta was freshly made. They also came out with chocolate cake with a candle in it at the end of the night. It was great to spend it with my parents and Court and Lindsay. After our dinner we headed to Please Don't Tell. It was a speakeasy back in the 20's. You have to make reservations to get in and you actually enter through a hot dog restaurant. You go into a phone booth and pick up the phone. Then on the other side a door opens up and the hostess is sitting right there. It was cool because about 10 ppl got turned away while we were in the bar. Note: Their drinks are extremely strong.

At dinner Courtney surprised me with these amazing gifts too. One to mention was a mini 12 cupcake sampler from Crumbs. Yeah, she knows me too well. I am so excited to try them all!

So when we got back to our room at the hotel I was greeted with a table of a mini chocolate cake that read Happy Birthday and a bottle of Champagne chilling in an ice bucket. I quickly realized why the manager asked if I was going to be staying with my parents for the night. We looked up how much the Palace charges for the bottle of champagne I got : $125. I guess it pays to get to know people in the hotel business.

Well I actually had a busy day at work today too. I had to spend a lot of time checking through the new Guinness site which is going to launch tonight.

We are going out tonight too. But, as I type this I am about to scream because my ear is killing me. Stupid ear infections. It is actually keeping me from eating anything. Atleast I got it today and not on my birthday.

I will post pics soon!


THANKS FOR ALL THE BDAY WISHES!! :-)

2 Days!

I am so happy it's finally the weekend! Today my parents come and we are staying at the Palace Hotel. Did I mention that's where Gossip Girl films? Uhhh yeah. And they actually start filming the new season on Monday. So maybe I could be like "Hey, Chace, it's my birthday can I be a recurring cast member on the show?" I'm sure that will work. 

    

   When I got off  work yesterday (and yes, I actually had stuff to do at work!) I headed up to Broadway to go to this popcorn place my dad really likes. I thought it would be a great birthday gift, even though I am 20 days overdue. I got all the way up there and found out they went out of business. So instead I was just swarmed with tour groups and sweating. Awesome. 

   

   I got some free Pinkberry yesterday though! They were giving out free smalls of their new flavors --coconut or passionfruit. Andddd you got 2 free toppings. 

  

   We hung out upstairs for a little bit and then Linds and Court went out around 11:30. I had to be the loser and stay home. haha But I as I am typing this Courtney and Lindsay are sharing their stories. Let's just say Courtney woke up with two pairs of pajama shorts on --one inside out. 

  

  It looks like it's going to be a beautiful weekend for when my parents come too! Tomorrow is our food walking tour too! 

   Also, I found out July 9 Harry Potter is premiering here. Maybe I will try and make a trip up there. 

   

4 Days!

4 days till my bday! Yay! I got to see Emily on Tuesday night when I took the subway down to Union Square. We went to Max Brenner's, which when you walk in the whole place smells like pure chocolate. I got a crepe with marshmallow and chocolate. That came with a scoop of ice cream and a little bowl of gummie bears. Oh, and a shot of chocolate. It was delicious!

Afterwards, we walked around NYU and into Washington Park. Pics above.

Yesterday after work I went up to the upper west side to go make an attempt to see Cameron Diaz since her super depressing movie was premiering. We didn't end up getting to see her, she got there an hour early! But we saw Abigail Breslin and Rachel Zoe. We also saw Caroline Rhea, aka the aunt from Sabrina. When she got there the photographers were already packing up. It was kinda sad to watch. Here is a really bad video of rachel zoe (stylist to the stars!)

Click here to see Abigail Breslin arrive (she's the little girl from Little Miss Sunshine)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teHxKSLUEZc

And some pics of the event. It was really hard to get any footage since security kept yelling at us and told us to keep it moving. We had to walk back and forth the whole time.


After that was over, we headed to a small italian restaurant called Peters. I got spinach pasta wrapped in ricotta, parmesan, and spinach with a tomato creme sauce. It was pretty good, but nothing that would make me go back to the restaurant.




OK so I am at work now...and I think this post clearly shows how bored I am. I have an intern lunch at 12 so hopefully that will be good!



Oh and thanks to Jenna I made sure to stop in at Levain's Bakery. Their chocolate chip walnut cookies were amazing and hot from the oven!

6 Days

I decided my title posts will now be a countdown to my birthday. I am not one to be like "Everyone pay attention to my birthday!" I am not going to put in the year countdown in my AIM profile and update everyone on FB when I am 100 days away from my bday. No, the reason I am counting down is because it means I can finally go out with all my friends without feeling guilty for still being 20. I will be worry free when it comes to getting into a bar!

So, when I got back from work last night I gave Ashley a call. I wanted to hear all about her Maine visit with Erin. It sounded like it was a lot of fun and I bet she had some delicious blueberries while she was up there!

For dinner, I heated up some leftovers from Courtney's house and had half a cupcake --thanks in part to Miranda's roomie who is a PR intern and one of the clients is Crumbs. After all that eating Courtney and I went to the gym. I was planning on taking a class with her called Cardio Fusion. Reading that title, I initially thought "oh this will be like a step class with some weights." When I got to the class I read the desrciption: "A hip-hop based dance class guaranteed to make you work!" OK, it didn't say exactly that but that's how I interpreted it. I looked at Courtney and said, "uhhh NO. I will be upstairs on the elliptical." Which, by the way I have decided the ellipitcal is the most boring work out machine known to man. Both women on either side of me were on their machine for over an hour. I was on for 15 minutes and wanted to shoot myself.

So, Courtney took the class, which she describes as pole dancing without the pole. That made me very glad that I skipped.

We did some grocery shopping afterward, and I got some deli meat and goldfish for lunch today! Yay how exciting, right?? For dinner, I am meeting Emily down in Greenwich Village area to eat at Max Brenners. If you get a chance, look at their dessert menu. It's 14 pages long and includes dessert pizza, fondue, and crepes. I kinda want to skip the dinner and go right to dessert. After I am done eating, I may need to be one of those women who stays on the elliptical for hours.

Quick Link

Just putting this link in so when I look back on this blog, I don't forget about my first 3 weeks in the city:
http://hudsonka88.livejournal.com/


I just got done editing 50 pages of stuff on the computer screen and I think my eyes are going to fall out. Good times.

Wahh Monday

So I decided to change blogs just because I hate live journal. You can't do anything fun, like background or music. Hopefully I find time to customize this blog.
I went to New Jersey this weekend with Courtney to visit her family. It was so nice to sleep in a big bed and sleep in till whenever. I don't think I ever stopped eating while I was there. Her Grandma made homemade meatballs and her mom made pasta, soup, filet mignon, corn on the cob, sweet potatoes, salad, eggs, coffee, and bacon. Yeah, I think I am about 10 lbs. heavier. Of course the whole weekend it rained, but that's a great excuse to be lazy and just hang around.
We got back last night around 10 and we went to bed pretty much right after that. It was rough getting up this morning.
I am at work right now and just finished updating some documents. I am not really doing anything right now. I think I am going to take some cardio class tonight at Crunch. I really hate work out classes though because I have decided I am not very coordinated. I find it much easier to run.
My parents are coming on Saturday and we are going to see a Broadway show and go on a food walking tour in Greenwich Village. I am pretty excited, especially since it is actually suppose to be 80 and sunny! I was watching the TODAY show and Matt Lauer said it has rained 18 out of the past 23 days here. Caraazzzy.
I think on Wednesday I may be going to a Mets game too. The dorm I live in offers discounts so I figure why not!? Let's just hope it doesn't get rained out...