Happy 4th of July weekend!!

I hope everyone had a great weekend and I wish I could have shared New York's fireworks with you. This weekend was GREAT because one of my best friends, Julie, came into town on Thursday night and stayed until just a couple of hours ago.

From start to finish, I'm going to share with you our weekend :o)

Friday morning I didn't have work (yay) so we got up and started seeing all the stuff Julie wanted to see first. We started our day at Ground Zero, and when we got off the subway, this weird mosaic was on the ground

Right by Ground Zero, there is still this cross up from when all the fire-fighters were searching for victims of 9/11 and this appeared standing up in all the debris!

I didn't take any pictures of Ground Zero since it's under construction and I took some early in my trip. I have those still posted if you want to see them...just go to the very bottom of my page and click Older Posts until you run across them (I went on my very first day here)

Then we walked west to the Hudson River and came upon this NYPD Memorial. As sad as it was, it was really cool to run across something new since I thought I'd practically seen most of that area.

Here is a view from walking along the Hudson River. This view is New Jersey I believe. I didn't take many again since I have many more from the first time I saw the Hudson - but it is just as gorgeous every time and seeing water never gets old!

Then we took a subway uptown into Time Square for Julie to see. One of the first stores we went into was the M&M World store! (http://www.mymms.com/) Even though you can buy them anywhere and most likely in tubes like this, it was so cool to see in the store because of all the solid colors they provide and the mixed themed colors like this picture shows

And this mixed one is "NYC Taxi"

After walking most of Time Square, we walked east to the Rockefeller Center area and where I work. Along the way we saw this!

After the Rockefeller Center, we decided it was lunch time, so I figured since we were so close, we should go to the Burger Joint. If you haven't heard of this, it's really really good! I had never heard of it until I was doing research to visit, and then my parents and everyone else starting saying this was a place to go.

It's in the Le Parker Meridien Hotel which is between Rockefeller Center and Central Park. So we went there to eat, and how everyone says, it really it inside one of the nicest NY hotels, but it's "hidden" behind the big red curtain on the left side of the picture.

It was such a great burger and luckily we got a table for 2 to enjoy it! I would guess that the place holds no more than 50 people and the line was out of the door/other curtain!

Then we cut across the bottom corner of Central Park to get over to 5th avenue and the east side. I don't know what building this is, I just loved the view.

Once we got out of Central Park this weird Statue of Liberty person was there!

Unfortunately during watching fireworks on Saturday night, Julie's camera was stolen/lost so I can't show you the pictures of me and her with this person, but I'll try to find another one show.

Walking towards all the shopping and stores we wanted to see, we found Dylan's Candy Bar! (http://www.dylanscandybar.com/index.cfm) This candy store has been a place that I won't forget. It is owned by Ralph Lauren's daughter, Dylan, and since opening she has also opened a store in Texas!

This is just the main level of Dylan's! All of the candy was the same as any other candy store, but the decorations and atmosphere was so amazing!

Going downstairs to the next level

"Stairway to candy heaven" - the floors of the stairs have actual candy in them!

This is probably my favorite from the store - a bathtub full of gum balls!!

They also had counters that made chocolate covered foods and fudge! Anything you can think of this store had!

This is the behind the cashier!

Unfortunately we finally had to leave since we realized we'd seen everything multiple times, but we finally made it to our original destination - Serendipity 3! (http://www.serendipity3.com/) We ate here the night she came in, but since our reservations were so late, we closed out the restaurant and we weren't able to buy anything from the giftshop, so we just had to walk back inside the next day :o)

The restaurant was cute, but the food was just so-so. They are known for their "frozen hot chocolate" and pretty much all of their desserts so after we ordered those we were okay that the food wasn't good - the desserts were amazing! As soon as my roommate gets her pictures off her camera I will post pictures of what the desserts looked like

Then we walked south along 5th Avenue - and came across the Apple store that is known for it's entrance that you see. The store is actually below, so you have to take an escalator down there.

Across the street is the famous Plaza Hotel - we didn't walk inside (hopefully I will before leaving) but just from the outside it's extravagant as everyone makes it seem!

Also within the same block was Bergdorf Goodman. A few weekends ago me and my roommate went inside and it was just amazing! I didn't take any pictures then because it didn't have my camera on me, and I didn't take any this day because we didn't go in - but it is the best department store I've ever been into! If I have spending money leftover by the time it's close to leaving here, I am going to try to talk myself into making a small purchase from here :o)

...and one day here too!

...Haha and here!

Past all of these not affordable stores we came across the Trump Tower. We went inside as far as the public was allowed, but there was only a restaurant/bar and Starbucks

This is also the Trump Tower, just from down the road

As much as I usually don't like this brand, this store has some really cute stuff and really cute t-shirts that were new york related...but the price was outrageous!...then it reminded myself why I don't normally like it

After 5th Avenue, we made it back to the Rockefeller Center. Normally this box of flags has all of the other countries' flags flying, so it was really cool to see all of our's for the weekend!

We also went into the NBC Experience Studio Store

Friday night after all of our exploring during the day, we got tickets to see Chicago!! It was really really good and I definitely recommend it!

For dinner after broadway, we went to Junior's. This place orginated in Brooklyn, but we went to the one in Time Square - it was also really good! As much as I've realized how I haven't really had any bad food, this weekend was full of REALLY good food :o)

For example...we both got the Southern Fried Chicken - and it honestly was just as good as eating it in the south

After dinner we walked around Time Square to all of the touristy shops to see what Julie wanted to buy for everyone and for her to see the rest of Time Square at night. Seeing it in the daytime makes reality hit, but at night it is more than expected!

Saturday we woke up and decided what we wanted to do for the 4th of July. After deciding that we wanted to just walk around like the day before, we started our day by going to Canal Street! Canal Street is where you can buy knock-off name brand bags, wallets, watches, anything! I went last weekend with Kendall, but wanted a Chanel bag and Julie wanted to get something for herself and her sister.

Here is a picture of what I got!

After walking Canal Street during the morning, we took our goodies back to my dorm, then decided we needed to eat something American (even Texas since we felt like we were missing out on something) so tried this bbq that claims to be Texas bbq like you're in Austin - and it was good!

It was just as good as eating it in Texas (just more pricey) but it was worth it!

(http://www.hillcountryny.com/home.php)

Here is the food that I ordered - lean brisket and a really good corn mixture

AND they even served sweet tea!

And believe it or not, they even served Blue Bell! If you know, Blue Bell isn't served everywhere outside Texas, and especially not all the way up here, and they actually said it on their menu that they get it exclusively shipped up here for the full experience!

They also had other baked goods and this festive cupcake was a part of it

They also had a Texas flag on the wall!

So by the end of eating and exploring the store, I am certain that I will have to visit again before leaving.

After eating and walking around in the area of the restaurant, we rode the subway up to Columbus Circle, which is where there is a really pretty entrance to Central Park that I wanted Julie to see (and again, I have pictures of that entrance in older posts)

Also at Columbus Circle there is the Trump Hotel and Tower, and it is so pretty on a clear day like Saturday was!

We walked through Central Park again, but only a tiny little piece again since it's so huge and we were trying to get to a street by it. We got out at 6th Avenue, which is where alot of famous buildings, hotels, etc are...and we found this! I was so excited because as many times as I walked 6th Avenue, I had yet to see this too.

We took a picture of us together, but again, it was on Julie's camera that it now in someone else's hands...so we kept saying that it's a sign we'll have to visit again :o)

After walking even more (I haven't been this sore since the first few days I was here) we went back to Time Square to make purchases for everyone from the little gift shops. Along the way we went inside Hard Rock to look at all the memorabilia that we have.

They have a really cool wall that is just guitars

...so we had someone take our picture in front of it

After working our way up one side of Time Square, we went all the way down to one end to turn around and hit the other side, and came across more places that I've been hoping to see!

Another bbq place that is related to Texas - they love us :o)

Next door to Dallas BBQ, they have a Yankees store

After working our way along the other side of the TIme Square shops, we stayed in the area to walk over to the Hudson River to see the fireworks!

And just since it was the 4th of July, I couldn't help but by a hotdog - and it was really good!!

We didn't get close to the Hudson in time to have a great view of the fireworks, but it was good enough to have been in NY for the holiday!

After hotdogs and fireworks, we also had to eat ice cream from Mr. Softee since they are on EVERY corner!

It was so delicious! But after I took this picture is when Julie realized she didn't have her camera, so she wasn't able to enjoy her's and I scarfed mine down so we could dig through everything and walk back to where we were.

After not being able to find her camera :o( we decided to just go home since we were carrying all of our shopping bags and try to look better in my room.

On the subway though, we realized our hotdogs didn't fill us up from the hours of walking and waiting and watching the fireworks, so we got off the subway early and found this "famous" burger and pizza place - Big Nick's Pizza and Burger Joint - their menu was 27 pages!!

(www.bignicksny.com)

It was just as good as it looks!!

It was another tiny hole-in-the-wall kind of place, and very crowed, but another place that I would recommend to everyone

This is the view from the outside

Sunday (this morning) we needed to exchange a few shirts for different sizes in Time Square before Julie left, so we got up and went back and took care of that.

Then we went back to Hard Rock Cafe to have lunch (even though it's touristy, it was still really good and somewhat relevant since they are big on their locations)

After Hard Rock, we were walking in the middle of all the people who were still visiting for the weekend, we saw that everyone (more than normal) was looking up and taking pictures of the sky. And then we realized there was a plane that was making ads in the sky with the smoke stuff from the end of the plane!!

This one was an ad for a website, you can kind of see the ".com" and it started making another one that didn't really make any sense

and another one that says "in the" - it was really cool to see, and luckily we saw it when we did because within just a minute or so, the clouds were already spreading apart and disappearing

This is just a view of Time Square from the middle where they have these huge sitting steps for everyone to sit on

And this is our last picture of Julie's visit :o(

I hope you can tell from the pictures, but this was a GREAT weekend and I am so thankful that Julie was able to visit!! Like I said, we had some wonderful food and saw some great things that I have missed or just haven't found yet. It's crazy to think how much small fun things NY has when you just choose to walk around instead of paying too much money.

Now I have to go do my laundry and stuff I need to get done before another busy week at work, thank you for taking the time to look at my pictures!!

This week will be busy again, but I'll update you soon!

Love, Taylor