NYC I - Enjoying New York Inexpensively!

I love summer. It's so full of vacations, camping, weddings, family and friends. Everyone is trying to make the most of it while it's here. And that makes everything seem a buzz. Summers are times I could get completely carried away and not have time for blogging. But I've been missing New York. We took a road trip up to TO for a wedding. But in the midst of it we slipped to New York for the weekend for our 1st anniversary. It was worth it! Even though we had to go on a student budget, it was fun finding ways to enjoy NYC quite inexpensively. And it is completely possible!

We found a quality dinner cruise on groupon, and we got to see the city from a zoomed out view, the city line, brooklyn bridge, statue of liberty all in one. You can pay lots of money to go up tall buildings to get a view of the city, but this view was even better in many ways.

But even after seeing all the typical New York things like, time square, 5th ave (where all the designer shops are located), empire state building etc. I wanted to rather share just a couple of the more hidden gems of New York that we discovered that I would totally go back to. And again these were all very student friendly spots. So here goes...

First one up is Magnolia Bakery... Best banana pudding. I didn't know I needed or wanted banana pudding until I had Magnolia banana pudding. It's heavenly. Banana pudding for breakfast? Yes please!

Another great little breakfast place was Angela's Sandwich Shop. It was quick, decent price and amazing food! It gave us the energy for a long walk through central park!

Ansel Dominique Bakery - Here you'll find the most unique and even more tasty desserts. They are famous for their cronuts which is a cross between a doughnut and a croissant. We came in the morning but they were already gone. Apparently they are too popular for us! So I had Penny the Pig and Earl had a Cookie Shot. And again, I could not believe something so "silly" would beg for me to come back for more. I still dream of the taste of these desserts.

Cookie Shot

Penny the Pig

Shake Shack - Amazing burger and shake place. You will have to wait in a long line every time, but it's worth it. I had their black and white shake. It's a great place to go to late at night.

Momofuku Milk Bar - You know the milk that is left over after having cereal and milk? That's the flavour of their shakes and things. I had their cereal milk shake with some corn flake crunch. So good!

Amish Market - We stopped here after our walking around in the financial district and wall street of NYC and the World Trade Centers Monument. This market was so refreshing. It had at least 5 cafes in different corners. It had everything you could want, including so much fresh fruits and produce and meats. I'd definitely come back.

And just to prove we didn't just eat, we also went to the Metropolitan Museum. It's donation priced. There is so much to see in here but we went straight to the exhibition called "Fashion in an Age of Technology." I've always looked at fashion as an art, a way of expressing yourself creatively. And you definitely see that here where famous designers show some of their pieces; and we're told how these pieces have been made using today's technology. It's incredible. I can't describe how I felt in there. Every detail in these pieces are thought out and handcrafted or otherwise used today's technology to bring to life what was in their minds. Here's just a couple of the pieces.

Some other really inexpensive things we did was take a stroll through Central Park, stopped in a lot of the designer stores including the Tiffany flagship store and Louis Vuitton and Mac and others where the prices of these items would make one go bankrupt pretty quickly!

It was fun stopping by the original Mac store and letting them do some complimentary makeup on me just before going to a Broadway show. (By the way, you can enter the lottery to win vip seats for super cheap. We didn't win but we still got in for a great discount and got really good seats.) But the makeup artists were having way too much fun. Again, the art as well as precision in makeup is quite incredible. This look of blues and greens you'll see starting to trend on the runways. And it went well with the show we were about to watch - Cirque de Soleil.

We also saw the place where the two world trade centre towers were. You can take an actual tour, which I hear is quite an emotional experience, but we were happy just seeing the spot. They have a monument there and we took a look at the sheer height of the new one world tower.

So these were few of the spots we visited. And if you ever decide to go make sure you check these places out. 

Some things I learned about going to New York, it's totally worth it to do your research of some of the things to do in New York otherwise it can get super overwhelming. But at the same time, I'm so glad we didn't go with the mindset of being pressured to do every typical tourist thing. It's easy to get carried away with the sightseeing and checking everything off the list so we can say that we saw it and be more frazzled after the trip then refreshed. We spent so much time just enjoying being together, and just learning about each other and discovering what our priorities were with what we wanted to do. And all in all just enjoying the adventure, like finding the right subways, and sitting in a taxi that wasn't moving in congested traffic hoping we'd make it to our cruise on time.

Make sure you also check out NYC part II where I talk about what to wear in summer in New York!