AlmaKnack: Grade Pending

I spent the weekend in New York city. I've been 9 times but every time it's like the first time ever. I live in Northern Virginia in a suburb outside of DC so we took the Vamoose bus out of Bethesda, Md and 4 hours later we were in the city. I went with a friend for a girls weekend. It was a lot of fun. The Vamoose bus is great, clean, fast and easy and only $80 RT. It was raining cats and dogs when we arrived. We got soaked but luckily we were able to check into our hotel, The Kitano, early. We were able to name our own price a few days earlier on priceline.com and paid less than half the price. Awesome! We unpacked, rested and headed out to lunch. Hmmm, where to eat? We decided on ramen. Delish. Not the instant kind though the real kind. I turned to my handy, dandy yelp app and we found a place with 3.5 stars and only 0.5 miles away. We wanted somewhere we could walk to. We walk to the place and behold there's a health inspection grade of . . . PENDING. Now, we are really hungry at this point . . . super hungry so we decide to eat there. Now, in my head I kept thinking "I've eaten random street food in Mexico, it can't be much worse." Granted the last time I ate street food in Mexico I was sick for 36 hours. We did not get sick and the food was really good. Thank Goodness. I will not post the name of the restaurant because I don't want to call them out but never, ever, ever eat a place in NYC that has a grade pending. Ever. I looked up what a grade pending meant and you don't want to know. You don't wanna! We then walked to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). It's Target free Fridays from 4 to 8 PM. Why Target free? because it's sponsored by Target. It gets pretty crowded but we did not have to wait in line long and we didn't have to pay the $25 admission fee so I thought it was great. We started at the top floor and worked our way down. After MoMa we walked back to our hotel and got ready to meet my friend for dinner. At this point we had walked a total of 3.5 miles all day so we decided to cab it to Teodora, an Italian restaurant in Midtown. It was really good! I ordered the spaghetti and it was so light and refreshing. I know! Usually Italian food is heavy and creamy but not here. It was so good and has a yelp rating of 4 stars. Can you tell I love yelp? We then took a cab back home and passed out. We were so tired. The next day we woke up and took the subway to the financial district to century 21. Yay! We had pizza for lunch at a pizzeria next door and it was pretty good. I love pizza so as long as it doesn't taste like cardboard it's good for me. We shopped for 6 hours and all I came out with was a leather like top and underwear. I found the most perfect Dolce and Gabbana lambskin jacket for $349 but it had ink on it! I did a quick google search on my phone on how to remove ink and it turns out it's nearly impossible to do so, so I put it back. Sad face. I also found the most perfect leather and lace Jason Wu blouse but it was $800 and V would have not been happy with that purchase. I also fell in love with a pair of wide leg silk Rochas trousers but a size too small! No bueno. We then walked 1.2 miles to Piperlime. Yes, they have a store. It opened in September. I bought a dress and a skirt. We then walked to a vintage shop but it was closed. We took the subway back to our hotel and got ready for dinner. We had dinner reservations at Balthazar at 11. I know late but I called 2 days before for a reservation and it was the only time available. I love Balthazar so I took it. I had the duck confit. The next day we woke up walked to a diner for breakfast and then walked 1.2 miles to a thrift shop where I found a Yigal Azrouel leather top for an 1/8 of the price. We then walked back to our hotel to grab our bags and walked to the bus stop and by 6:30 I was home. All in all it was a great little weekend. The next time I visit I've decided to only shop at Vintage stores. Can't wait!!!

And now some random pics . . . really random