A Peach in the Big Apple

I recently traveled to New York to visit my sister, who is a graduate student at Columbia (you know, because I went to Emory, so she had to go Ivy). We squeezed a lot into a long weekend, and every moment of it was incredible. I'd never been to NYC during the holiday season, and something about it was just magical. I'll let my iPhone photo album do the talking.

On Columbia's campus:

Pre-ballet dinner at Rigoletto Pizza in the Upper West Side:

Instead of buying each other Christmas presents this year, my sister and I decided to treat ourselves to tickets to New York City Ballet's performance of George Balanchines' Nutcracker. I haven't seen the Nutcracker since I was in it (a loooong time ago), so I was pretty psyched. Add that excitement to the magic of New York during Christmastime and, well, I had built that night up a lot in my head. It did not disappoint; though, it did make me feel like I needed to take a barre...immediately. Here we are, about to go into the Lincoln Center:

Post-ballet hot chocolate at ChocoBolo:

Brunch at Chat N' Chew in Union Square, with some of my favorite fellow bloggers:

We rushed How to Succeed, and ended up with cheap seats about 20 feet from the stage. I was totally geeking out about the star of the show, but I had low expectations for the show itself. I was pleasantly surprised by the choreography and the casting (especially regarding the female roles). And as for Daniel, I have never seen so much charisma on stage in my life. He clearly took some performance-enhancing drugs, and by that I mean felix felicis. Here I am swooning:

We had cocktails with friends at Schiller's Liquor Bar in the Lower East Side:

We looked at the windows at Macy's and enjoyed some window shopping in the Flatiron district. Then, I visited my homegirl, Athena:

My New Yorker sister had never been to the top of the Empire State Building, so we decided to make a trip up there. The lobby was beautiful:

And the view wasn't half bad either:

We finished up our trip at Rock Center:

Are you traveling anywhere this holiday season?