New York City x 2, Part III

So where did I leave off in this series of posts about the recent visits to New York City? Oh yes, on my second visit to NYC my sister and I visited NYC during New York Fashion Week (and the 20th anniversary of 9/11).

(If you are just joining us here are links to the two previous posts: New York City x 2, Part I and New York City x 2, Part II)

After having yummy gelato in Little Italy on Saturday after my first fashion show, we wandered around Soho and stop at a delicious little shop (Cha Cha Matcha) that specialized in green tea matcha and had green tea lattes with special messages from the barista:

We were joking because we just had a break to have gelato, only made it 2 blocks and had another break to have a latte!

After that we ran into Sunny Fong, winner of the second season of Project Runway Canada and competitor in Season 7 of Project Runway All Stars. My sister is a huge fan of Project Runway so she recognized him immediately. She took a photo with him and he invited us to stop by his pop up shop for his new line of watches.

Saturday was the 20th anniversary of 9/11 and instead of a somber mood people appeared to be exceptionally warm and friendly. There seemed to be so much love going around on Saturday and we gave the same warmth and love back to those we met and talked to,

We did not attend any of the 9/11 20th anniversary memorial events due to the crowds since we are still in a pandemic, but we did stop for a while at Engine 55 fire station (we came upon it walking around Little Italy) and pay our respects to those firefighters who died during 9/11.

By the way, did you know the actor Steve Buscemi served as a New York City firefighter at Engine 55 before he became an actor: Every September 11, I Remember This Surprising Story About Steve Buscemi.

While walking around we stopped by a couple sidewalk vendors on the streets on NYC and spent time chatting with a lovely couple who made amazing little leather wallets. My sister bought one and we had it engraved. We enjoyed chatting with them so much we took photos:

After a long day of wandering about, meeting and chatting with people, and stopping at lots of interesting places (this blog post would never end if I shared all my photos from the trip) we retired for the evening at our lovely historic hotel in Soho.

Here is the lobby where the next morning we met a real Instagram Influencer (they always seem like mysterious people who do not really exist) and her stylist and had a wonderful chat while they waited for their Uber. It would seem strange to have like 100,000 followers on Instagram but she made her living off of it and even had a paid stylist!

In NYC, like in Los Angeles you can always get the opportunity to see famous people wandering about. My sister attended the Tribeca Film Festival in NYC in 2019 and got a special invitation as a past attendee to go see Robert De Niro interviewing Martin Scorsese about their new film The Irishman. A couple rows sitting in front of her was Leonardo DiCaprio!

She had invited me to go with her (she automatically bought 2 tickets thinking of me) but it was in April 2019 and I was moving to Denver, Colorado. I sure wish I went. Of course I was in the midst of some scary stuff – starting a new life after my husband suddenly died in December 2018 so I was not thinking fully about the opportunity I was missing out on.

I can tell you this – I will not turn down an opportunity like that again (smile).

Sunday I needed to eventually get to LaGuardia Airport to fly back to Denver but first we wanted to find an interesting place for brunch. My sister and I thought we’d been all over NYC but we stumbled upon an area outside of Soho we’d never seen before: Little Paris.

We only found it because we asked someone on the street where they recommended we have breakfast and they recommended Maman.

We had an amazing breakfast, amazing server and the atmosphere was amazing!

I had the best almond croissant I’ve ever tasted!

Across the street from Maman was the NYC Police Department and it was just like something out of a movie or a television show:

The photo above does not do it justice – it was so immense and elaborately historic looking!

My sister and I parted back at the hotel and I headed via Uber to LaGuardia Airport. I hadn’t been to the airport in a long time (I usually fly into NYC via JFK Airport) and they had done some major remodeling and I enjoyed watching an elaborate laser water show at the fountain in the middle of the concourse before heading to my gate:

I found a video of it on YouTube if you’d like to see:

It was an amazing trip!