March 17th, 2017 Our flight was scheduled to depart at 7:15am and my brother in law, Steven was already at our home at 5am sharp ready to drop us off early because he wanted us to be at the airport early due to the unexpected delays that have been occurring (NY had delays due to the snow storms). Well he dropped us off at Fort Lauderdale Airport, our nearby accustomed airport; however we couldn’t check-in…maybe because we forgot to check that we were departing from Miami and not Fort Lauderdale! Luckily Steven dropped us off early enough, that we managed to grab a Lyft and had him rush out from one airport to the other and make it on time to catch our flight (phew)! We made it to New York early enough to check in at the hotel and charge ourselves up. First off, let me tell you a little bit more about the hotel. We stayed at the Paper Factory Hotel and my-oh my…what an adorable hotel located in Astoria, Queens! This unique industrial boutique hotel had such beautiful décor and on top of that an amazing price compared to overpriced Manhattan hotels. It’s actually two stops from Midtown Manhattan (we highly recommend you check it out on your next visit). Our goal was to stay close to our friends and family, and to get a little bit more personal, my amazing husband wanted to show me his neighborhood from when he was a child. The weather was incredible; we arrived right at the end of winter. I believe the coldest while we were there was 29°F; however that’s not the standard compared to our sunshine state Florida. As a skin care enthusiast, the weather made me get a little concerned, but my favorite products did not let us down. Daily we faithfully moisturized our skin - early in the morning with Preventage and before bed at night with Repairage. Although hubby and I have different skin types, I love how both are cream gels that still work perfectly fine for both of us. Our first day in Astoria was quite laid back being that it was St. Patty’s day. Cristian, hubby’s cousin, came to visit us at the hotel right out of work. Cris is nothing but smiles and always knows how to brighten up a room. He was extremely pleased that we introduced him to some Brazilian coxinhas that were sold a few blocks from the hotel. There was a Brazilian market in Astoria, how cool is that?! After, Cris convinced us to go have a traditional St. Patrick’s Day dinner at his home in Valley Stream. It was quite a long ride to head there, but well worth it. Cris’ wife, Nicole cooked a delicious corned beef and cabbage meal. That certainly hit the spot for the ride back to Astoria and to meet up with our friend Kosta. Kosta is definitely one of hubby's closest friends, even in the middle of all the craziness of running his own business; he met up with us at night to celebrate St. Patrick's Day. We ended up going to a local Irish bar Kosta knew about, and after a few Irish Car Bombs and dark beers we managed to head back to our hotel. New York reminds me a lot of my hometown Sao Paulo... No need to drive your car everywhere you go, the fast pace, the mix of cultures and all the amazing food!! Even though New York offers all sorts of public transportation, we mainly relied on Uber, Lyft, or Gett to visit our friends. There are several other taxi services available that are sometimes cheaper and faster than taking the train when you’re not heading to the City (New Yorkers call Manhattan the City). The next day, we visited our friend Kosta who lives in the same building hubby used to live in when he was a kid; you can only imagine all the memories they had to share. Thankfully to Kosta, we got to experience what is trending in New York, and when it comes to food we went all out. We are foodies, so I guess I'll just mention a few places we tried. One of our best lunches was at Pies 'n' Thighs. It’s located in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and the dish of the day was the Rob Evans on a biscuit entree... I can still remember savoring that melting warm sauce! Later in the day as we walked through the city we needed to warm ourselves up, so we stopped by a very interesting coffee/bike shop, called Sun and Air. This was super unique to me, it would be cool and efficient to have more hybrid stores implemented in Wynwood, near our hometown in Florida. When it comes to interesting things we saw, I must mention this cute little dog parker we spotted right outside another coffee shop. For you pet lovers, I'm sure you'd appreciate seeing something like this for your furry friend, especially if it’s snowing or raining. Speaking of furry friends, I must give a lot of credit to our friend Kosta on his new business venture - Pet Creds, his goal is to give us pet owners easy access to pet care professionals, how cool is that?! New Yorkers...always innovating things! This trip was super laid back, and although we did a lot of family and friends visits, we had our small portion of "touristic activity" too. The fun part of it all is that we got to do that with our friends from Miami, Andy and Valerie who happened to be in New York too. We planned to meet with Andy early in the morning, at the 9/11 Memorial located at the World Trade Center site, the former location of the Twin Towers. As we arrived at our meeting point, inevitably our hearts quickly filled with sorrow as we saw the names of the 3,000 victims that were killed in the 9/11 (September 11, 2001) tragedy. May God bless their souls. We headed up to the One World Observatory, everything so well put together and I can say they definitely did everything in their power to make its visitors experience as informative as possible. My poor hubby ended up upgrading me to their informative cool tablet, but I did not even end up using it. I was way too busy sipping on an amazing Uptown Manhattan cocktail and walking around enjoying the view from up top…oops! Later that day we met up with Valerie, Andy's wife. We were all starving and since both Valerie and I love sushi, we ended up having lunch at Sugarfish: Flatiron, a place that Valerie's client suggested, and boy-oh-boy how we enjoyed it. Fun fact of our meal experience was my silly self-pouring soy sauce into the sake cup, oh gee I am such a light drinker! Enough of the goofiness, let me share with you guys our experience seeing the New York suburban lifestyle…Our friends Cristian and Nicole are the cutest sweetheart couple I've ever met. They have a beautiful home in Valley Stream, Long Island, where they live with their two kids. We were fortunate to be able to see their little girl perform a ballet recital in Port Washington, a few minutes north from where they live. It was fun to see all the little kids dance moves as we watched loud moms cheering for their champions every time they set foot on stage.
This was such a short trip, but we felt so welcomed. We both feel like we have a second home in that city and perhaps I'll be writing more about our future visits. Hubby and I are just so grateful to be able to make these memories and on this trip in particular, aside from all the new things we saw it was great to see our friends prospering. We cannot wait to share more of our future experiences, and to the friends who read this, know you have a place in Florida that we will be more than happy to receive you!
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