Birthday Girl and the City

Wow – I am way behind in blogging!   I do have a good excuse – have been very busy editing so a lot of awesome sessions which I will share on the blog soon.

And in the meantime – a personal post about yours truly!   Back in April (I am really behind in my blogging!) I celebrated my 35th birthday… yes, I am officially in my mid 30s now:)  Birthdays loose their excitement for some as they get older but not for me.  At the risk of sounding self-absorbed, I have always loved my birthday and still do; after all – it is a day to celebrate me!

When I turned 30 (and we were kid- and responsibility-free) I wanted to go to Paris with Victor, so we did – it was an awesome birthday weekend to say the least.   Now that we have responsibilities – a.k.a Mia and Alexa, we cannot just wing a trip to Europe so this year my  birthday celebration was a lot lower key and instead of crossing the Atlantic we crossed Hudson river and spent a night in New York City.   Victor’s parents graciously volunteered to take care of the girls so Victor and I were able to enjoy a rare adults-only weekend.

We stayed at Gramercy Park Hotel and it was great – unique decor, great location.  Whenever I am around Union Square I can never pass on the Hot Chocolate from the City Bakery.   If you like chocolate you will LOVE it – it is pure heaven – super rich and delicious.   It was close to dinner time and Victor advised against the hot chocolate saying that I would not be hungry for dinner but I could not resist.  It was even better than I remembered and before I knew it more than half of cup, around 1000 calories worth of deliciousness, was gone.  In this instance I really should’ve listen to my husband;I was not hungry at all for dinner which was a shame because the food at Craft was delicious.  By the time my second course came I could hardly eat another bite and sadly watched the waiters take away my hardly eaten dishes.   I could not even finish my desert which is really rare for me.

After dinner we walked to meet up our friends who moved to Singapore for two years and were in town for a few days.  I did not feel too hot but thought I would grin and bear it.  Well, i could not – i guess super rich hot chocolate and very rich dinner did not sit together well and I got sick right in the middle of a street!  If I felt any better I would’ve been very embarrassed, but I was so miserable that caring about what people thought of me was the last night on my mind.  Of course staying and catching up with our friends was out of the question so we took a cab back to our hotel.  I envisioned a romantic night with my husband in a nice hotel away from the kids.  Instead I spent half the night running back and forth between the bed and the bathroom  – not quite what I had in mind:)

But all is well that ends well and by morning I was almost as good as new.  We had brunch at the terrace and then decided to take advantage of a great perk of staying at this hotel – access to the Gramercy Park. Gramercy Park is one of the two privately owned parks in the city and only residents of the nearby buildings and the guests of the hotel can access it.  Victor and I passed it many times, peeking in, trying our luck with the gate but it was almost locked so I was super excited to go in.  I was wondering if we would get the actual key to the park but I guess we did not look trustworthy enough – we were escorted to the park by a concierge, who unlocked the gate for us.  The park locks in from the inside so when we were ready to leave we had to call the concierge who came to get us:)   The park was really beautiful – a little oasis in the middle of busy New York city and it was wonderful to sit and enjoy the view and the piece and quiet.   Before heading back home we walked around a bit in Gramercy – it is a such a beautiful part of Manhattan.

It was a wonderful birthday weekend despite my misadventures with food:)