i love nyc

Despite my travel anxieties last night, I made it to my final destination without a hitch.

Despite my precious Charlie keeping me up into the wee hours of 11:30 when I had a wakeup call at 3:00 to get ready, I couldn’t happier to be on my getaway right now.

And if you’re wondering, my OIAJ were confiscated. That was the saddest moment of my day – that or smacking my head against the plane window when I fell asleep. You can decide for yourself which one is more tragic.

I am in NYC right now! In fact, I came on a cross country blind date – and look who I found!

I am visiting Gabriela from Une Vie Saine until Thursday, and I could not be more excited. Gabriela and I have been planning this trip for a few months now, and she has graciously taken on the task of being my tour guide and hostess for the next three days.

I was a little bit nervous this morning, as anyone would be flying across the country to meet a friend who you’ve never met before. However, to my family’s (and my!) delight, Gabs is actually not a 40 year old man disguising as a 21 year old in the city (in case you were wondering for future reference). Gabriela is actually a delight and so easy to talk to – we instantly hit it off, which would be very unfortunate if we didn’t… because well, I’m sleeping on her couch.

We have already seen and done too much in the first 6 hours I have been in the city to write about in post. Lucky for you, that means I get to extend this trip much longer than it is happening – or I might just be staying in NYC for good to eat my way through this city.

For lunch today, Gabriela and I went to Quantum Leap, a vegetarian restaurant that she spoke highly of.

I ordered the Tofu and Grilled Vegetable Combo salad, which came with balsamic vinaigrette on the side.

 
This salad was by far one of the best salads I have had in a long time – it was filled with great roasted vegetables like broccoli and butternut squash – and the tofu was just the right texture and consistency.

I have never eaten so slowly in my life before – I am usually a "scarf it down” kind of girl, but we had so much to talk about that we didn’t want the conversation to stop!

We also did a lot of exploring of the city and needed something cold to drink as the 90 degree NYC weather was bringing us down.

Nothing a little Jamba Juice couldn’t cure! I got a Peach Passion with soy milk instead of juices – it definitely hit the spot.

In true blogger fashion, the most exciting thing I saw today was not the Empire State Building nor Times Square. The most impressive part about the city thus far has been the Whole Foods we were in (we were in two – I know, I know…).

Have you ever seen anything like it before? It’s called a ‘vermaport’. Because the store was two levels, there is an escalator for your shopping cart.

I’m going to pretend like we did not wait in front of the escalator for 10 minutes for someone to use it either. Gosh, only creepy people would do that.

 
And please – no children on the vermaport.

Although my feet are aching, we have much more exploring to do and food to eat. Time to forge ahead!

Question: What is your favorite US city to visit?

Tagged as: manhattan, new york city, quantum leap, travel, une vie saine, vegetarian restaurant