New York City Travel Blog • Day 1

While on winter break, my family and I took a short trip to Connecticut and New York to spend the holidays on the East Coast. Although the weather wasn’t much colder as it would have been back home, it was definitely chilly enough for a coat, gloves, and a beanie (which shockingly didn’t look as weird on me as I expected).

It was our second time staying in EVEN Hotels Norwalk, and it’s one of my favorite hotels because it has such a friendly environment. There are a lot of encouraging quotes about staying active, and even a fun room that has a ping pong table and Mario Kart! It was a great way to end the night after a long day of travel.

You might be wondering why we chose to stay in Norwalk, Connecticut, and that’s because my family and I used to live there and enjoy periodically revisiting the state and the places where my sister and I essentially grew up. It’s also only an hour away from New York City, so we can easily drive down and spend the day in NYC!

Our first day at NYC was not ideal due to the very intense rain (still bothered it wasn’t snow), so the Metropolitan Museum of Art was extremely crowded. There was a massive line extended in the front of the museum, but since we parked our car in the garage, we went through the back door and somehow got in with no line and no wait out in the rain. ← Essential piece of advice!

It was our first time going inside the MET, and it lived up to every expectation! The museum is obviously huge, and we definitely didn’t get to everything, but at the top of our list was the temporary Armenia exhibition. We’re Armenian, and it was so amazing to see all the ancient artifacts and read more about the history of our country. Everything was so beautiful so we spent the bulk of our time here, and I would recommend dropping by if you’re planning on visiting the MET soon (the exhibition is open until January 13)!

After the Armenia exhibition, we spent a few more hours walking through the endless sections of the museum. Like I said, we didn’t get to everything, but at least we got a few thousand steps in!

By the time we left the MET, it was around 4 pm and we had absolutely no idea what to do because it was still pouring rain and super crowded in the city. After making a mental spreadsheet of our options (comment if your family can never decide on what to do either), we finally decided on taking a cab to the Plaza Hotel.

If any of you watched the Christmas movies “Eloise at Christmastime” or “Home Alone: 2” then you would know just how excited I was to see the Plaza Hotel during Christmastime! It was slightly disappointing that we couldn’t go inside the lobby, but still understandable (we definitely weren’t staying at the hotel, although that would be a dream). So, we spent some time at the shops inside the hotel and I had the most amazing Nutella crepe of my life.

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There was also a store entirely dedicated to Eloise and it even had an Eloise tea room for little kids. Wouldn’t this just be a dream come true for your childhood self?

After taking refuge from the rain in the Plaza, we went back outside and headed towards Rockefeller Center. Of course, we had to make a stop at the Saks Fifth Avenue light show. It’s become a tradition at this point!

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Luckily, Rockefeller Center is right across the street and we stopped to take a few pictures by the tree. It was like a jungle trying to get through the mobs of people in huge coats and with pointy umbrellas, but we made it close enough to take a family selfie with the tree! (Still trying to teach my Dad how to hold his phone right..)

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We had a looong walk back to our car that was still safely parked at the MET. I took advantage of this time to take a couple pictures of the gorgeous skyline, even though it was really foggy and dark.

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Once we got back to the car, we headed back to our hotel in Norwalk. Overall, our first day in NYC was much less eventful compared to our second day, which I guess you’ll just have to wait until next Friday to read about!

Thank you so much for reading! I took a short break from blogging for the holidays (and a little bit after), but hopefully these next few travel posts make up for it. I tried to get as much content as possible on this trip, so I’m looking forward to this next month!

I hope you all had an amazing holiday season, and I’ll see you in my next post!

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