New York City Travel Blog • Day 2

Our second day in New York City started in the West Village, which I fell in love with immediately. We didn’t get a good look at it while walking to our decided brunch place, of course we were too hurried to get to our food, but it was a quieter walk than I expected to have (considering we were two blocks away from the city).

We had brunch at The Grey Dog, a cute cafe in the heart of the West Village. From the second we walked in, the environment of the cafe was already so friendly and warm (and I’m definitely not just saying this because it was freezing outside, even though it was nice to escape the 30/40 degree weather). I decided to go with Grey Dog’s Breakfast, the perfect combination of sweet and savory – I can never decide! I tried the hazelnut iced coffee, which I was slightly skeptical about at first because I wasn’t sure how much I would like the hazelnut flavor, but it turned out to be one of the best coffees I’ve ever had. It was also huge, so I definitely gained enough energy for the day!

The traditional photo of the food for my blog is starting to get on my family’s nerves, but it’s become an obligation.

Everything at The Grey Dog was absolutely perfect. There was almost no wait for a table (didn’t expect this), the food was obviously amazing, and there was the cutest artwork of dogs all around the cafe. That one was definitely the selling point.

Afterwards, we decided to stop by the Friend’s building on the corner of Bedford and Grove. My whole family watches the TV show Friends (it’s actually playing on the TV right now), so it was cool to see the building it’s based off of. I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily a must-see, especially if you’re short on time, but if you have the chance then I would definitely recommend going to see it!

Ice skating was the next stop on our list, and we had to make the most difficult decision of where to go. Rockefeller Center is always way too crowded, and we went to Bryant Park a couple years ago, so this year we decided to ice skate at Central Park.

I really enjoyed ice skating here and the view was the best part! You can see the Plaza Hotel and a ton of other buildings (I honestly can’t tell them apart) in the background. Everyone was having a great time and taking tons of pictures with the gorgeous view.

Ice skating was definitely a little difficult at first, but it slowly got to the point where I could trust myself to not fall, but I was constantly paranoid that someone would run into me! Luckily I didn’t fall, but my feet were sore for a few hours and somehow I was cold and sweating at the same time..

After ice skating, we walked around Central Park and took a few photos of the city. It was super cloudy, so the lighting in the photos turned out really nice!

There’s me! (in the puffy white coat) 🙂

We spent the rest of the night walking around the city, and we even went to Times Square and saw the stage set up for the Ball Drop on New Year’s Eve. It was already extremely crowded so we just peeked in and left as soon as possible! Fifth Avenue wasn’t much better, though, and we definitely got trampled by the crowds in front of FAO Shwarz; we would have loved to go inside the toy store, but there was a line that stretched for two blocks outside! The city is always hectic during this time, but it’s definitely worth seeing all the Christmas decorations.

We concluded our day with some window shopping on Fifth Avenue on the way back to our car. It felt like the perfect NYC day with a good balance between food, activities, and just walking around and exploring.

Thank you so much for reading this post and I hop you enjoyed my New York travel blogs! If you want to read about our first day in NYC, check it out here. I have a few more travel posts coming, so keep an eye out 😉

I’ll see you in my next post!