Breathtaking Grand Central station

I drove up to New York last weekend to complete stage three of my move and the weekend turned into a bit of a love letter weekend in the city.  I didn’t intend to spend a magical weekend in the city filled with new and old favorite experiences, but that’s exactly what happened.

Moments after I arrived to the city on Thursday, I went to an event to support my good friend Mickela Mallozzi, founder of the amazing dance and travel inspired website and video series Travel Bare Feet.  Mickela is a dancer and experiences the various cultures of the world through dance.  For this particular event, she was premiering her new series of videos in Minturno, Italy – make sure to watch them here! Myself and other friends within the travel community enjoyed gift bags from Colavita, traditional Italian accordion music, Italy inspired snacks and of course a preview of Mickela’s new series. It was a wonderful event and I could not be more proud of her!

Cheers to Mickela and Travel Bare Feet!

The remainder of the weekend brought a variety of activities: from dining all over Manhattan at iconic restaurants like Amy Ruth’s in Harlem (the BEST soul food in my humble opinion) and bacon egg and cheese bagels at Essa bagel in Midtown, to the most relaxing (and free!) yoga class at the wellness-themed STORY and a super random snow storm.  It was the perfect way to say goodbye to the city that holds half my heart.

City so nice they named it twice 🙂

Enjoy the album below! FYI, these photos are from my last couple weeks in New York…I couldn’t lie to you guys and act like I didn’t visit Shake Shack one last time!!

P.S. I hate to give this secret up but STORY is my absolute favorite store in Manhattan.  The concept of the 2000 square foot retail space is that of a rotational gallery that sells things like a store.  Every four to eight weeks, STORY changes all of its merchandise, design, fixtures and reinvents the store around a different story-based theme. The current theme is wellness, and not only does STORY feature wellness themed items for purchase, the store also leads free yoga and pilates classes, juicing classes, and seminars about mental and physical health. Wellness at STORY will run through the end of February, make sure to stop by! Check out more press about STORY on PSFK and Well + Good.