NYC Day 4 - Museum of Natural History and Greenwich Village

Happy Monday, ya'll. The forecast for this week is rainyrainyrainy so I'm going to have to find some things to do! I'm thinking of attempting either this or this.

Because I got behind on my recaps, my days in New York have been kind of melding together...but I've only got two left, so here's my best shot at remembering Thursday!

We woke up early and started our day with a cup of coffee downstairs, per our tradition (established on Tuesday).

Splash of half and half, mmmm.

So we knew for a fact that we'd be walking a whole lot, but learned quickly that our feet were kind of wimpy from being accustomed to driving everywhere - Mom and Reibs had to stop on our way to the Museum of Natural History to get a pair of comfortable walking shoes.

Twins. We took the subway (eight stops - the most yet), and walked in the cold, pouring rain again to the museum.

By this point in our vacation, Rebekah and I were getting tired of just smiling and posing in our pictures, so we broke out the weird faces. It's all by default - we don't even realize we're doing it. ;)

No shame. The entrance to the museum is quite incredible - I'm obsessed with looking at the details of architecture and murals (wait til you see pics from the Met!), so I was already drawn in before we even got to the exhibits.

The first exhibit we walked into was the Hall of African Mammals, which had two levels. It was so crazy to see the diversity of animals in different parts of the world - there are like 20 different species of gazelle, most living in Africa.

Once we got into the halls of human origins, it was like an explosion of information, so here's a few of my favorite things that we saw in the galleries:

Here's a few from the Hall of Mammals - I think this one was highlighting evolutionary processes.

The Hall of Dinosaurs was one of my favorites!

Hall of Primates (creepy faces!)....

Native Americans....

Lastly, the Halls of Biodiversity and Ocean Life, which were incredible....

We also met Dum-Dum! :)

We stayed for about 3 hours and barely got through 6 exhibits - we sped through the Hall of Biodiversity and didn't even get to the lower floor of Ocean Life. We decided it was time to go back to Greenwich Village for a little shopping at the specialty food stores we were introduced to on the food tour.

Mom, Rebekah, and Grammy grabbed a slice of pie (I'll never call it pizza again ;)) on the way home at Joe's.

I picked up a sandwich at Amy's Bread that was sooooooooooo goooooodddddd.

White bean spread, creamy avocado, lettuce, tomato, drizzle of lemon oil, multigrain bread. Perfect!

Me and Rebek ended the night with samples of our purchases at David's Tea and Sugar and Plumm.

Steaming mug of coco chai rooibos, and chocolaaaattteee. :D

Rebekah's mint chocolate - the mint was quite strong in this!

I got the Mexique - I thought it would have some sort of cinnamon or spicy note, but it was just a really rich, dark chocolate. Very yummy.

I also got the raspberry flavor which I thought was better than the mint (sorry Reibs!).

And Rebekah let me have a bite of her chocolate chip cookie. Yummy!!

And that's all for Thursday - the last day will hopefully be up tomorrow!

Chinatown, Little Italy, and WICKED

       

It's Saturdaaaaayyy. We're on day 4 with the NYC recaps, so let's get to it!

I had been starting the morning with some instant oatmeal packets made with hot Keurig water, a mashed banana, and a scoop of peanut butter. With a side of hot tea or coffee - this morning, coffee.

I normally got up earlier than everyone else, and ate while I blogged/played on Pinterest before Mom, Reibs, and Grammy got up.

Before we made our way to Chinatown/Little Italy/SoHo, Mom stopped for a bite at the hotel's breakfast bar. I was obsessed with the little jars the fruit came in and wanted to take one home with me. ;)

I got another cup of coffee because I could.

Time to goooooo!!!

At first, I wasn't entirely impressed with Chinatown unfortunately. It was a lot less...."Chinese"....than I expected. It pretty much looked the same as a regular neighborhood except with Chinese signs! Haha.

Once we got deeper into the neighborhood, me and Reibs noticed it started smelling a little bit like a beach, and we realized that we were heading straight towards an outside market!

I really got a taste of the Chinese culture walking through the markets - there were all sorts of weird produce, fish, and sea creatures I would honestly never eat. Sea urchins, lots of mushrooms, live eels, and we even spotted some live frogs. Omg!

It only took 15 minutes to get into Little Italy, which was filled with a bunch of restaurants, cafes, delis, and great architecture!

Reibs and I wanted to do some shopping while we were in the area, so we finally made it into SoHo to browse in some cute boutiques. We also got to shop in the 5-story Bloomingdale's!

After Bloomingdale's, all of us were really hungry, so we stopped at a little cafe with a bunch of different options to satisfy what we wanted. It was surprisingly hard to find some nice but quick sit-down restaurants (probably due to lack of planning), but this cafe was nice!

I had a heaping salad plate with spinach, tomatoes, cucumbers, roasted veggies, grilled chicken, sugar snap peas, and couscous that was absolutely delicious. You'd think my eyes were bigger than my stomach, but this hit the spot.

After the shopping fun was over, it was time to head back to the hotel and freshen up for our first Broadway show - Wicked!!!!!!!!!!!

Reibs did my hair all perty. :3

Quick salad....

And off to see the wizard Wicked!

My camera batteries died after that picture, but there was no photography allowed anyways. The show was one of my favorite moments in New York - I laughed, cried, and got emotionally attached to the characters. I really want to see it again, and if you're planning on seeing a Broadway show in the future, Wicked is at the top of my recommendation list! Out of the 1 I've seen. ;)

Day 5 is coming up next  - have a wonderful (relaxing) Saturday!