Right before Christmas, three of my best friends and I spent a couple days in NYC! We were celebrating Livvie’s graduation and also visiting close to Taylor’s stomping grounds, since she moved to Connecticut earlier in the year.

Our first day in the city, we grabbed breakfast from Clinton St. Baking Company, which was near our hotel. We then headed down to the financial district, where we checked out the 9/11 memorial and One World Trade Center. The memorial was obviously very somber but it’s such a beautiful and moving tribute to the terrible events of that day. Two interesting facts we learned while there – the building is 1776 feet high and the trees have been flown in from the various crash sites. This means they all change colors and lose their leaves at different times.

We then walked around Chelsea Market before heading over to this adorable restaurant called The Wild Son. We chatted over some bottles of rose and enjoyed the charming atmosphere of the restaurant. Afterwards, we stopped by the hotel to change and get ready for the evening. Our hotel has this incredible rooftop bar so we had a cocktail as the sun was setting which was spectacular.

We then surprised Olivia for the rest of the night – we ate at this delicious restaurant for dinner in Brooklyn called Gristmill before heading over to the Brooklyn Nets basketball game. Thanks to Taylor’s work perks, she hooked us up with the most amazing seats – center court in the second row – and we had a blast. The Nets almost made a comeback to win, but blew it in the final seconds of the game. After the game, we checked out this awesome cocktail bar in Brooklyn called Elsa. We enjoyed some delicious drinks before calling it a night.

The next day, we started the day off right by getting some NY bagels from Russ & Daughters, who’ve been baking some of the best bagels in town for over 100 years! We headed up to Rockefeller center to see the tree before heading over to check out Ralf’s Christmas bar.

We then followed a friend’s recommendation to check out the alpine rooftop bar on top of Eataly, which was the perfect place to relax and enjoy a few drinks and snacks. We then wandered to a nearby cocktail bar called The Flatiron Room, which was phenomenal. The Scottish bartender, Darin, took amazing care of us and we enjoyed some delicious drinks before heading to our dinner reservation. We had all been looking forward to our dinner that night, which was at The Cellar. The cellar is located under The Beecher’s cheese shop. We had one of the best meals ever – the macaroni and cheese was phenomenal, but so was everything else we tried. Ironically our server was someone Taylor knew from college, proving what a small world it really is! After dinner, we headed to see Elf at Madison Square Garden.

After the show, we headed to Raines Law Room speakeasy, which had been recommended to us. Unfortunately, there was an hour wait, but we went next door to enjoy some drinks while we waited. We got into the speakeasy a little while later and had a couple rounds of drinks. We then decided we should head over to Tortilla Flats to have some late night Mexican & margaritas and rock out to 90s jams. Unfortunately, it was closed early for some reason so we went to a nearby bar instead. Taylor’s cousin met up with us and hung out there for awhile. At about 3 in the morning, we called it quits and headed back to the hotel.

We were a bit slow the next day so took it easy in the morning. For lunch, we went to this delicious hole in the wall Mexican restaurant near our hotel called La Contenta, where we had a great last meal before Megan and I headed to the airport to catch our flight.

While the trip was short, we made the most of our time in NYC and had such a great time. Can’t wait for more girls trips in the future!