Instacards from NYC

I mentioned in my previous blog post that I went to New York City and man, did I have a good time!! I bought a plane ticket 10 minutes after receiving an email from my best friend from France, whose 40th birthday was the following weekend. Initially she wanted to go to the Bahamas, but eventually settled on NYC and Naples. I could only spare one vacation day to join her, so I booked my flight from Friday to the following Monday, with the plan of going straight to work after landing back in town. I had 5 days to prepare and work on containing my excitement. It had been over a year since I'd seen my friend and these times are always so precious, it's hard to plan around the hours that we spend just being there for each other. Nothing else is as important. So I told myself, I go there with no plan, I will just follow along with my camera and enjoy the moment. My only mission was to run in Central Park and that I accomplished. I know that my friend understands my crazy, she was with me in Paris for my first marathon as well... so I didn't feel too bad taking off for 2h on my own.

Here's how we spent most of our time that weekend, with Instagrams for posterity.

All that Jazz!

I left Toronto in this itty bitty airplane. It wasn't the smallest that I took in my life, but close. You know that is small enough when your carry on bag does not fit in the overhead bin.

We spent the first day exploring an abandoned place called 5 Pointz, which used to be the Mecca of Graffiti in NYC, but alas got painted white all over sometime at the end of last year, then fenced up. See here for all the awesome work that artists had painted and is now gone. What a shame.

Rooftops are awesome

The next day, we embarked on a more touristy exploration and took the ferry to see the Statue of Liberty up close, then visit Ellis island and look for family members on the immigrants wall.

Found mine in L

Freedom, Liberty.

It was a chilly and windy day, but the sky cleared as we were touring the Liberty Island and the sun showed its face to warm us up.

In the evening, we all went for a nice dinner to celebrate my friend's birthday, but not before taking a stroll on The High Line, in the heart of Manhattan. It was quite the photo explosion.

Brick, glass and grass

And a sculpture on train tracks.

Magic Hour Reflections

On Sunday, I ran in the morning, and took more pictures, as you saw in the previous post. Then we went on another adventure, around Ground Zero and over the Brooklyn Bridge.

One web

Two webs

Yeah, that blue sky followed us everywhere!! I can't believe it either. It was a beautiful weekend spent mostly outside, breathing the fresh air (at least I hope it's fresh - shhh, don't tell me), discovering new sights, which I had really never seen before. Sharing meals with best friends. Catching up on life stories and everyone in and around them. It was long overdue. I miss these moments already.

Before I knew it, it was time to pack again and head home, to work, family, workouts, business, stress. And now starts a new wait... Happy Birthday, my dear Fred.

PS. For more photos from NYC, follow me on Instagram or visit my Flickr stream.