New York Birthday – Part 1

Whilst I was in New York my birthday fell on the Tuesday which was one of the main reasons for heading Stateside. It was another beautiful day in the city and as our hotel was right around the corner from Central Park we decided to walk towards fifth avenue for some shopping. As we headed up past the park all the horse and carriages were lined up. I am such a fan of horses and they looked so beautiful. Riding a horse and carriage through Central park has always been one of my dream things to do, remember Big and Carrie in Sex & The City taking a little trip? It’s romantic and so movie like it just had to be done. I knew I definitely had to do it but wasn’t planning on that morning but the horse looked at me with a look I couldn’t resist and so we hopped on!

Our driver introduced himself, he was an Irish fella and was super lovely, we took the full 45 minute tour around the park. Being such a lovely morning we were able to get great views all around and the driver guided us through the tour pointing out all the statues, places of interest and celebrity apartments on the Upper East Side.

It was interesting to hear it all and the park being so grand it was great to be able to see lots of things I may never have noticed or known about. I never knew for instance that there was a part of the park dedicated to John Lennon, its called Strawberry Fields and is placed just opposite the apartment where he and Yoko Ono lived, the area is also in the shape of a teardrop and has a mosaic in the centre with Imagine.

We also passed by the fountains which are featured in Friends and also in Home Alone, my favourite was seeing the ice rink used in Serendipity. We also saw some fake snow which had just been used for the filming of a new Adam Sandler movie, it really was like being on a movie set. We also saw a black squirrel, they are running around everywhere!

We stopped for the horse to have a break and a carrot and our driver took some lovely shots on my camera of us, with a brilliant backdrop of the park, it was so perfect as I was dying for a picture with the horse included and I didn’t even have to ask!

As our 45 minutes came to an end I was sad to say goodbye to Marcelo the horse but we continued our walk up to the shops and it was time for birthday cake! I had seen the new Cupcake ATM on Twitter which had just opened up in New York. The ATM is part of Sprinkles Cupcakes which is based between 60th & 61st streets near Bloomingdale’s. Of course you can just go inside and get your cupcake but where is the fun in that? There was a small queue so we waited to use the machine,when it was finally our turn and I chose a chocolate and marshmallow and a chocolate orange. You just press what you want, swipe your card and your cupcakes come out of the right-hand side, it’s truly fantastic. I hope they bring this to the UK! Head over to Instagram for a peek at the video I took.

After the cupcake excitement I headed to Bloomingdale’s and some other shops including the mothership that is Sephora. I really don’t know why they don’t have Sephora over here, it’s the best make-up shop ever. I treated myself to some Marc Jacobs make-up which I was dying to get my hands on, it really is fantastic so look out for a review coming soon. Shopping is hard work of course so we relaxed with some glasses of champagne at Saks on Fifth Avenue before heading back to the hotel to get reading for my birthday evening…