Were you wondering if I’ve been in New York City since December? If so, you can rest easy – I made it safely home to the Twin Cities after our trip. Although we didn’t do a ton of stuff on our final day in NYC, the completist in me requires that I write this final post so I can officially put a bow on my last trip before I post about my next one.

So what is there to say about our final day in NYC this time around? Really, the title of this blog says it all! Unlike some trips (particularly international ones), we actually had the majority of the day we were flying home available to explore more. While I often advocate for just chilling and laying low the day I’m heading home from anywhere, our flight didn’t leave NYC until around 630p, so we really did have some time to kill. However, with nothing definite planned, we were able to wake up whenever (which was still relatively early, but it was nice to not have anywhere to rush off to) and wander down to the hotel lounge for a final delicious breakfast. Being the weekend before Christmas (and specifically being a mere two days before the holiday), it was pretty busy in there so the hotel staff had to actually juggle tables to find a place for everyone to sit, but with just two of us, we didn’t have to wait. While munching on our breakfast, we decided to support Scott’s burgeoning vinyl habit by finding a few record stores for him to dig through.

Before heading out, we spent some time getting our stuff together back in our room. Thankfully, I was able to secure a late checkout of 4 PM for us (it’s amazing how a little hotel status makes that totally easy, whereas I feel like hotels put up a fuss otherwise), which meant we could just leave our bags (ready to go, mostly) in our room and then head out for the better part of the day, knowing we just needed to get back in time to gather our stuff and then catch a Lyft to JFK. So it was off into the city we went! The weather was pretty cooperative – chilly, but mostly sunny, so we had pretty nice walking weather. We had a much better experience walking on Sunday morning/afternoon than we did on Saturday night, when 5th Avenue in particular was FULL of people. I always think about that when I’m in NYC vs. when I’m in London – they’re both very big cities, but NYC always has this heavy hustle/bustle happening that London somehow doesn’t. Don’t get me wrong though – London is also full of people to’ing and fro’ing, but it somehow feels different/less congested there. Maybe that’s because it’s my favorite city, so I always see it through slightly rose-colored glasses. I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts!

Anyway, we ended up hitting two branches of the same record shop, Academy Records. Sadly, Scott didn’t find anything on his wishlist, but I had some luck at our first stop as I found some good Blu-ray deals! I wasn’t looking for anything in particular and wasn’t even expecting to see movies for sale, but there were a few titles I had to pick up. More sadly though, the second stop also yielded nothing for Scott, but it also had nothing for me, as that branch of Academy doesn’t sell movies. Boo! But hey, we still had fun poking around the old records and walking around the city.

We decided to make one final stop before heading back to the hotel, but not for records – it was for pizza! We couldn’t go to a city like NYC and not have pizza somewhere, so we decided to visit Joe and Pat’s Pizzeria, which was really close to our second Academy stop. We weren’t super hungry and we were hoping to just get a slice for each of us, but when we didn’t see that option on their menu, we chose the smallest pizza option, which is meant for one person, but it was the perfect size to split between us. Of course, a few minutes after we ordered, our server happened to mention that we actually could have ordered a couple of slices instead (we hadn’t even asked her about doing that, so it was a total coincidence that she brought it up), but that’s okay. We ordered some cheesy garlic bread to go along with our small pizza and both were super tasty! If you’re looking for some good, NYC-style pizza, pay them a visit.

Not a lot to share in the photo department, but take a look at what I snapped!

A daytime look at the lighted sign outside Sak’s.

Of course I forget what church this is, but it looked pretty.

The Flatiron can be really hard to photograph! Its shape means that either it or the other things in the picture look askew, even when they aren’t.

It’s a little easier to just take a picture of it on its own.

Tasty cheesy garlic bread at Joe and Pat’s.

And a delicious pizza, too.

And now, at long last, I can say that was the end of our latest NYC trip. The hotel was nice, we experienced some new stuff, ate some tasty food, and had (mostly) cooperative weather. I don’t know if we’ll get back to going to NYC around the holidays like we did for a couple previous Christmases, but I don’t think it will be too long before we return. Stay tuned!