NYC- Eve & Iris’ 26th Birthday Celebration (Jan 12-15, 2007)

Friday Jan 12, 2007-

I began my journey to NYC on the redeye from SFO to JFK- arriving at JFK at 6:30am. Luckily, I have the most amazing best friend, who actually came to meet me at the airport. For anyone that really knows me, I have no sense of direction, and I fear that if left to my own devices, I probably would have ended up in Jersey. Anyways- Much of this blog was actually written by my dear friend Iris. She did such a fantastic job chronicling the events, that I will let her tell most of the story, and add in my own commentary as required.

Our birthday consisted of 4 main people, Me, Iris, Harp and Craig. Harp & Craig are Iris’ friends from Edmonton (although currently living in Montreal- lucky bums!) Everyone arrived to Iris’ Amazing little apartment on the Upper east side at an OBSCENE hour this morning. I am talking like 4:30 and 6:45 AM. When we all congregated, we took a little snapper and got ready for our day. First stop- we took the subway and made our way to Times Square, with a pit stop at Grand Central Station.

We got to Times Square and hung out for a bit in the area. We stopped by the Letterman studio, then walked through Midtown and made our way to the Plaza where Iris and I were meeting the Sex and the City tour (SATC) . Both of us are huge fans of SATC--VERY into it. We used to start our Friday nights out with the new episode in her Edmonton apartment back in my UofA days. We went on the tour and saw a ton of the sites where the girls hang out etc. We got to sit on Carrie's stoop and as we are waiting to get our pic taken, we see Nina Katz (she was the one that made the face to Carrie when they met) walking her dog. How random and cool. Sure she isn't a major celeb or anything, but still a little weird, right? On the SATC tour and a person that was on SATC walks by. Again, uber-cool.

We finished the tour and meet up with Craig and Harp, and began the walk back to Iris’ Pad.

On the walk we saw a film crew and big lights, so we decided to check it out. It is the new Elisha Cuthbert / Jesse Bradford movie that is filming in the city. While we didn't get to see them making the movie (it was all the stand-ins doing rehearsals) we did see them as they were walking to the set. Iris thought Jesse Bradford (he was the really cute guy from Bring It On - one of the best teen movies EVER) was super cute- although I wasn’t really sure who he was. We hung out and watched them film for about 15 minutes, and let me tell you, the job is not that glorious. It was actually really tedious and boring- getting every camera angle, lighting ect exactly right.



Saturday Jan 13, 2007-
As I mentioned before, Iris and I are obsessed with SATC. We love this show and we always have—we are original SATC junkies. So, obviously, this weekend was going to have an SATC theme.

Saturday we awoke, went down the West Village and put our name on the wait list for Pastis and went walking around. Pastis is an uber-cool brunch place popular for celebs and beautiful people in NYC. While walking around we saw Nigel Barker - from America's Next Top Model! While I don't watch this show regularly, I do watch it enough to have seen Nigel and noted how HOT he is on tv. Lemme tell ya, he is ACTUALLY that good-looking. He was walking around the neighborhood with his kid. SO cute.

We headed back to Pastis and were seated at our table. At this point we were all actively searching for celebs, as we are all sightly celeb obsessed.

I went to the bathroom, and when I returned to my table I walked smack into Elisha Cuthbert ! She is Jack’s daughter on 24- my favorite show!! Elisha is a cute, girl next door type. Shes REALLY short tooo. I wasn’t wearing heels and I was at least 5 inches taller than her, which would but her at about 5 1”

We finished brunch and made our way down to the WTC site, and my pick, the Century 21 discount department store. I visited this place on my first NYC trip with Sean, but we all know that Sean is NOT a great shopping partner. He gets really annoyed and impatient- much the same as I am when forced to watch sports. I found the PERFECT pair of new TAG jeans. This is the exact pair I have been searching online for- and found that the only place I can but them is planet funk in Hollywood---but I found them, and they were totatlly discounted (like 60% off)! I live for discounted fashion finds- Happy birthday to me!!

We walked to Canal Street and SoHo, shopped a little more, we made our way home. Dinner for the evening was going to be Tortilla Flats, a Mexican restaurant that was featured on SATC. This place was awesome! The food was great and not expensive at all. The whole meal for all four of us came to $50! Can you imagine?! The owner stopped by our table and gave everyone a free round of drinks (diet coke for me), and then got the whole place to sing happy birthday to me- How Coool is that!!

After the restaurant, we went to this underground music venue called, the MisShapes. The MisShapes are these DJs who Iris says are basically the three coolest people in NYC. They have had Madonna guest DJ for them and often feature secret shows by the likes of the YYYs and The Strokes. So we go.

Boy, this was not our scene. I am talking about hipsters and little mod kids the likes of these eyes have never seen before. We were going to leave, as this was not what we were expecting, but then this band gets on stage. No it wasn't any major bands, but it was a really great group from Brooklyn. They were called The Pretty Boys and they totally rocked. I met the lead singer and she gave me a copy of her CD- I’ve been listening to it in my car, and they totally rock- very Garbage-esk.


Sunday Jan 14, 2007- Happy Birthday to ME!!

Sunday was Eve's birthday in NYC. We all got up (this was a big slumber party weekend, with Iris and I on the pullout and Harp and Craig on the air mattress in the living room) got dressed, watched a couple episodes of Entourage (Iris’ gets everyone addicted to that show) and then Craig and Harp left back to Montreal, and Iris and I had the whole day all to ourselves! Yippeee!!

We decided to walk all day and see what this city has to offer. We walked from the UES to SoHo. For those of you unaware of the distance, it is about 100 blocks. 20blocks= 1 mile, so this was a 5 mile day (in heels I might add- not the smartest idea). Along the way we shopped a bit, but mainly just walked and hung out.

For my birthday dinner we had the idea of going to Tao. It was a great meal, probably the best sushi I have ever had in my entire life- even better than NOBU in London! I just have to say, "Wow". We even had dessert- although there really wasn’t anymore room in my tummy. I had chocolate souffle, and iris had some pastry concoction.

After we stuffed our bellies full, we sat by the Plaza Fountain. I love this fountain, and have to say it is Iris’ favorite little spot in the city. It is just so old school NYC. The Plaza, Central Park, Fifth Avenue. It's the New York from movies. It is the New York you see and think, "Wow, I might like to visit New York one day".

So that was our weekend. It was super fun and so great to see my bestest friend Iris.

For anyone that is wondering, sean was working nights all weekend, which is why I decided to go elsewhere for my birthday. See, I really don’t have a lot of friends in SF, so I thought I would be super lonely and depressed if I spent my entire weekend at home alone, and hating Sean. So instead, I went to NYC, had a blast, and came back missing my Seany-sean. What a great trip!!

Oh Yeah, my cab ride back to the airport on Monday morning was a trip. The driver must have been a crack addict because he kept figiting, and scratching his ENTIRE body the Entire 40 mintue drive to the airport. I was SO Thankful when I arrived in one piece.

XOXO

Eve