New York with my Interns

You may remember my fabulous internship ladies here...Anne, Amanda, Liz, Joey, Sarah, and myself. We completed our dietetic internship together. I've often said the one reason I had to wait so long to get into an internship was because of these ladies - we were seriously meant to be together. Never before have I so quickly and easily gelled with a group of girls.

We've done a couple of group video chats and one day the conversation sparked getting together. Two of us are still Richmond, two are in DC, one in Baltimore, and the other Rhode Island, so it requires a decent amount of planning. We finally landed on a date to meet in New York, which also happened to be the weekend of my 25th birthday! I had missed all of these ladies so much and I was beyond excited for our weekend getaway. I opted to drive everyone south of NY since I had the EZPass on my car and I was technically the "most south." I left work at lunchtime on Friday and headed on up. Amanda brought me some Georgetown Cupcakes, complete with the black and yellow L's for my birthday! We hit some traffic of course along the way and we made it to New Jersey by 8. We met Sarah, from RI, there and then we all piled in her car so we only had to pay to park one car in the city. We checked into our hotel, found our rooms, and then found an Italian restaurant nearby for some dinner. We also wandered down to Times Square.

Saturday, we got ready and headed out. We had some meager breakfast at our hotel/starbucks and then hit up Rockefeller Center. We decided to get the Rockefeller Center/MoMa pass. We went to the Top of the Rock, which has been my favorite "go to the top of a building" ever. It's amazing what you can see - for some reason it's way better than the Empire State in my opinion. We headed to the MoMa next where we saw many works of art - including my favorite Starry Night. Since we were on Fifth Avenue we also stopped in Tiffany's and a few other fun landmarks. Our next stop was down to Chelsea where we had lunch in the Chelsea Market at the Ronnybrook Farms store. Most of us got Mac & Cheese (we read a review that said it was a Top 10 to get in Chelsea Market) and of course it took us back to our Mac & Cheese days at MCV. Also worth mentioning was the Egg Salad which I didn't personally get, but had the pleasure of tasting. We wandered around the market and enjoyed the atmosphere.

Then we basically walked across the entire island to get over to the Momofuku milk bar for some incredible cake truffles. From there we walked a few more blocks to a bar where we met Liz's friend from college. Liz and her friend caught up while the rest of us had a drink (DC for me please). After the bar, we took a cab back to our hotel where we decided to get pedicures. We found a spot and four of us got pampered while Joey and Liz went to another bar...love them. By the time we all got back it was around 8pm and our dinner reservations were at 10pm. So we got dressed up for our dinner and Amanda curled my hair! Our reservations were at Craft, a restaurant by Tom Colicchio of Top Chef fame. I think a few of us had reservations about waiting that long for dinner (some of us, ie Anne, Sarah, and myself, like to eat on a schedule), but it was totally worth it. It was, hands down, one of the best meals of my life. I honestly don't remember everything I had, but we had a fantastic assortment of vegetables and sides, and my entree, the chicken, was perfectly juicy and tender. My favorite part though, was the dessert. They had sugared donuts as a dessert item, with blood orange and dark chocolate dipping sauces. I ordered it, because it sounded amazing, but also because I figured I would eat a few, then feel done, and stop. Not so. They were so incredible, and instead of feeling sick, like I normally would after eating 3 donuts, I felt amazing so I finished it off. Of course, some of my friends had some of the donuts too, so it wasn't all me, but they were impossible to resist. We made it back to our hotel probably around 1am, and my roommates took off to head back to the bar :) while Anne, Sarah, and I stayed back to sleep.

Sunday morning, we found a fantastic spot, per Liz's friends' recommendation for breakfast at a museum (Why do museums always have the best restaurants?). We enjoyed our last meal together before we all headed out. We stopped quickly at Central Park just so Joey could see it before we left and then headed back to our hotel to pack up.

This was such a fun trip for me. Not only did I get to see my dear friends again, but it was a definite celebration of how far we have all come since last July. We're all RDs, we all have jobs, and we're all still friends. Can't wait for next year.