Visiting Inky

Salut mes amis, 

When my session at Camp Doll Diaries ended, my parents surprised me with a bus ticket to one of my all-time FAVORITE cities in the world: New York City! My dear friend Inky had invited me to stay with her family for a few days.

It was SO GOOD to see Inky's apartment again! As soon as I got in the door, I bounded over to Inky's room. We stayed in there half the night talking, just Inks and me. Inky's moms literally had to bribe us out with cheesy vareniki for dinner - yum! Vareniki is the Ukrainian word for pierogi, a food my Polish half is very familiar with. I love those stuffed dumplings! My family usually keeps them on reserve for Christmas Eve, so it was really a special treat indeed to have them with Inky.

   

After breakfast the next day, I took the subway to Manhattan with Inky's friends Iris and Miko. Our first stop was to be the American Girl Place, but of course! I immediately purchased some iced coffee at the snack shop located there, sipping on it while I browsed the summer's new releases. I decided to shop lightly this time, only picking up a pair of the chocolate glasses and Kit's floral print dress, as well as the cello for Fair Hollow's music department. The cello was on sale for $18 - SCORE! 

Iris, Miko, and I decided to ride the subway over to the West Village for lunch. I was totally in awe of the West Village, and if I could choose a place in the city to live, this would be it. I really wanted to stay a bit longer and check out the new film Boyhood shown at the IFC movie theatre. Alas, Iris and Miko were pretty hungry, so we ate at a yummy Vietnamese restaurant. I had spring rolls on a bed of greens. For dessert, we stopped at the macaron place Inky's always raving about. It was SO hard to choose which macaron that I wanted, but I eventually decided on a lavender vanilla flavored one. It was purple and almost too pretty to eat!

After lunch, I parted ways with Iris and Miko. They were going to the Isabelle movie premiere later that day and had to get in line. Since we'd ended up back on 5th Avenue, I did some window shopping! I checked out FAO Schwarz, the Plaza Hotel (and all of the Eloise souvenirs!), and the Disney store. After wandering around for a while, I decided to stop at Bubba Gump's in Times Square for a light supper: fried shrimp, hush puppies, fried fish fillets, cole slaw, broccoli, and a tall glass of watermelon lemonade to wash everything down with! (Okay, maybe that doesn't sound light, but I had to share it with my chaperones!)

Then it was time for the MAIN EVENT (aka the reason why we came to NYC!): If/Then starring the one and only Idina Menzel!! I was so full of anticipation when I got in line at the Rodgers Theatre because I was lucky enough to have premium seating: Row E in the orchestra section! Yippee! You can probably see why I decided not to buy much at American Girl Place, but hey, Idina Menzel is that worth it to me. I have seen her in concert every 2 years since 2008, and I really couldn't break that tradition . . . now could I?

The show was beyond AMAZING! Idina blew us all away, particularly in Always Starting Over, my favorite song from If/Then. After the show was over, I met up with Inky and her mom, so I wouldn't have to survive the hustle and bustle that is Times Square alone! Somehow we made it back to the apartment to end the night watching a DVR'ed performance of Arcade Fire (my friend Nathalie's favorite musical obsession).

The next day was my last day in the city. Boo! I started the day early, so I could at least use every minute in the city to my advantage. First, I took a few selfies with Coral and Violet. It was so nice to see them both again, especially Violet, my "pretend twin"! Violet and I've met on several occasions, and she even visited my school years ago.

My sister Juliette is so envious of this photo of me and Coral! She wants to meet Coral so badly, but her summer ballet intensive keeps her from traveling as much as me (something I know Coral can relate to as well, haha). Anyway, I felt like a giant next to Coral! Inky always towers over me, but Coral is pretty short. That's all right. We all come in different sizes, yes? 

By the way, please excuse the quality of these photos. I really didn't want to lug my big camera on this trip, so I made due with my more compact one! Sometimes convenience wins out. 

After reconnecting with Coral and Violet, Inky and I set off for a day in Manhattan. Inky took me to her favorite toy stores in Greenwich Village, including Toy Tokyo! This is the store where Inks generally gets her UglyDolls from, and boy, did they have some neat toys! My chaperones picked up a few things for, I'm guessing, my birthday because they wouldn't tell me what! 

We had lunch at Veselka, this really neat Ukrainian bistro in the Village. We had the yummiest borscht (beet) soup, vareniki filled with sweet potato and broccoli/cheese, and a vanilla egg cream to top it off. Everything was delicious! 

After lunch, we made our way to the New York Public Library to play a bit on the front lawn. Due to its proximity to the bus station, we decided that it would be a good place to say our goodbyes. We took a few photos together (see Inky's blog post HERE) and promised to see each other again soon! 

It had been such a great trip for me! I nearly cried in front of everyone in the bus terminal while I was waiting for my bus to come. I have so many good friends around the country who I hardly ever get to see (and a lot of whom I've never even met in person!). The Internet is such a great way of connecting, but it's still not as awesome as getting to spend time with dear friends in person. Ah, well. Life is full of compromises, right? At least I have a way to talk with these faraway friends when I can't afford to travel. :P

Until next time,

Sophie