America

New York: Chelsea Market

If you’d like to try a lot of different kinds of food at one place, the Chelsea Market is definitely a great idea. This indoor food hall is located in the Meatpacking district. The building used to be a biscuit factory. That’s why the market has an underground vibe with lots of nice food, drinks and more.

The market is open every day. From Monday till Saturday starting from 7 AM to 9 PM. Only on Sundy the market starts at 8 AM t0 8 PM.

The nice thing about the market is that you can get a preview of all the things inside. Check out the pictures below of the variety of food and spices:

The cookies from Eleni’s inside the market are playful and unique. They’re nice as a gift, also sold as a set in boxes. The cookies are shaped and colored as rainbows, taxi’s and other sweet things. Not only does she sell the cutest cookies but also the coffee is worth a try!

There is a nice Morrocan store inside as well with magical lamps and carpets. I liked the art work on the walls a lot. If they were sold as postcards, I would grab a few to enlist them at home 🙂

Enjoying Eleni’s New York coffee on the way back!

Sin City

Las Vegas is one of the most fun places to visit. Of course, it is awfully shallow and it totally revolves around sex and money. But I, a very optimistic person, see it as a place where you can see the remarkable things in the world all in one place and still experience all the fun the world has to offer. I guess, you can say Las Vegas doesn’t have it’s own personality, or does it…

The first time I went to Las Vegas was when I was 15 years old. I was so excited to see all the buildings that I’ve seen in plenty of movies. Las Vegas at that time was mostly theme-based. The most famous hotels were Alladin, Luxor and Stardust. The Wynn hotel, which was the newest hotel back then, was practically the only hotel without a theme.

Nowadays, most new hotels in Las Vegas don’t have a theme. They’re just very luxurious and exclusive, with huge casinos and crystal chandeliers hanging everywhere. Each designer hotel is even more luxurious than the other. I guess Las Vegas changed together with modern fashion. Yet still, I can’t help missing the fake old imitation hotels and ladies wearing tacky shiny suits and guys dressed up like Elvis, because for me, all that was the real Las Vegas.

Hotels and Clubs

The Cosmopolitan Hotel is the place to be in LV. Practically every aspect of this hotel has been well thought of, from the humongous crystal chandeliers to the statues of designer shoes in the hallways. The chandelier bar looks amazing an

The Chelsea ballroom, where Kaskade’s concert was held, was very beautiful. It felt so high class and chique going out in a huge classy ballroom, almost made me feel like doing the Viennes Waltz.

An epic fail though was Marquee, where I LMFAO was featured. People were dressed in weird tutu’s, i guess showing what a great fan they are of LMFAO. But you see the thing i like about going out in Las Vegas is that people have to wear nice clothing, so i was kind of disappointed when people came in wearing slippers. The second drama was that it was so crowded and you’re not allowed on the main dance floor because you have to pay for a VIP table even though you don’t have a table. The security guard obviously could not manage the crowd and they kept on telling us to “go left, go left”. So we went left and straight to the exit, bye bye Marquee!

Though i like the Cosmopolitan, i loooove Encore. XS and Encore are my favorite clubs in Las Vegas. The people are classy and friendly. You can also go to the pool area but going out in a bikini is quite trashy so we didn’t do that. The first time i went to the Encore club, we met some guys who let us in for free. The second time, we bought our tickets beforehand which was cheaper ($20) and more convenient as we could just pass the line 🙂

Tao is also a nice club in LV, but don’t expect the bouncers to be nice. It doesn’t even matter if you buy your tickets upfront, they won’t let you in first. The club is nice, downstairs there’s a lounge area in Asian design and upstairs the club. It was very crowded, but no one was annoying, just relaxing and having fun.

There are lots of other nice smaller clubs in the Strip, like the cathouse in Luxor. We got a free table and bottle because we went to the Thunder from Down Under. Which is by the way, a very fun show to go when with your gals or gays.

The next time, i’ll post about things to do in Las Vegas besides clubbing…

Tip: If you want to go to a specific club or concert, buy your tickets beforehand. It is much cheaper and sometimes you can skip the line.

Reminder, wear classy clothes and don’t forget your ID, it’s just too bad when you have to go back to your room to change or get your ID.

Big Apple

The first time I was in the Big Apple was in 2001, the summer before 9/11. Imagine having a picture of the Twin Towers just months before it collapsed. Makes you wonder what if…

I never went to the top of the Twin Towers, which was too bad. So the next time I went to New York, I wanted to make sure that I would go on top of the Empire State Building. But when we got there, there was a 3-hour line.

Empire State Building

If you want to go on top of the ESB, you need to do some serious planning, because it’s a whole process. First, you have to get a ticket (2^nd floor). If you are early and lucky, you might only have to wait half an hour. Then after buying your ticket ($27 for adults), you have to wait in line for the elevator to the 86th floor and from there you have to get another elevator to the 102nd floor. Then climb some stairs to go to the rooftop. It takes a while, but when you are up there the view is breathtaking! The sight of concrete city surrounded by water. You suddenly realize the giganticity of Central Park within it. The Statue of Liberty waving from out far. The view is one of a kind and definitely worth seeing. I looked down and wondered: what if I dropped a coin, the thought was terrifying. Also, I couldn’t help thinking: what if a something would crash into this building at this moment. It horrified me to think what the people felt during 9/11; powerless. Don’t think of that when you’re up there, it’s creepy.

On our way down, we got a discount on our picture after pretending like we were poor students, which of course was kind of true.

Museums

The Metropolitan Museum of Arts is definitely a must-see in New York City. The museum is too big to see in one day, so take a whole afternoon off if you want to visit and wear comfortable shoes. We made a small donation, so we didn’t have to pay entrance fee (just tell the lady you want to make a donation).

The Museum of Modern Arts is also nice to see, especially when you are a fan of modern arts, which I am not. But because there was no entrance fee on Wednesday afternoon, I took the opportunity to take a peek inside. MOMA has a large collection of paintings, some of the most special and valuable paintings in the world. Even for a non-modern art lover like me, it was worth the visit.

Central Park

Besides the fact that Central Park is a huge park in the middle of the concrete city, it is also funny in the way that I recognize everything in it from a movie, from Home Alone to One Fine Day to A Winter’s Tale. So when we were there, we reenacted some of these movies, which was fun, but kind of embarrassing as well. Luckily, people in New York don’t really care about what others do. There’s a lot of things to do in Central Park: sit on the grass, go sunbathing, watch people jogging or doing stuff, rent a boat from the boat house or eat at the charismatic boat house restaurant. Overall, lots to do and lots to see.