This past week, I went to New York City to work at CE Week for Roost (the startup I’m working for this summer,) and to attend the women in consumer technology conference. More on these awesome events later!

My favorite part of the whole week though was my crazy weekend with my beautiful friend, Emilie. Here is a rundown of our adventures:

Friday: Exploring NYC

Emilie lives in Sleepy Hollow, NY which is about 40 minutes outside of the city, so she took the train in on Friday morning and we met at a huge Zara sale on 5th Ave. We spent about an hour and half there and ended up buying all of the same things! Great minds think a like I guess… I highly recommend checking out their website for some really cute summer skirts and tanks.

Next we walked to an old classic New York bar that Emilie’s dad recommended. By this point, we had walked about 2 miles in the 90-degree heat so all we wanted to do was sit down in an air conditioned room and have a cold drink. One quick change in the bar’s bathroom into one of my new tank tops from Zara later and we were on our way again through the city.

We knew that we wanted to do something kind of touristy that neither of us had done in the city, so we decided that we would go to Central Park and ride in the boats. If you’re looking for a great activity to do in the city this summer that is not expensive at all, you should check it out! It’s only $15 for 1 hour on the boat. We had such a blast floating around and trying to figure out how to maneuver the boat … it honestly ended up being more like bumper boats because we accidently hit everyone that we passed! Oops.

By this point, we were so hot and tired that we decided to grab a ice cold bottle of water, jump in a cab and head to SoHo to meet our friends Rachel and Alexa for a little shopping and exploring and then to the Meatpacking District! If you are ever in the area and want to check out a cool Beirgarden, then head to the Standard Hotel for an awesome atmosphere.

We ended our crazy day stopping back by my hotel to grab my suitcase that I had left there for the day, and running to make the 1am train to Westchester…

Saturday: From Westchester to the Jersey Shore

We woke up on Saturday at Emilie’s house in Sleepy Hollow where her mom had breakfast waiting for us and the news that Kanye’s new video for his song Famous was based on a painting by an artist that is their good family friend! 

Our original plan had been to wake up at 7am and drive to Emilie’s house on the shore, but instead we decided to go out on their boat in the Hudson River with some of her high school friends. One of the coolest things about getting to visit my college friends at their homes is getting to meet their high school friends that they grew up with! 

Around 5:30 that night though, we decided to head to Bay Head anyways and meet up with one of our other friends from school who lives in New Jersey. We had a classic New York pizza on the road, and arrived at the beach in about an hour and a half. Emilie was really excited because it was the first time that she could actually go to some of the cool bars in the area since she just turned 21. So, that’s exactly what we did, and it was so fun.

Sunday: Last Day Beach Day

We woke up Sunday morning to Alexa knocking on the door for our relaxing day on the beach. After the weekend we had, all we really wanted to do was lay in the sand, listen to the waves and read girlie magazines. And that’s exactly what we did. A new smoothie shop just opened up in Bay Head that specializes in fresh acai bowls so we each got one for lunch before heading back to the house to shower and head to the airport.

A huge thank you to my girl Em for such an epic weekend. When we were on our way to the airport, we realized that we really did it all in 3 jam-packed days. We conquered the city, the suburbs and the beach in a weekend that we will never forget.

Have you guys ever had one of those weekends that you look back on with pure joy and exhaustion all at the same time?

Hope that everyone had the best weekend!

XOXO,

Rachael Claire