Freeeeedom! After the most insane last week of work (involving half my team being let go and me ending up on 3 days “garden leave” for my last days at work), I was done with work and ready to enjoy 3 months of travel before starting my new job in November.

First stop - New York! A flying visit on my way to Peru but still managed to fit in plenty of goodness. I was met at the airport early in the morning by my friend from HK who I’d be staying and hanging with for my 3 days. She’s from Long Island and lived in Brooklyn for many years so I was excited to explore some different parts of New York.

We went straight to Brooklyn to meet up with a friend of hers, and her sweet daughter, we spent the morning wandering, chilling at the park and eating the most delish Lebanese brunch. In the afternoon we checked out the Jay-Z exhibition at the Brooklyn library and tried butter-cake flavored ice cream. I started to flag post-17-hour flight so we headed home for pizza at a local spot and an early night.

Day 2 we started with a walk, up the only hill around, which is actually a big pile of rubbish, it’s the contents of the old dump piled up and covered in grass, converted to a running/walking/recreation area, very creative I thought. We got some peeks across to the NYC skyline from up top ,and views of the water from multiple angles on the way. We then headed to none other than Trader Joe’s to pick up supplies for lunch and dinner, I could have bought everything in the store I tell you. After cooking lunch and prepping a huge pasta salad we were off to the beach for a friend’s birthday beach bash / bbq. It was cool to see the beach-life side of New York, the beach was really nice and the weather was perfect. We then headed back to a nearby beachhouse for the bbq where we had the most amazing burgers, as well as tons of other good food. We were also treated to a summer storm and a rainbow, which we watched from the roofop of the house.

My final day in New York started with a Barre class at a local studio, then we had an amazing (pink) bagel for lunch and took the train into the city for a show. We saw “& Juliet”, a spin off from Romeo & Juliet, leveraging tons of classic 90’s pop music. It was very fun and a total good-mood show, recommend for an easy breezy afternoon out. After a cocktail then a reuben sandwich on the train home, my time in New York was already up, and I headed to the airport late that night fly to Lima, Peru!

It was awesome to get to see a more local view of New York and hang out with a good friend on their home turf.