Today’s ThinkKit prompt:

Time to go through your (actual) desktop, junk drawer, or coat pockets and share an artifact from your past. A half-torn ticket stub, once-washed receipt, coffee-stained map, anything in a frame: it’s all fair game. What springs to mind from your artifact? The smells, sights, and sounds? A specific feeling? Hold it in your hand, close your eyes, and go back in time to a moment.

First and foremost, this blog has taught me to clean out my purses more often. In the bottom of my giant bag that could fit a small child, I found my New York City MetroCard from a long weekend back in January.

We took the trip out to the Big Apple for my cousin’s wedding in Manhattan. It was at Gotham Hall and was hands down the most gorgeous wedding I’ve ever attended. We stayed at The Refinery Hotel (which I highly recommend to anyone traveling to NYC) and tried to get in as many activities as humanly possible over the course of four days.

We started our vacation with a trip to the 2nd Ave Deli as all good Jews would for blintzes, kugel, latkes and pastrami sandwiches. Since we had nothing on the agenda for the day, we decided to roam around Williamsburg/Brooklyn for the evening. We played skee-ball at Full Circle Bar, met up with some friends from home, had a couple drinks at Brooklyn Bowl while watching Questlove DJ and I got to see the VICE office.

Ice skating at Rockefeller Center with my dad after too many cocktails.

The next day, we did some shopping. We went all over the city looking at sneakers, art and clothes. We had the wedding rehearsal dinner that evening, and after a few glasses of wine I convinced my parents and boyfriend that we should go ice skating at Rockefeller Center. So for about 30 minutes, we skated around the ice with all of the other tourists to terrible pop music. When in Rome, I suppose!

Since I was in full tourist mode, we ventured over to Times Square for some midnight shopping at the 24-hour H&M. I don’t know why, but it was so much more fun going shopping in the middle of the night in the city. We wandered around Times Square for a bit before heading to The Ginger Man for beers. They had a huge beer list which made my boyfriend happy and I enjoyed a Boulder Shake Chocolate Stout.

The next day was wedding day! We had to take a detour to Traffic Bar, an IU bar in midtown, so that we could watch the IU game and eat some wings. But then it was into our black tie attire and over to Gotham Hall. The ceremony was so beautiful, and then there was a cocktail hour while they transformed the venue into an all-out party. I found the photo booth so I had to get my family in on my favorite hobby.

Sadly, we had to head back to Indianapolis the next day after a hungover rooftop brunch at The Refinery. I love visiting my family in NYC and wish I was out there more often to enjoy their company and all the city has to offer. I can’t wait to get back out there for my next visit. I’ll need to figure out which tourist attractions I’ll be heading to next, but I know that some museums and concerts will be on the list.

What’s your favorite thing to do or see in NYC?