NYC Friday Night Hangs - Shopping, Dining & Loving Life

After work on Friday night, I headed straight for retail paradise. During my lunch break, I went to MAC so I thought it was best not to spend too much there again. SoHo has so many stores where you can spend your entire life's savings, and that evening I decided to take a gander at Topshop and Bloomingdales. I haven't been to Topshop since I was in the UK a couple of years back. The prices are a little higher than I remember, but everything is just as cute.

I decided it was a good idea to swatch all the Topshop makeup products in the store. Bad news - they didn't have makeup wipes. UGH. Tried scrubbing the products off of my hand for ages with a tissue and Purel - at least I know now that they're long lasting? Haha.

I didn't end up getting any of them, because I needed to practice some restraint but I'll be in the area daily and I have a feeling that restraint won't last very long! No willpower whatsoever. As I mentioned earlier, I did make some makeup purchases that day:

I like the Naked Basics palette, but I was kind of disappointed with it to be completely honest. It's a tad chalky, which I didn't expect, and I'm not wild about the packaging. The one true love of my life is the Naked 2 palette. Always.

My friend Lindsay texted me while I was shopping and we decided to meet up for dinner. We didn't have a set destination really, so we stumbled upon a beautiful busy restaurant called SoHo Park. It was so fun - the atmosphere was great and the food was not too bad either (not AMAZING but you get the idea). I ordered a burger and she ordered the tuna nicoise salad.

Afterwards, we wanted to go to Georgetown Cupcakes or Baked by Melissa but neither of them were open. I went to Baked by Melissa earlier that day - to be honest, I don't understand why tiny cupcakes are so expensive. It's a little ridiculous ... plus the staff kind of threw them in the box and they came out pretty ugly. Rude.

We ended up walking aimlessly until suddenly we came across this beautiful little park with a fountain and beautiful lights.

Soon after, we saw One World Trade Center for the first time. It was an eerie feeling - shivers ran through my body and I felt a pang of sadness, yet the building gave me hope at the same time. Having spoken to survivors of the tragedy and knowing of those who didn't survive: it made that experience that much more powerful. And the tower standing tall in the night sky - it was so beautiful that I can't even begin to describe it.

Before I headed home, Lindsay and I pondered life sitting by this lovely fixture, hair blowing in the breeze. We talked about just how much FIT has changed our lives, and realized that we were in the greatest city in the world, doing things we've always dreamed of.

Overall, it was a great night and a wonderful start to the long weekend. Also, thank you Labor Day for letting me skip a full day of classes (from 9 AM to 9:30 PM back to back - brutal). I love you for that. It was a bit rainy here, but we still managed to have a barbecue.

When there's a will, there's a way!

Hope you US readers enjoyed your long weekend and this pic heavy post!