Last week I took a quick trip to Brooklyn, NY for the Tastemaker SEO Summit for bloggers. Here’s a recap from my New York adventures!
I hadn’t been to New York in ages – I believe the last time I was there was way back in fall 2016, when Matt and I headed up to cheer on friends running in the NYC Marathon. Feels like a lifetime ago!
We actually had plans to come to NYC for a weekend in May 2020 to see the Harry Potter musical, but obviously that got canceled…
Anyway – it was fun to be back in the city for the first time in ages. I got in to Moynihan Train Hall (WOW, it’s so much nicer than Penn Station was last time I was here!) around dinnertime on Tuesday evening and was immediately thrust into the lively and bustling chaos that is that area of the city!
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I walked a few very crowded blocks to a spot called Juniper Bar to meet my brother in law and sister in law, Drew and Morgana, for dinner! They live on the Upper East Side and were kind enough to venture down to the train station area to meet me. 🙂 It was great to see them!
Juniper Bar had a very trendy and energetic vibe and the food was great! I had a fall squash and quinoa salad with arugula, toasted seeds, and salmon that hit the spot, plus a little of Morgana’s flatbread and some of Drew’s sweet potato fries.
After dinner, we headed to the Subway for my first big city test – could I make my way successfully from Penn Station area to Williamsburg in Brooklyn (where my brother and his fam live) without getting lost?!
Thankfully I had good instructions from Drew and Morgana and had Google Maps on my side, which had really helpful instructions. I was also delighted to find that the NY Subway takes Apple Pay as payment now – no more tickets needed, just tap your phone and head on in! So convenient.
It took awhile but I successfully made it to my brother Steve’s place and was excited to see him, his wife Roxanne, and their almost 3 year old son Daniel, who I arrived just in time to see before he headed off to bed. It was great to see all of them, too, and to see their place in Brooklyn for the first time!
On Wednesday morning, my brother took me out on a really fun scenic run around Brooklyn. The weather cooperated nicely for us!
I had been to Brooklyn once before, but not anytime recently and it was fun to see how much it has changed. I’d never been to the waterfront area before and it was awesome!
The views from Brooklyn across the water to Manhattan and other parts of the city were gorgeous.
This used to be an old Dominion Sugar plant – they are keeping the old building facade and building something new under it. Pretty cool!
I’m not sure how far we ran – maybe 2.5 or 3 miles? It felt good to get out and get some fresh air before sitting at the conference!
After a quick shower and some oatmeal and espresso at my brother’s place (because I knew I would be starved if I waited to eat until getting to the conference, as I had to get ready and then it was a 45 minute commute), I headed off towards the subway!
If you follow me on Instagram you may have seen my recent IG Story about how I got a black eye courtesy of Wes and a rogue wooden train track piece that he threw and (accidentally) hit me with in the face. By the time I was in New York it was better, but still a thing; it’s a little hard to tell in the photo but it kind of looked like I just went really overboard on dark purple eyeshadow on only one eye. 😉
Anyway! The conference took place in Brooklyn (venue: 501 Union), but unfortunately the complete other side of Brooklyn from my brother! I was surprised by how big Brooklyn was.
Once I got there, I grabbed breakfast #2 – a potato hash that reminded me of my Sweet Potato Hash Recipe (just with white potatoes instead) with fried eggs. Quite good! I liked the mini chia pudding (similar to my Coconut Banana Chia Pudding) as well.
We had a full day of session on SEO (search engine optimization). This conference was geared more towards intermediate/advanced bloggers and got really into the nitty gritty specifics of it all, which was great. I know a good amount about SEO already having been doing this work for so long, but I definitely took away a bunch of helpful nuggets and it’s always fun to network with other bloggers, too.
For lunch, we had two choices and they were both mini servings so I went for one of each! We had chicken with a cucumber dill salad and an Asian-themed salmon with asparagus and potato. I was impressed by the food at this event – it was all really good! I guess they had to really make sure to step it up for a group of food bloggers… 😉
After the conference was over for the day I made the subway trek back to my brother’s place. I was a bit hungry so I stopped at a juice/health food cafe place (called Juicery Kitchen) on the way and bought some snack balls and a green juice. The snack balls were yummy despite the horrible name (lol) – reminded me of my Peanut Butter Bliss Balls.
I hung out with my brother and his fam for a bit until his son was ready to go to bed, and then Steve and I headed out for dinner (unfortunately Roxanne wasn’t able to join us as their babysitter was busy, bummer).
We went to a cool Peruvian restaurant in Williamsburg called Llama Inn and got cocktails to start – I don’t often get cocktails because they tend to be too sweet for me but I asked for it less sweet and it was very refreshing, a twist on a Moscow Mule that incorporated pisco.
For dinner, we shared a bunch of stuff (a couple pics below, but didn’t get them all as the lighting was dim) – tuna ceviche with avocado and tomato, fried squash, mussel and bean toast (more delicious than it sounds), and a fried chicken dish.
The vibe at the restaurant was really fun and the food was great and creative. Highly recommend if you find yourself in Williamsburg area of Brooklyn!
On Thursday morning I had another pre-breakfast of some oatmeal and espresso with my brother and his fam, then said farewell to them, packed up all my stuff and took it with me to the conference as I was heading straight to the train station when the event wrapped.
I ended up using my old study abroad traveler’s backpack for this trip (vs. a rolling suitcase) and was super glad I did given all the subway stairs, long walks to and from the subway, stairs in the train station, etc. It was just much easier to work with in the city although it was a workout carrying a heavy backpack around!
Day 2 of the conference was also great – we started with some frittata (I tried the veggie one as well as the meat and potato frittata) and fruit, plus a mini smoothie, then kicked off another busy day of learning.
For lunch, we had shrimp with zucchini and rice, plus butternut squash soup. I ended up going back for more shrimp as it was quite a small portion and there were a lot of extras!
After the conference wrapped on Thursday I said my farewells and walked back to the subway to head to the train station. It took me about 45 minutes door to door between the walk on the front end and the actual subway ride but it was fairly straightforward with the help of Google Maps!
I made it to the train station with about 30 minutes to spare and grabbed a salad from Chop’t for dinner on the train. I really like the train – it’s just so much easier and more comfortable than flying and I was able to get caught up on some work (emails + writing this blog post recap!) during the ride which was great.
Until next time, NYC…! Thanks for the fun quick visit.
Have you ever been to NYC or Brooklyn? Next time I’ll hopefully have time to catch a show and to see some other friends who live in the area!
