On Friday, I had one of the most productive nights for arranging my room. After volunteering at my office for a Junior Achievement event, I headed to Bed, Bath, and Beyond with my wheely cart for a night of shopping and home improvement. I bought a fan (vornado), shelf (I built it myself at home), toiletries, and some other little things I needed for my room. I spent most of the night building my shelf (which is a nice storage addition that semi matches my new desk), organizing my clothing, and planning my trip to Chicago. The night was really productive AND I rewarded myself by sleeping in on Saturday (which I would’ve done anyway).

On Saturday, Chris and I headed to Shake Shack (their grand opening was on March 21st):

We ordered a cheeseburger (me), a shackburger (Chris), fries, and a black and white shake (we shared). I also brought some strawberries (thank you, Freshdirect.com!) so we weren’t complete pigs. The cheeseburgers at Shake Shack are seriously the best in NY….maybe even the WORLD (haha jk). These burgers are definitely awesome, though. After scarfing down our burgers (we waited in line for like, 20 minutes behind these kids that were the lamest “actors” ever), we headed our separate ways so we could get ready to go out for the night. It ended up being a bust, but we DID manage to go to the C&R cart (which was probably the highlight of the night). We ate the C&R on Chris’ new rug before passing out from walking all around the meatpacking district looking for little west 12th street.

On Sunday, we headed to Pastis for brunch (owned by Keith McNally, the same guy that owns Balthazar and a slew of other restaurants in the city):

Since we didn’t make a reservation, we ended up waiting for over an hour (more than Balthazar! And the food wasn’t even as good!) but we passed the time by going to stores around the area. We walked into a chair store and ended up passing the time by playing chair checkers:

Chris making his next move towards world domination (or at least checkers domination in the meatpacking district)

King me!!

Lunch was pretty good (although definitely not as good as Balthazar’s). We ordered the cheeseburger with fries (their fries are definitely better than most places we’ve been to) and the french toast with fresh fruit (which is just fruit on the side, not fruit ON the french toast). Afterwards, we got our usual Pinkberry (Strawberries, mangoes, and pineapple) and then we parted ways. I had dinner with Leo at Republic (union square), picked up some groceries at Whole Foods, sampled every gelato at Il Labatorio del gelato on the second floor (the lemon basil is surprisingly DELICIOUS), and then headed home. I’m packing for next week and I’m SO excited to go to Chicago. I’ll be at the W Monday - Thursday and then I’m heading to Brian’s on Thursday night - Sunday. Chris will be joining on Friday night, we’re going to be total tourists, and then we’re coming back to NY. When we get back, we’re going to the Conan O’brien show! Hopefully I’ll get to see everyone while I’m in Chicago - let me know if you have time to meet up!