Go Local – Art After Dark

What better way to enjoy a museum than during one of its after hours events? Music, art, drinks, and there’s typically an age requirement of 21 and up. This is one of my favorite times to visit some of the museums in New York City either solo, with friends, or for date night.

Art After Dark at The Guggenheim
1071 Fifth Ave., New York, NY 10128

Hours:  9 pm–midnight

$18 guests and general public (credit card only at the door); cash bar

At its Art After Dark program, the Guggenheim transforms into a cocktail-driven, DJ-studded, fashion-forward event designed to introduce the masses to the museum’s art collections without the formality of daylight the first Friday of most months. The DJs change frequently and often bring a highly loyal fan base with them.  Lines can be long, so it’s best to arrive early. http://www.guggenheim.org

Target Saturdays at Brooklyn Museum

200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn NY 11238

Hours: 5pm – 11pm

Free

On the first Saturday of every month, the Brooklyn Museum hosts Target Saturdays, an evening of special events and drinks.The  is transformed into a DJ-thumping, bodies moving, fun dance party. Attendees also enjoy live music, special programs, and access to all of the museum’s exhibits until 11pm! Each month is a different theme i.e African Dance, Hispanic Culture, Pride, etc…Children are welcome at attend this event and there is special programing for them as well. http://www.brooklynmuseum.org

K2 Nights at Rubin Museum

150 W 17th St., New York, NY 10011

Hours: Fridays, 6pm – 10pm

Free

Every Friday night, the Rubin Museum’s Serai Restaurant morphs into the K2 Lounge, serving cocktails and Asian tapas.  Admission to the galleries is free from 6-10pm, and you can stroll the museum’s Himalayan-themed exhibits while DJs spin accompanying tunes. The museum hosts special curated exhibits, film viewings and live music performances. Arrive early for the 2-for-1 drink specials offered from 6-7pm. http://www.rmanyc.org

Late Nights at the MOMA

11 West 53 Street, New York, NY 10019

Hours: Fridays, 4pm – 8pm

Free

Admission is free for all visitors during UNIQLO Free Friday Nights, held every Friday evening from 4:00 to 8:00 p.m. Your UNIQLO Free Friday Night ticket permits you to all other Museum galleries, exhibitions, and films. http://www.moma.org

Uptown Fridays! At the Studio Museum in Harlem

144 West 125th Street, New York, New York 10027

Hours: Fridays 6pm – 9pm

Free

Join friends and neighbors to dance to the sounds of the DJ in the Studio Museum’s courtyard, check out the exhibitions on view during guided tours, browse through the innovative items in the Museum Store, and enjoy great food and creative cocktails at the Atrium Café.Uptown Fridays is FREE and open to the public. Visit their website for the next Uptown Friday event. http://www.studiomuseum.org 

Until next time! -xo AGT

Photo Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5,

Adventures in Philly

I was up for a small road trip, I had a Living Social Adventures deal for yoga and wine tasting, and my friend had never been to Philly so we set the dates, packed up the car, and headed south on the good old Jersey Turnpike. The weather was perfect for our trip – not too windy, the sun was shining, and temps were in the mid 70’s. We arrived in Philly around 2:30pm and found an awesome parking spot on the street near the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall.

Now, I’ve been to Philly several times before and I always park in the garage. It’s easy, it’s convenient, and it’s cheaper than most parking garages in NYC (enough said). Don’t ask me why, because I’m not sure why I thought it would be a good idea to deviate from the norm, but have you only live once right?

We visited Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell, then decided to take a bus tour. I moved the car into the garage where I should have left it for the night because we knew we wouldn’t be back to feed the meter and we had already seen several cars get towed.

The bus tour was a really relaxing way to see the city and we were able to get on an off when we wanted to spend time more time at a particular location.

After the bus ride we explored on foot

Full bellies, new ink, and a desire to dance with picked up the car from the garage and looked for places to go dancing. The sounds of salsa and bachata drew us in to a cute little place in Old City. We parked the car, put on our heels,and went inside to dance the night away. We emerged from the club around 2:30am only to get to the block where I parked the car and found that is was no longer there, and there was actually someone else parking in the spot.

Yes, it happened (que dramatic music). I had become a victim of parking wars….we reread the sign 3 times to try and determine the reason for towing and finally found the answer midway down the pole….a handicap sign the size of my iPhone. Awesome. Clearly my fault, but a bigger sign or perhaps some verbiage where the rest of the parking guidelines were would have been helpful.

We cabbed it over to the impound lot where many others were waiting, all victims of the Philly parking system. Everyone had a different story and only a few people seemed to be in bad spirits. I think most of us were all so tired that all we could do was laugh at the situation, and I laughed until I nearly cried. $150 and an hour or so later we were able to pick up the car, but not before receiving an additional fine of $301 to be paid within 30 days.

Exhausted, we head back to the house and ended up falling asleep before setting any alarms. When we finally woke up we realized that we completely missed the Living Social Yoga Adventure so we cracked open a bottle of champagne, made breakfast, and laughed over mimosas. In the end, the trip was definitely one for the books. We’ll never forget it that’s for sure lol.

Philly was an adventure, but we couldn’t wait to get back to NYC. Do you have any trip disaster stories? How did you turn the situation around?

Love AGT :)

101 Things to do in 1001 Days – Exploring Montreal

Bonsoir! Comment vas-tu? I’m working my way thru my list of 101 things to do in 1001 days and I recently had the opportunity to check the city of Montreal off of my list. I went 2 weeks ago with some friends and I loved it so much I’m already looking into my next visit!

The drive up took about 7 hours from NYC, which isn’t’ bad considering I’ve driven much farther than that before. We had a late arrival into the city, checked in to out hotel at Le Westin, and grab a late night bite to eat. The weather was similar to that in NYC, which I was thankful for, because the week prior to our arrival the temperature would drop to -5 degrees in the evening :( and I almost considered cancelling the trip.

We stayed in Old Montreal – I loved the architecture and the feel of city, and ventured out to Chinatown, the infamous St. Catherine Street for shopping (which is very similar to shopping on 5th Ave in NYC), visited the Montreal Science Center, La Basilique Notre-Dame  (The Notre-Dame Basilica) – breathtaking, and the Musee des beaux-arts (Museum of Fine Arts) – reminded me of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC because of its size.

My fondest memories from the trip are visiting the La Basilique Notre-Dame and walking around old Montreal. The trip was very relaxing because we just took each day in stride… Simply getting up and heading out to explore the city at a relaxing pace, which was pretty easy to do since there weren’t very many tourists around.

Since we visited during St. Patty’s Day  we couldn’t pass up a chance to try some yummy treats :) We stopped into a cupcake shop and tried the green velvet cupcakes and the Irish Car Bomb cupcakes.

Green Velvet

Irish Car Bomb

Then we stopped at a local pub and ordered some burgers and finished them off with beers from a local brewery. I tried the veggie burger with arugula, grilled portobello mushrooms and sweet potato fries, and couldn’t even imagine finishing the whole thing it was so big – but tasty.

Meanwhile, my friends had the Sicilian Burger and the Deuce Burger. There was a guy sitting at the table sitting next to us who had a burger that was stacked higher than the Deuce Burger (I wanted to take a picture, but opted against interrupting him during his lunch) and he finished the whole thing!

We only spent 3 days and 2 nights in the city but because we took it as such a slow pace time seemed to stand still as we took it all in. We walked the city during the day and took cabs from our hotel in the evening to check out the local bar and club scene.

This summer, I’m hoping to roadtrip up there again to check out a festival. I’m trying to decide between the…

Montreal Beer Festival – the city is well known for its craft beers and has over 600 types of beer available for people to sample. I sampled a few beers while I was there and my favorite was the Blonde De Chambly – a wheat beer, or white beer in the Belgian tradition. It’s citrusy and spicy, with hints of orange and coriander with 5 percent alcohol.

Montreal International Jazz Festival – One of the world’s largest Jazz festivals…will be celebrating 33 years this summer. Festival legends include B.B King, Ella Fitzgerald, Dave Brubeck, and Oscar Peterson.

Or…

Montreal International Reggae Festival – the largest outdoor 2-day Reggae festival held in Canada

Which ever I finally decide on I plan to have improved on my conversational French by the next trip. I can read French fairly well, but I haven’t practiced speaking it in so long that I’ve lost it. Locals speak both French and English, but I’d like to be able to converse with  people in French if I can, plus this puts me one step closer to becoming fluent in French and crossing that off of my list of things to do as well.

Check out more pics from my trip:

Irish Car Bomb

A la prochaine! <3 AGT :)