We left for New York on Friday morning, and Thursday night found me in a fit of stressed out frenzy, desperately wanting to cancel the whole thing so I could stay home and enjoy four gloriously peaceful days to get ahead on all the projects on my plate. Surely that would be more relaxing than driving an hour to the airport, taking a shuttle, catching two flights, another shuttle, a 1.5 hour train ride followed by a subway jaunt, only to repeat the travel mania on the way home a few days later (getting back super late, with an early start on the agenda for the next day, of course). Emir, on the other hand, knew that if I we canceled... I'd be equally bummed about having missed out on the great trip we had planned (not to mention some of the sample files for my book), so... we made a midnight trek to the store to grab a few last minute items before coming home to fret a bit more about which bag to take (or not). Seriously. It was almost comedic. Roller bag(s) or backpacks? A camera bag, or just tuck all my gear inside my clothes for cushioning?

Ultimately, we finished packing just before we left the next morning, fitting everything (for both of us) into a single carry-on roller bag (yes!). We even got my laptop in there so I could write along the way! (My camera gear came along in a purse/bag from Epiphanie)

We spent our first day strolling from Central Park West towards downtown. We shot along the way, snapping examples for my book and a few group shots for tourists who asked.

As expected, the city was swarming with mobs of people anxious to do some holiday shopping, and it wasn't uncommon to see lines of people waiting to get inside stores that had already reached capacity.

Not a fan of the mob scene, we crossed some shots off our list at Grand Central Station before jumping on the 2 and escaping to the quiet promenade of Brooklyn for lunch. LOVE.

We strolled Brooklyn for awhile before deciding to walk back to Manhattan across the infamous Brooklyn Bridge.

How funny is Emir? I don't know what I'd do without him...

More from Manhattan...

The next day we awoke to the sound of rain and and decided to spend the morning working at the neighborhood Starbucks before heading back downtown to B&H (deserving of a blog post all its own) and later, show tickets to "American Idiot."

After the show, we played with my new S95 in Times Square at night before devouring some more NY pizza and cheesecake, later heading back uptown to catch some z's.

I'm so, so, so glad we went after all. Emir is a saint. Thanks love.