New York Recap

Hellloooo! Today I'm excited to share a little recap from my trip to New York last week. This trip was primarily for school, but my dad ended up surprising me and coming to town for the weekend, and I also hung out with a few friends from Lehigh which is always fun! Even though I had to change my flight last minute and come home a day earlier than expected, it was so worth it. I was really stressed about the trip in the days leading up to it, but it ended up being really fun and a brand-new NYC experience for me. Sometimes I feel like going to New York loses its charm for me because I'm there so often, so I loved how I got to do different things this time around.

This is a trip that the Student Retail Association at UW has the opportunity to go on annually. I am on the executive board for the club this year, so I decided to attend and I'm really glad I did! I didn't know anyone else in SRA very well at all before the trip, but even in just a short amount of time I grew so much closer to a ton of different girls, and that was probably the best part of the whole thing! The primary purpose of the trip was to attend the student program for the NRF conference, so we did that on Friday and Saturday, but spent Wednesday and Thursday before that touring different companies privately with our group. About 45 students from UW attended, making our school the largest presence at the conference, which was really exciting!

W E D N E S D A Y

My flight was early on Wednesday morning, but it ended up being a really empty flight which is the best! On Wednesday our group toured the Rent the Runway store and the Trunk Club clubhouse located at the Palace (which was such a fun Gossip Girl moment).





Above are photos from the Rent the Runway store, which was gorgeous. I'm currently working with RTR and can't wait to share more details about my experience in an upcoming post!

Below are photos of the Trunk Club clubhouse.







I was unfamiliar with Trunk Club before this trip, but now I'm completely obsessed with the company and totally want to work there after college-- it's essentially a styling service company owned by Nordstrom and their clubhouse is the mansion attached to the Palace where Nate Archibald lived in Gossip Girl.



Wednesday night all of us were pretty exhausted so we just went out for pasta as a big group and then walked around Times Square before heading back to our hotel in the area.



T H U R S D A Y

Thursday was so much fun! We started the day with a breakfast and presentation at Macy's corporate, which is located above their Harold Square location. After Macy's we had a few hours of free time before a presentation at H&M. A few friends and I wandered to the Flatiron district and grabbed Shake Shack for a quick lunch.





After lunch, the H&M presentation, and a little 5th avenue shopping, we went back to our hotel to change and then headed back downtown to the village for dinner. We ended up walking around after dinner and stopped into dō, the infamous cookie dough place!



After dō we had to prance around Washington Square Park to calm down from the sugar rush.



After that, I met up with my dad! I was so excited and surprised when he told me he was coming into the city for the weekend. We just grabbed a drink and caught up at a little spot near his hotel.



F R I D A Y

Friday was the first day of the NRF conference. The conference itself was underwhelming, but I was so excited that my best friend Caroline was also attending with her school, so I got to see her!

Friday night I went to the Refinery Rooftop bar (so cute-- 100% recommend. I wish I would've taken a picture) with my best friend from Lehigh before heading to Brooklyn for the Rayland Baxter show. We had such a fun night! I took a few videos at the concert and I think I shared one that night on my insta story, but unfortunately I don't have ny photos to share here.

S A T U R D A Y

Day two of the conference was really cool. I definitely preferred Saturday's events to Friday's. We got to chat with executives from really cool companies, and Jo Malone herself gave the keynote speech at the end of the day-- truly one of the most inspiring entrepreneurial speeches I've heard!

After the events ended on Saturday I had my dad come scoop me from my hotel and we drove to Long Island together to hang out at my aunt's house for the night.



S U N D A Y

I had to move my flight, as I mentioned earlier, so all of our plans were a little jumbled on Sunday as originally my aunt had made plans for us to have a day together on Monday.

We ended up getting brunch and hanging out for a bit before my dad drove me to the airport in the afternoon.





i picked up this sweater at Zara on Thursday and was so obsessed with the color that i rewore it on the flight home sunday!!



Overall it was a really amazing trip filled with new friends, adventures, and lots of spontaneous fun! Did you go on any trips this winter break?
xoxo