5th Avenue

The avenue comes with quite a reputation. 5th Avenue is home to some of the most expensive and unique stores and sites in the world. Walking just a few blocks will take you past the Tiffany's flagship store, Armani, the Trump Tower, several gothic style churches, and of course, Sak's fifth avenue. I went to explore the famous avenue with a few friends in the program on Thursday night. We took the subway from the upper east side and ended up coming out by Central Park. There was a beautiful view of an ivy covered bridge that I had not seen in the park yet. 

As we walked toward 5th avenue, we passed a beautiful statue, and a ritzy hotel characteristic of the area. 

We continued walking and came across the 5th avenue apple store, complete with a huge glass cube. You couldn't miss it if you tried. 

Right next to the apple store was F-A-O Shwartz, the world-famous toy store. As soon as I walked inside, I turned into a little kid, as usual. There were hundreds of detailed stuffed animals, and some of them were nearly $2000! 

As we made our way upstairs, we found the giant piano from the scene in the movie "Big" where Tom Hanks plays chopsticks. It was so cool to be in a place featured in a movie!! 

The store also had some amazing lego models, such a lady liberty herself (still working on getting to see the real thing!) 

There was also a giant (fake) fossil, and I couldn't resist :) 

After messing around in the store for a while longer, we decided to return to our adult lives and walk down to the famous Halal street cart on 53rd St. This halal truck is supposed to be the best in New York, as you could tell from the crazy long line. But we waited like good tourists, and I have to say it was worth it. After fueling ourselves up, we were ready to hit 5th Avenue and go shopping. Of course most of it was window shopping, but there are also reasonably priced stores like H&M, Uniqglo, and Zara. While walking the streets, we walked past several gothic style churches that are characteristic of New York Streets. 

St. Patrick's Cathedral 

They have elaborate stone and metal work and stand out next to the relatively modern buildings they are sandwiched between. The most iconic of these churches is St. Patrick's Cathedral, which, unfortunately was under construction so we could not go inside. But the avenue provided many more site seeing options. We passed by several famous hotels, as well as the Trump tower:

Trump Tower

Anyone who knows me well will tell you that I am a big fan of Audrey Hepburn, so it was really cool to go to the Tiffany's flagship store and stand in her footsteps. Overall, it was a really fun day seeing the iconic 5th avenue...and practice my window shopping skills :)