Day 1:

I awoke at 6 a.m. to shower and make myself fabulous for the long bus ride to New York City, also so that no one could secretly judge me for looking like Sloth from the Goonies. The bus ride was the least of my adventures.

Top Of The Rock

Cut to Port Authority. I wander around the gates for a little bit looking for my roommate Jamie from The Perpetual Page Turner and The Broke And The Bookish. Luckily she wore a hat, making her easy to identify. We get hit on by this guy as we leave Port Authority, something about smiles, I guess? Whatever dude was deflected when I was like ‘I’m married.’ *sidebar: I’m not married.

Anyways, two little girls and two big ass bags. Are you picturing it? We survived though and were not defeated by our bags. Although we did get lost on the subway, getting off on the wrong stop and walking like a 100 blocks (read: 10) to our hotel.

FYI, our hotel is sort of baller, in that we have enough space for our bajillion clothes and a bathroom. Jamie and I wind up taking pictures in the bathroom, because that is what you do when you meet awesome people, you take bathroom pictures!

After our modeling session, we end up going to Pala Pizza in one of the Lower Something Sides. Basically it was an explosion of awesome, as there were so many great people there: Anna, Tara, Carla, Melanie, Jennifer, Heidi, Tara, Farrah, Brittani, and Lindsi. (I am probably leaving people out).  One Stella and bro I was not nervous. Also, the pizza we had was called Inferno and it was DELICIOUS.

Eating makes me hungry for alcohol and dancing, and apparently has the same effect on others. Cue to some kickass bloggers wandering around the city looking for a place to drink and dance on a Sunday. Most places were failwhales, BUT we went to Coyote Ugly, which while the music wasn’t quite poppin’, had 2$ beers and let us dance on the bar. And yes, the rumor is true, I did indeed dance on the bar.

Also my tipsy-self was reunited with blogger extraordinarre Shanyn of Chick Loves Lit.

Day 2:

As we all know, Mondays kind of sort of suck. Unless there is free food involved which makes it look up.

The first part of my free food was the Harper Collins Children’s Breakfast with their superstar publicity team. Ya’ll the publicists at Harper Collins are passionate and I am pretty sure made of glitter and win and awesome. OH OH I forgot to add, Lenore of Presenting Lenore gave us chocolate from the mystical land of Germany beforehand. It was baller.

What can I say about the breakfast except the group of attendees were obviously a group of wonderful people. (Myself included). It was very intimate and you could hear yourself talk. The conversation was great. Topics were brought up such as when to post reviews (what I remember is posting reviews whenever, Early Buzz helps and helped Divergent), extras such as the Dark Days phone app (I still gotta download that!!), content – we bloggers heart exclusive content, and what do with books that are randomly sent unsolicited – you don’t have to read them, but it would be nice if you did.

In Which We Turn Into Blurs

Next up was the Simon & Schuster Fall 2011 Children’s Book Preview lunch. Or something along those lines. This was absolutely not intimate. There were a ton of people and a ton of prizes.  Some highlights included Elizabeth Miles talking about her upcoming book Fury which FYI SOUNDS AMAZEBALLS! Also Lauren Oliver made a cameo appearance. The food was delicious. OH and S&S took us all to the Top Of The Rock, which is the top of the Rockefeller building and you can see everything, except when it’s foggy, then not so much. However, the elevator ride made it worth it, because it was literally like being on the Tower of Terror with the holograms above your head and all.

I ended up skipping the Teen Author Carnival because I’m just not that into super large crowds and teenagers. In lieu of that, I met up with my friend Allie from college as well as bloggers Shanyn, Katie and Tirzah. We went to Pinkberry (OF COURSE) and The Harry Potter Exhibit. Yo, I was sorted into Slytherin being devious and whatnot. Also, I saw Gryffindor’s Sword. Very cool, friends, very cool.

More things happened these two days, but those were the highlights.

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April (Books&Wine)

April is in her 30s and created Good Books And Good Wine. She works for a non-profit. April always has a book on hand. In her free time she can be found binge watching The Office with her husband and toddler, spending way too much time on Pinterest or exploring her neighborhood.

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