uess what?! I’m in New York right now. It was a hectic morning getting out the door, and a long 5 hour flight, but we made it! We arrived in NYC at 5pm, so we had just enough time to check out our hotel and get some dinner. We also received MORE STUFF from OXO. I know. Crazy. They’re spoiling us rotten.

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I flew Virgin America for the first time. It has these crazy purple and pink nightclub lights.

We sat in the back, in the smallest seats, near the bathroom. We had the same seats going to Spain. I don’t think we have luck when it comes to airplane seats.

It was so cold at JFK airport! I was trying to keep my nose warm. We didn’t have to wait long outside though, OXO had arranged a car to pick us up.

Ace Hotel + Typography

The Ace Hotel is a super design-y hotel that started out in Portland. I’ve only heard of it, so I was looking forward to staying here. The downstairs lobby was packed when we got there because there was an opening party for a bar…live band, DJs, etc. Pretty cool.

We got a decent room here, kind of looks like a college dorm room but nicer. The walls are black which is surprisingly nice. I have a thing for minimal design so I’m picking up ideas here and there for the house.

The greatest thing about the hotel is the branding – specifically, the typography. It’s has this old-school, metal-set type style, and I am in love with it (can you tell from my blog design? Hehe). I’m a huge type nerd. Can’t help it. The photo on the left is what you see when you get off the elevators, telling you where to go. Each of the rooms is done by a different artist, our has a huge painted tapestry behind the bed.

They should hire me to extend their branding. This is a tag for the bathrobe.

Cool type on the ice bucket.

I love their take on the “Please Do Not Disturb” signs. They’re giant magnets that stick to the metal door.

The toilet has a button for a half flush, and a full flush. Why don’t all toilets have this? We’d save so much water. The radio is pretty cool too, its plays MP3s. I love staying at places that stay up-to-date. Free wireless is always a must.

More cool branding – linen bags with reductive drawings of what’s inside.

I thought this was cool. I was going down the end of a hallway when I saw this elevator with these words written on it, “This one does not go to the lobby. But that one does. —>”. I walked a little further, then I saw an elevator that said, “Yes, this one. And use these buttons.”

The bar area. The food is deathly expensive but everything looks really good…a lot of local, organic stuff.

Mike likes to watch the TV close up. Really close up.

OXO

So we were in the room for about 10 minutes, and then we get a knock on the door. It was the bellboy with a special delivery for us – an OXO bag of goodies! OXO is really spoiling us.

They included this note in the care package:

We got a subway map and a one week subway ticket which is awesome, because we were planning to get one anyway.

Did you know that OXO makes office supplies? They’re sold at Staples. This is the first time I’ve seen their pens and markers…they’re really cool, actually.

I love how OXO isn’t afraid of doing things differently, they tend to set the bar for other companies. When you twist these open, the design makes a “+” symbol, and the pocket clip recesses into the pen. One of Mike’s coworkers designed this.

They gave us a $350 gift card to use in NY. We’re going to put this towards our second hotel (which OXO isn’t covering, since we’re extending our stay).

They gave us two red OXO branded moleskin notebooks. Super nice.

This is everything they gave us….we tore into the food because we were starving. I practically inhaled that bag of chips.

Waldy’s Pizza

We were so hungry from not eating much that day, so we went to a nearby pizza place called Waldy’s Pizza. It was delicious! I had a wild mushroom pizza with red onions and anchovies. All their pizzas are wood fired (my favorite), so the crust was more like a crispy cracker. Mrmmm. Oh yeah, and anchovies are free. No one likes them, but I do.

Mike had a chicken and bacon pizza.

A taxi will be picking us and the other two finalists up in front of the hotel tomorrow at 9:15am. We’ll be having breakfast, getting a tour of OXO, possibly Food Network, and going out to dinner later that night. I’m so psyched.

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