I had the BEST day on Saturday!

Since I’ll be abroad for my actual birthday, over the weekend I got together with some of my closest New York City friends for an early celebration.

We started with Accomplice, an interactive theater experience in the Village. You follow clues which take you to different shops and bars in the neighborhood. While you roam you interact with different characters, and you don’t know who is part of the show and who isn’t. The actors are all really fabulous (and very good looking!) and it was fun watching them improvise scenes.

Then afterwards we headed to the Mandarin Oriental for afternoon tea (my favorite birthday tradition)!

The Mandarin Oriental’s afternoon tea is served in the hotel’s lobby lounge, which is on the 35th floor and has amazing views of the city, Columbus Circle and Central Park.

We were lucky enough to be seated right near the windows!

So of course we took a ridiculous amount of pictures!

Having sufficiently photographed the view, we began sipping our teas.

And soon the delicious food arrived!

We tucked into the Mandarin Oriental’s Signature Scones served with Devon cream and house-made marmalade.

And sampled tea sandwiches of Organic Hen Egg Salad, Goat Cheese Terrine, Catskill Smoked Salmon Roulade and Mini Chicken Vol au Vent.

And of course we tried all of the desserts, including chocolate cakes, Linzer cookies, macarons, chocolate mousse domes, lemon meringue pies and salted caramel Choux.

As a sweet gesture, the manager brought us complimentary glasses of champagne.

Just when we were starting to get full, it was time for one more dessert!

The day was so wonderful, and I couldn’t stop smiling. My friends went above and beyond to make me feel special, and I had a blast celebrating with them.

30 is off to a fabulous start!

~A