Demetra, again! So on this post I will be writing about one of my absolute FAVORITE places in the world, New York. The Big Apple, The City that never sleeps, home of Coney Island and the (second) best Pizza in the United States – sorry New York, deep dish Chicago has always got the number one place in my heart.
But, first. – I would like to announce that I will be returning to my home away from home, London within a month! I am so excited I could actually cry. I have never felt more sure of who I am as a person as I did in London, I probably am an English person reincarnate (hopefully not Sweeney Todd – most likely a queen, duh.) Well anyways, I will also be visiting Germany and Amsterdam on this trip so I will be able to write about places to eat and sites to see! Now back to NY.
For My 21st birthday I insisted that my mom take me to New York, I had been to LA a few times, Europe practically the past three summers to visit family, and Florida every year since I was born – I just had to see New York in the flesh. My mom finally caved and since my father is in the hotel business we were able to get a room last minute right above Grand Central Station, and as if that wasn’t cool enough room service stocked the room with so much wine (and macaroons) even I couldn’t have drank it all. The first thing I made sure to do when I arrived in New York and after we checked into the room was take a walk around Central Park. It was March so it was still fairly cold but it was still breathtaking. We walked around for a little while but the park is seriously so big it would have taken at least an hour. We then walked over to Sak’s on Fifth avenue and did some shopping because (seriously, it’s the actual SAKS on 5th avenue!) and we visited Tiffany & Co., I had to see where Breakfast at Tiffany’s had all started. We started walking towards Time Square, where we were informed that there was a Harry Potter Exhibit that was in town just for that weekend, and I am not ashamed to say that I am seriously obsessed with Harry Potter so I was so excited to go. Unfortunately you weren’t allowed to take photographs and these people meant serious fucking business, I think they had more security watching for evil photographers than the president has body guards.. Well I got a picture of Malfoy’s robes anyway 😉 The first night we ate dinner at a nearby pub, I ordered a grilled cheese off of the kid’s menu with a Magner’s cider. Judge me.
The next morning we woke up and decided to head over to the Empire State Building. On the way we popped in a few stores to do some shopping, and then stopped in St. Patricks Cathedral. It was under some construction (if I remember correctly) but most churches I visit usually are. We then made our way to the Empire State Building. Now visiting the ESB was a big deal for me because I am absolutely terrified of heights, like to a point where it’s almost stupid. When you visit the ESB you have to take like two separate elevators to get to the top and (unlike the Sears Tower) you are outside. You can feel all of the earth’s elements and for some reason I believe this means you can get blown off of the building by an intense wind – even tho there is a huge fence. It was not nearly as bad as I feared, however. It was actually really cool, you could even see the statue of liberty from up there (which you could not visit unfortunately because Hurricane Sandy had ruined that months earlier) We then walked back to Time Square because we wanted to see a Broadway show that night. We had hoped to get to see SNL but I don’t really remember why we went for a musical instead, forgive me I am writing about something that was 2 years ago this weekend – my alcohol onset memory failure is to blame partially. Well we decided on seeing Chicago – YEP we went to New York so that I could see Chicago the musical on broadway and you know what? It was great. I believe my mom and me went somewhere to try “New York pizza” and it was really good but I can’t remember… but it was really, really good pizza and they give you so much of it I gave the remainder to a homeless guy because I was drunk.
The next day my mom’s best friend, Tracy, came to visit us from Connecticut. My mom and Tracy were in the FBI academy together and became like BFF, Tracy is family and she is really fucking fun/funny. We met up with Tracy and went out to eat at an extremely nice restaurant, where the waiters stood around and basically put more food on our plate once we ate it (servants- my kind of place) kidding. kind of. After this we all went to Dave and Buster’s and Tracy and I had a few drinks – my mom doesn’t drink and although I pressured her a bazillion times she did not cave to daughter-peer-pressure, good for her. We then ended up going to an Irish pub and (of course) had a few beers before returning to the hotel.
Tracy had to leave the next day so we were sad – but – I found out that Coney Island was opening for the spring/summer (!!!!) I begged my mom for us to take the train to Brooklyn and visit the place I have always wanted to visit, thanks to Requiem for a Dream. (No, I’m not fucking kidding Requiem for a Dream made me want to visit Coney Island, read the book.) Anyways we walked along the boardwalk and got Nathan’s hotdogs (one food place I remember). Unfortunately the aquarium was still closed due to Hurricane Sandy but we did have a chance to ride some of the attractions, like the ferris wheel. They also are home of the cyclone which is one of the most famous roller coasters in history but I hate roller coasters. We spent a majority of the day hanging out near Coney Island before heading back towards Grand Central Station/our hotel. Not gonna lie I am becoming more and more disappointed with myself for not remembering more of this fabulous trip than I really do remember… We went shopping at the Coney Island souvenir shop and I bought a coffee at the Dunkin Donuts nearby tho. Later we went to the top of the Chrysler building which was scary but cool (not as cool as the Empire State Building tho) We definitely did more shopping.. the next day was our flight so we probably went back to the hotel pretty early. (?)
The final day we spent in New York we visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art, it was really cool. I have seen a lot of museums in my short 22 years of life and this one was just different. They have all of the same things most museums do: greek art/statues, mummies/egyptian stuff, architecture, whatever but the coolest thing was they have this like pyramid exhibit with a moat. It just felt super interactive and made it where you felt like you were actually present somewhere else. I loved it. We then had a driver pick us up and take us to the airport (I think he already had our bags which is weird now that I think about it) and I remember New York has like insanely expensive tolls of like 8$. I DO remember almost not being allowed on the plane because I was wearing leggings and the airlines workers notified me that I was not wearing “airline appropriate pants” so I had to pull my top down and act like it was a tunic so I was allowed on the plane… yeah this is what I remember most from my trip to New York, I’m a fucking joke – i know.
I remember drinking a lot of starbucks coffee and beer this trip but for the life of me I have no recollection of where we ate most the time we were in New York and I feel really upset about this – I’m Sorry! Will ask my mom soon and try and edit some names in ❤
***SO GREAT NEWS – Tracy just reminded me about our trip to China Town. We definitely went somewhere and ate pasta/italian before and it was really good (not like I remember the name of the place tho – HA!) ANYWAYS. We were walking around Chinatown and looking around in shops and this small asian lady beckons us to follow her downstairs, we all thought this was a great idea so we follow her downstairs thru a secret door, as we are walking downstairs Tracy tells us she read a book once where a man followed a woman downstairs in a shop like so and he was murdered… not the best timing. Downstairs was like 500 knock-off purses it was insane. I was almost expecting to find a small group of poor slave-labor children behind the next hidden door. She kept insisting we buy a purse but they were like 150$ – which is ridiculous for a knock off purse. We did not want to buy any purses and they became annoyed with us and then kept stressing that we needed to sneak out of the store so we didn’t let on anything suspicious was happening. “police. police!” is all they kept saying.. little did they know they had two cops in the room with them. I’m guessing they must get caught by the police a lot. This happened at least two more times. All you have to do is walk into a shop and act interested and I swear a magic door opens and the next thing you know is you’re in the basement of a sketchy shop with like 2-3 Asian people. It was really funny tho, we enjoyed it even though we did not buy any purses. I’m sure the shop owners didn’t enjoy it as much as we did tho.
Runaway Blond 