My baby sister is moving to New York City today, which of course has made me want to look back at pictures from the trips I have taken to New York. New York is such an enormous and constantly changing city and I think that it would be impossible to run out of new things to discover there so I am stoked for the chance to visit while she calls NYC home.
I took my first trip during spring break of my last semester in college. I was doing my student teaching in DC, and it was a quick and cheap ride up on the Chinatown Bus. We used Hotwire.com to find a room and got our first taste of the city as inexpensively as possible. It was such a fun an memorable trip! Here are a few of the most memorable aspects, in no particular order.
1. CENTRAL PARK - My first thought was that it was so huge! There was so much to see and do that I could have and did, spend hours walking around. Central Park has everything! Lakes, mini-mountains, castles, wildlife, concerts, skating rinks.
2. SEEING TIMES SQUARE FOR THE FIRST TIME - I think that Times Square will always remain impressive, but something about seeing it for the first time and the rush that came along with it is something that I will never forget.
3. SEEING A SHOW ON BROADWAY - I truly don't even like musicals but I LOVED seeing a show on Broadway. It didn't hurt that Ashley Parker Angel, who I remember watching on Making the Band, and the girl from Spy Kids were in the show. I'm still mad that the picture I got with him is blurry.
4. VISITING THE WORLD TRADE CENTER SITE & SURROUNDING AREA - Seeing this area was a very solemn and thought provoking experience. It brought back tons of memories of where I was and what I was doing on that day. It made me very sad for NYC and our country.
5. STATUE OF LIBERTY - I absolutely loved going inside. We were only allowed to the middle level but it was so amazing to see the Statue of Liberty in person.
6. ELLIS ISLAND - So much fascinating history. During my time as a teacher I loved teaching about Immigration because the experience of actually visiting there made the topic so much more real to me.
7. WALKING ACROSS THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE - The view was incredible, the pizza (Grimaldi's) waiting at the end was delicious, and the thinking about the historical importance of the bridge, all made this a memorable experience.
8. CULTURAL ICONS (REAL AND FAKE) - It's funny because more than half of these "icons" are from movies/television, but growing up these are many of the things that I came to associate with New York City. Pictured below on the left: The Bethesda Fountain. Some guy tried to tell us that this was the fountain from the tv show friends. It totally wasn't and we knew that, but we wanted a picture to remember how he tried to trick us. Pictured below on the right: Tiffany & Co. My first time in and the diamonds were incredible. A few months later one of the biggest diamonds was brought down to DC so I got to see it again.
Pictured below: Lame I know but sewer grates and storm drains with smoke coming out of them kept making me think of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles theme song.
Visiting Wall Street
The Soup Kitchen from Seinfield and NBC Studios
Eating a delicious meal at Serendipity III, I shared the Frozen Hot Chocolate Cake Sundae.
9. OUR HOTEL ROOM ENCOUNTER WITH THE NYPD - I will post more about this tomorrow, but let's just say that they gave me a wake-up call... :) Welcome to New York!
10. TRANSPORTATION: THE SUBWAY AND THE CHINATOWN BUS - Once we got the hang of it, the Subway wasn't too hard to navigate. But there was a learning curve. And I learned the importance of being on time (until the next time I was late) when I had to ride on the floor of the Chinatown Bus to get back to DC. Yuck! Thinking about it still makes me cringe.
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