Tuesday, September 29, 2015

My trip to NYC

Kaixo!

First of all, let me start with a fact about me. I've traveled a lot throughout the US. Almost all of the West. The Midwest. Florida. DC. I've been to California 3 times. But no matter what, I had never been to NYC. Until this month. And it's funny because I've been infatuated with the idea of NYC singe age 10. Now, it seems rather twisted, since that was when 9/11 happened, but after that September and months going on, my wish to visit it grew and grew. I'd ask my parents to go and they'd remind me we are not the Royal Family, that we're a middle class Basque family. I asked them to let me do an exchange course in an American high school, but they told me I'd go when I turned 18. I found the perfect summer program in LA the summer before turning 18, and after much convincing, I finally visited the US. And then I studied abroad in Colorado. And then I came here. And I finished my MA. And still, no NYC.

BUT FINALLY, my lovely roommate was like, do you wanna go for Memorial Weekend? AND IT HAPPENED. Now, let me warn you, a lot of weird stuff happened. Like an explicit homeless homo scene in a bus stop at 4am before going to O'Hare. I get it, they don't have somewhere nice to go to love and be loved, but there were 5 of us there RIGHT THEN. But let me tell you, more weird stuff happened.

DAY 1:
So after taking the train to Chicago on Thursday night and staying at my roommate's boyfriend's apartment in Downtown Chicago (3 hours of sleep, much needed though), we ventured to O'Hare early in the morning. What was our surprise, our flight had been CANCELLED. With Spirit. Seriously guys, I do not recommend it. Their solution was flying on Saturday. We were flying back on Monday morning, let me tell you. After trying to keep our shit together, we decided to try to be rebooked for a flight somewhere close to NYC, and thankfully, we got a flight to Baltimore at 8:00am, and were told to basically do our own thing to get to the Big Apple. Eventually (and after 110$ per person for the Amtrak, although the guy from the station helped us big time, thank you!!) WE MADE IT. We walked from the station to our apartment in Midtown, got dressed up and went out to discover NYC. We were supposed to have had the entire day, but we decided not to be discouraged and we visited Madison Square, the Rockefeller Center, Times Square, and the Grand Central Terminal!

The O'Hare Homeless Ladies League

Baltimore

Flat Iron Building in the back!
Rockefeller Center

Grand Central Terminal
Times Square
DAY 2:
If you can count it as day 2, after a sleepless Day 1, at 2am, the manager of the bar downstairs started banging on our windows because there was a water leak. He also treated us as if we were stupid because we were speaking in Spanish with each other. I shut him up and pretended I was gonna do something about it and back to sleep. On Day 2, we woke up early and hit the Empire State Building, had lunch al fresco at Bryant Park, and went museum hopping! The Natural History Museum, the Met, and Central Park of course! I pretended I was Blair Waldorf for most of the time, by the way (Buzzfeed said I was her in their "Which character of Gossip Girl are you?"). 



Empire State Building


Central Park

DAY 3:
On day 3, we ventured outside of Manhattan and got to see the Brooklyn Bridge (probably my favorite spot), Wall Street, the Statue of Liberty and the 9/11 Memorial, although we were late for the museum :(.  Also, I bought a Statue of Liberty Barbie, because #childhoodmemories. At night, we hit Times Square again, did some shopping (minimal for me, I'm so proud) and then headed home.


Brooklyn Bridge

Wall Street bull


Statue of Liberty
Barbie goals


9/11 memorial
M&M store

 Next morning we left early in the morning, I hailed two cabs myself, and I felt very proud, but they got into a spit fight between each other so we had to run away (and hail two more cabs). After that, we flew into Chicago, took a bus and napped. All in all, it was a great experience. I'm kind of a control freak when I travel so I had some tense moments with my friends, but by the end I was in the "everything's gonna be alright" mode. I really enjoyed the place, the food (we had delicious food, not pictured because it was gone by the time I remembered), and the crowds, but if I have to choose between NYC and Chicago... Chicago takes the crown lol. I'm planning on going back soon to visit less touristy spots, so any recommendations are STILL welcome.

Thank you! :)

- Ane

2 comments:

  1. all of your pictures are gorgeous! I love love love the "imagine"John Lennon art ! xx,kenz
    http://sincerelykenz.com

    ReplyDelete