New York City!

I've been wanting to visit New York for a long time, and I was super sad when plans to go with Taryn in March fell through. So when Tanner and I were planning a vacation and found good deals on flights, we decided to do it! And Tanner's sister lives in New York and was so nice to let us stay with her, making our trip so much easier and so much better.


So, we headed out on Thursday night after Tanner got home from work. NOTE TO SELF- NEVER TAKE A RED EYE FLIGHT. It was miserable. For some reason the plane was a million degrees and there was a baby straight up SCREAMING for most of the flight. Longest four hours ever. But don't worry, I probably got 30 minutes of sleep ;) Because of the time change, we landed in New York at 6 AM, which was actually 4 AM Utah time... And we got on the Subway for about an hour and a half and finally made it to Alec's apartment where we were staying. We decided it would be best to take a few hours and sleep so we didn't just pass out during the middle of the day haha. So we took a nap (probably one of the best of my life) and felt tons better when we woke up!

(Here we are in all of our travel pillow glory.) 

Then, we started our tour around New York! We got a panini from a local deli and got on the subway! (I am so glad I have Tanner. I am seriously so bad at directions. I just kept thinking- if I get separated from Tanner I really don't know if I'll be able to find my way back to the apartment hahaha why is the subway so confusing). We started off by walking around the Columbia campus and it was incredible. The architecture though! All of the buildings in New York just blew me away. Even just the library at Columbia makes USU look like a dump ;) (Just kidding Utah State, I'll always love you.) But it was pretty cool to see such an iconic university. Barack Obama even graduated from there! (And more importantly, Joseph Gordon Leavitt ;)

After Columbia, we started making our way to Central Park. And on the way, we passed this cool cathedral. I'm telling you... New York knows architecture. 

(Saint John's cathedral preaching the lesser known, but equally important, 11th commandment: Thou shalt not poop.) 

By this point, we were next to Central Park and we started walking through. I really wasn't expecting Central Park to be so cool! And SO HUGE! I was expecting like a fairly large field with some benches but HOLY COW. Central Park is amazing. We were walking forever and our feet were tired so we decided to rent some bikes. They have this cool system called CitiBike. It was $12 for 24 hours of unlimited rides. So you pick up a bike from one of the stations and then they have stations all over the city that you can drop them off at. It was perfect, we ended up using the bikes to ride to both the Natural History Museum and to the Met and also to dinner. It was beautiful and fun and my butt was so sore the next day haha. 

Out of the Met and the Natural History Museum, I preferred the Met. But Tanner liked the Natural History one a lot and they were both amazing. They are gigantic museums, we didn't even see all of them and we spent a lot of time there. I also liked seeing the "Dum Dum give me no gum gum" Easter Island head from Night at the Museum :) 

(Tanner trying to figure out why this is art.) 

(I thought this painting was really cool, I like the colors a lot.) 

(I am obsessed with the flower paintings.)

We also biked and got some cookies at Levain Bakery. I'd been recommended this place by multiple people and so we had to try it out. (And it turns out Taylor Swift also likes it! Whaaaat.) We got the chocolate chip walnut and double chocolate peanut butter cookies and they were both amazing. Also when we were waiting in line for cookies it randomly poured rain for like 2 minutes so that was fun. 

The bakery, as well as Patsy's where we got pizza for dinner, were in the Upper West Side and WOWWW. It is beautiful. Also Patsy's was kinda gross haha I didn't love the pizza there, the olives were weird. 

After dinner, we were both pretty exhausted so we decided to call it a night and head back to Alec's. Shout out to Alec's air mattress for being the comfiest bed EVER. And once I ignored the yelling and honking outside, I slept amazing :) 

Saturday morning, we got up earlier and headed to Brooklyn! This was one of my favorite parts of the whole trip. The view of the city from across the water is amazing. (I know I've probably said amazing like 20 times, but I don't know very many adjectives.) 

(Here I am, waiting for the train because we missed the last one.) 

We got some Shake Shack and ate it by the bridge. A hamburger and a view- all of my dreams come true. 

Then we walked across the bridge back into Manhattan. The bridge itself is astonishing (look at my large vocab now haha). It's huge and I can't believe that people can actually build things like that. 

(Tanner is a good photographer. #InstagramHusband) 

Once we crossed the bridge, we walked around Lower Manhattan. Tanner wanted to see Wall Street (nerd) so we went over there. (It's funny- all the parts that were Tanner's favorite were my least favorite haha)

(Here he is in front of the New York Stock Exchange. Which I totally know how that works (not).)

We also saw the 9/11 memorial which was beautiful and sad at the same time. 

And we saw the Statue of Liberty! From afar haha

 (There she is! haha if you squint really hard you can see it.) 

One thing that would drive me nuts about living in New York is how hard it is to find a bathroom! At this point in our day I had to pee so bad but so many shops don't have public bathrooms haha. 

Next, we went to Chinatown. Tanner thought it was so cool seeing all the little shops they had, I thought all the fish heads (and the smell) was a little gross. But we did have roll-up ice cream which was so good. It's so cool- They put strawberries and graham crackers and this liquid cream stuff on a big frozen circle, and it hardens and freezes and they roll it up. 

Next we headed to Times Square. This was my least favorite part of the whole trip haha. IT IS SO CROWDED. All of New York is crowded but Times Square is ridiculous. Like you can't even move without touching someone else. I was not a fan. 

(A great depiction of my feelings.) 

We ate some pizza (better than the night before! But I still think that New York pizza just tastes like normal pizza), walked through some shops, and headed to the theater because WE GOT TICKETS TO A BROADWAY SHOW. (It cost seriously like my whole paycheck but we decided that we probably won't be back for a while and I'm seriously SO GLAD we decided to just go for it.) 

We saw Aladdin and WOW. The costumes (so many sparkles), the set (how can they do so many things on one stage?), THE SINGING. The genie was so talented I can't even handle it. The song, "Friend Like Me", was the best part of the whole show. HOW DOES HE SING LIKE THAT FOR SO LONG? And the special effects were just so cool. I can't even explain it. I just know that it was awesome and those people are SO TALENTED. Except for Jasmine, she kinda sucked. Her voice was so nasally I was not a fan. But THE MAGIC CARPET RIDE looked REAL! It was awesome. Obviously I'm still geeking out about it and it made me want to go to a million more shows.

Sunday was our last day and by then, we had pretty much done all of the big things we wanted to do! So we spent the day exploring all of the parts of Central Park we hadn't seen and walking through some streets.

(Central Park is so cool. I love seeing so many people out with their family and friends. Also how are so many people runners?! There's also cool bridges and fountains and art. I also love watching the street performers. Some of the break dancers we saw were INSANE.) 

(Tanner: Why don't you take pictures of me? hahahaha)

 

We got to the airport around 6 and headed home. I had Shake Shake again (hahaha I have a hamburger addiction) and watched 27 dresses on the plane. It was cool watching it because it was set in New York and I was like I've been there! haha. (Also it's just a great chick flick.) 

I am so glad I got to experience this city for the first time with my favorite person ever. Tanner is a great travel buddy. He is good with directions, he's great with a camera, he is never stressed, and he is always willing to do anything! It's the perfect combo. I love him a lot. 

New York is such a cool place. I loved being somewhere with so many different types of people. I saw so many different races and religions and everyone was being nice to each other. I think we can all learn SO MUCH from people that are different from us, and that's why it would be amazing to live somewhere like New York where you get to interact with diverse people every day and realize that everyone is human and everyone has a story to tell and something to offer the world. (It's been weird being back home, I think I've seen one person that wasn't white in the last two days of being home haha) 

And although parts of New York are dirty and gross (I don't even want to know what is smeared on the subway walls, or why sometimes you get a whiff of crap walking down the street), but overall it was pretty amazing. We hardly saw any homeless people or druggies, and the ones we did see were very respectful. It was pretty cool, on the subway on Sunday there was a man there asking for food to feed him and his son. There were so many people, SO MANY, that gave him their leftovers from lunch or found snacks in their backpack to give them and it's just cool that there are so many nice, good people in the world, even when it doesn't always seem that way. 

But at the end of the day, I couldn't stand paying thousands of dollars for a tiny apartment, having to lug my laundry to a laundromat, and not being able to go anywhere without there being a million people there. So New York isn't all glamorous ;) 

So, New York, I LOVE YOU. Until next time, which hopefully isn't too long!