Taylor Swift’s song, Welcome to New York, said it best, “Welcome to New York, It’s been waiting for you”. This was true in my case. I had never been to New York City before and had always wanted to go, so when the opportunity arose I jumped at the chance. A weekend in New York with one of my closest friends, no parents, a metro card and a New York Explorers Pass, what more could you want.
By riding on the bus overnight, we arrived in New York City around 9 a.m. Friday. Despite a rather sleepless night on the bus, we hit NYC with full force. We had a chance to visit and tour the Kent State University fashion studio. It was cool to see where Kent students study when they are in New York. Next, we visited the Fashion Institute of Technology Museum; this was cool getting to see all the different articles of clothing students had designed. After that it was time to check into our hotel, which wound up being a sightseeing adventure as well due to the fact we got a little bit lost, but this allowed us to see some places we didn’t plan on visiting. Our last adventure of the night was SoHo to find dinner. Being known for its shopping, we did not come across very many restaurants, but we eventually found a cute deli style restaurant. While SoHo was cool, it was more of a place to shop rather than sightsee, which is why is it was not one of my top places we visited.
Saturday was by far the best of the three days we had in the city. We got an early start and accomplished a lot. We started out by eating breakfast at a place called Essex World Café, a relatively cheap but delicious place with a variety of foods, I would suggest if you ever visit the World Trade Center area of the city. We started our sightseeing for the day by going to Liberty Island and viewing the Statue of Liberty. This is most definitely a must see, you haven’t truly been to New York City until you have seen the statue of Liberty up close. Next, we took the Subway to Washington Square Park, where we met a friend who lives in New York for lunch, she was able to guide us to a cute street fair.
Next on our agenda was my favorite place we visited, Central Park. Taking in the beauty of this place was almost overwhelming and could have spent all day exploring and enjoying all that the park has to offer. While we were doing a lot of sightseeing, New York is so big it is virtually impossible to see it all in one weekend, but by doing one of the Big Bus City tours, we came pretty close. We weren’t able to get out and explore the different areas we went through, but through the comfort of sitting down and staying warm on a bus; we got a two hour tour of many major places in the city. After regaining some energy from the bus ride, we finished our night by taking on Time Square and lastly the Empire State Building Observation deck. By going to the empire state building, we got to appreciate the views of the city at night from 86 floors up.
Our last day was Sunday, insert sad face here. Since we did not have to board our bus till two that afternoon, we took the opportunity to do a little bit more sightseeing that morning by hitting Little Italy and Chinatown. These places were worth visiting, but again were not one of my favorite places to visit. I found Little Italy to be slightly expensive and Chinatown to be a little bit uncomfortable not knowing how to read or speak Chinese. With that being said, when visiting Little Italy trying a Cannoli is a must. After that we sadly had to board a bus back to Ohio.
Visiting New York City made me fall in love and cannot wait to go back. If you have never been, it is must to go before you die. When all is said and done, the best advice I can give to someone traveling. Is just to take a moment to stop and enjoy every little thing a place has to offer, it will make you realize how much beauty this world has to offer!