I finally got around to writing about our New York trip. It feels like we have been back for three years even though it has only been ten days. I thought about how to write this post for about 35 seconds before I decided to make it into a helpful tips blog post. You know, in case you are planning to visit New York, here is a… what to expect, what to prepare for, and which places were totally worth it post.
Let’s start with the easy stuff: DO NOT WEAR SANDALS. There it is! The most important tip from me, along with don’t go into areas you don’t know in the middle of the night. New York really surprised me and I have to say movies do a great job at making it this very glamorous place. It may be in many areas, but for the most part your feet will get really dirty if you wear sandals.
Do some quick studying if you plan to get on the subway and walk around. There is an overwhelming amount of train lines and stations. You can get lost very easily. The good news is you can easily find your way around with an app on your phone, by using their transportation sites, and by using your maps. However, if you are anything like me and have difficulty understanding directions this will take a while. You certainly don’t want to stand in a metro station to figure that out. It’s hectic, loud, and you may encounter a confused subway station resident that can be a little scary. All joking aside, everything moves quickly and as long as you are moving as quickly as everyone else, I would say your chances of getting murdered in the subway are limited.
Expect things to be a little bit more expensive. When I say things, I am mostly referring to food at restaurants. You can, however, eat New York pizza and hot dogs for a decent price. And they are good enough that you can enjoy them multiple times. We also had some delicious Mexican food from a parked truck. I am rarely afraid of buying food from a street vendor. Regardless of what you go for the food is delicious. If you are looking for a good deal on all things consider visiting Little Italy or Chinatown, specially for all the unnecessary souvenirs that we all like to buy. If you are into shopping, I would say New York is the place. They have some amazing malls and some incredible stores. When I say amazing malls I mean gigantic with several floors and hundreds of stores. We visited a Nordstrom store in which the shoe department was in the N-1 floor. Yes, they have so many floors that they combined letters and numbers. I don’t know about where you live but near my house in Riverview, Florida stores typically have their shoes on the right side, right behind the two racks of clothes.
Try to visit the iconic/historical places but also keep in mind the new areas. I would not know anything about new areas since my knowledge of New York up to that point was basically gathered from movies I had watched, 30 Rock, and Law and Order. Based on these, I was expecting my hotel to have a large covered entrance where the taxi would pick me up, dancing people around the street, and some big murder scene in a random corner. Back to my point, New York is always evolving and new areas are as good or better than old ones. We visited Chelsey and really liked it. We enjoyed Soho as well (this is not a new area but one people may not think of visiting right away). I have to take a second here and thank my brother for all the tips on this trip and for guiding us the entire time. All I wanted to do was visit 30 Rockefeller Center and the Brooklyn Bridge. Everything else was his suggestion. We visited:
-Central Park (my favorite)
-Long Island
-Times Square
-Queens
-Financial District
-9/11 Memorial
-5th Avenue
-Rockefeller Plaza
-Chinatown & Little Italy
-Grand Central Station (loved it)
-Washington Square Park
-Soho
-Brooklyn & Brooklyn Bridge
-Chelsey, Manhattan
This was such a fun trip for us. Not only because it was a trip without the boys but because we were amazed at how different New York was from our expectation: the tall buildings, the busy people, the subway, the food, the wide sidewalks, the crazy traffic, how different everyone is from each other, and how quickly you get from point A to point B. I am by no means an expert but I could probably remember to watch out for those open basement/cellars on my next trip. I almost fell into several of them while walking.
