New York City
… the city that never sleeps
… the Big Apple
… if you can make it there, you can make it everywhere
… setting for so many movies and series:
Sex and the City, Gossip Girl, How I met your Mother, 2 Broke Girls, The Devil wears Prada, Anger Management, Night at the Museum, Spiderman, Wall Street and so many more
… fashion
… business
It was so exciting to be there and breathing in the atmosphere of the biggest US city!
The HFTMSA (Hospitality, Food and Tourism Management Student Association) organizes a trip to New York City every year. Of course, this is a great opportunity also for international students to go there. We started on November, 10th in the evening and took a night bus. It was an 11-hours ride until we arrived at the HI-Hostel on Manhattan’s Upper Westside close to Central Park (http://hinewyork.org/). The hostel is recommendable without any constraints! The best hostel I’ve slept in so far – clean, spacious, stylish, not to mention the perfect location.
It was three full days we spent in the Big Apple (November, 11th – 13th), perfect for visiting the city’s most famous attractions, such as Central Park, Times Square, Columbia University, Upper East Side, Grand Central Station, New York Library, Brooklyn Bridge, Wall Street, Statue of Liberty (Staten Island Ferry), Rockefeller Center, Ground Zero, New World Trade Center, Empire State Building, Chrysler Building and of course Macy's Herald Square, Sephora and Victoria’s Secret ;-)
Day 1:
The weather was wonderful; the sun warmed us while walking through the already cold autumn air. After we had arrived and refreshed ourselves in the hostel, where we could put our luggage into a storage room, we started our NY experience with a walk through Central Park. I thought of Charlotte from Sex and the City, who always goes for a run in Central Park and of Blair Waldorf and Dorotha from Gossip Girl who go to feed the ducks in the park. The park is huge and has both broad streets, where you are rang away by cyclists, and narrow gravel paths, where you will spot newly in love couples strolling hand in hand. We ended up at Manhattan’s Upper East Side, which made it difficult for us to find a place to eat, where the prices were affordable for us. The buildings, boutiques and restaurants looked beautiful – we felt a bit underdressed among the obviously well-heeled people around us. :-D
Eventually we had lunch at Fresh & Co, where they offer very nice sandwiches and salads to go.
As it was Veteran’s Day on November, 11th (Remembrance Day in Canada), we ran into a big parade, where different US-forces mustered. It took place in front of the New York Public Library, which we actually wanted to visit, but we couldn’t find an entrance. Behind the library there is Bryant Park, where you can do ice skating during fall/ winter time. From there you also have a nice view to the Chrysler Building. We also went to Grand Central Station, which you may also have seen in movies or series. By the way: Do you know the “How I met your mother”-episode in New York’s Natural History Museum, where Ted tells the others about the building’s acoustic mystery? This acoustic mystery can actually be found in Grand Central Terminal.
In the evening we took the subway to Times Square. It was an impressive view when we stepped out of the subway station! Colourful, bright - an overwhelming amount of consumerism. Fascinating on the one hand, alarming on the other. That night, we decided to just enjoy it, but of course you can also question this excessiveness and extravagance. We went to the Disney Store, to M&M and Hershey’s – everything is gigantic. In the end we had equally gigantic pizza slices in a pizza place close to Times Square. Well, I for my part, had a pretzel, which I miss very badly here in Canada. Unfortunately it was disappointing compared to a good German pretzel (nothing is better than a big Kamp’s pretzel). In consequence of the surprising election results only a few days earlier, we were witnesses of an Anti-Trump demonstration on Times Square.
Day 2:
For the next day, Nicole and I had made a plan, so that we wouldn’t waste time by thinking of where to go. I wanted to go to Columbia University, one of the Ivy League universities in Upper Manhattan close to our hostel (where Nate Archibald in Gossip Girl studies by the way :-). I love to visit different universities, especially when they are so beautiful. On our way to the university we accidentally found the Cathedral Church of St. John the Devine. Beautiful from the outside, probably also from the inside – but a US $ 10 donation to get in seemed a bit overstated to us.
Afterwards we went to the Manchester Diner for breakfast, which two of our roommates of the 10-person bedroom we slept in had recommended. Pancakes, sausage, scrambled eggs, waffles, French toast – perfect for an extended breakfast (http://www.themanchesterdiner.com/).
After the breakfast we took the subway all the way down to Brooklyn, because two friends separate from each other had recommended crossing the Brooklyn Bridge from Brooklyn back to Manhattan to have a nice view on New York’s skyline. I didn’t expect anything from Brooklyn Bridge, but it turned out to be my favorite spot during the trip. I liked the architecture of this cable-stayed-suspension-bridge, which makes it one of the most recognizable New York landmarks. You can not only see the city’s skyline, but also Liberty and Ellis Island with the Statue of Liberty on it to your left, which of course looks tiny from the bridge. To the right there is the Manhattan Bridge. By the way: I wouldn’t recommend riding the bike across Brooklyn Bridge, as it is very complicated to get through all the pedestrians.
Subsequently we took the subway to the Staten Island Ferry. Approaching the terminal, a tour guide tried to convince us to take one of the other ferries, which of course aren’t for free like the Staten Island Ferry is. The Staten Island Ferry boats run every 30 minutes between 7:00 am and 11:00 pm, travel time is approximately 25 minutes. Of course the boats don’t stop at Ellis Island, where the Statue of Liberty has its location, but from the boat you have a very good view on it and can take much better pictures than when standing directly in front of it (taking the Staten Island Ferry was also a tip from two of my friends).
Back in Manhattan we went to the Financial District looking for the Wolf of Wall Street ;-) We saw The Trump Building, The New York Stock Exchange and of course The Charging Bull, representing rising prices or prices, which are expected to rise in the stock market.
The last sightseeing stop for the day was the newly built One World Trade Center with the Westfield World Trade Center Shopping Mall and the 9/11 Memorial Ground Zero behind it. I liked how they designed the memorial, it radiates a sad beauty. And it made me surprisingly sad when I was standing there. The Memorial consists of a field of trees interrupted by two large, recessed pools, the footprints of the Twin Towers. On the edges, there is water running down, which reminded me of millions of tears mourning the victims of the terror attack.
Maybe you can understand me being so sad better, when I explain the following to you: For me the events of 9/11 mark the point of time when I realized that there are bad people in the world and that there are very bad things happening. I was ten years old and went in the fifth grade when it happened. It was a Tuesday and I was coming back from my flute classes. Our neighbor and friend came over to our house and began talking to my mother about what happened. We switched on the TV and watched the reporting silently. I could see that my mother and our friend couldn’t make any sense out of it, they were bewildered and shocked. That showed me, that it was something different happening there, different from the things, which were usually shown on the news, something we haven’t seen before. After 9/11 my perception of the world changed, the childish naivety was gone and the world turned darker.
What does always help when you are freezing and sad? Correct, a warm place and something to eat. So we went for dinner to a Greek bistro. Afterwards, we moved on to Macy’s Herald Square, which denotes itself as the world’s largest department store. The beauty section is gigantic, overwhelming! It’s hard to believe how many different lipstick colors exist! :-D
Day 3:
On our last day we had breakfast in the HI-Hostel. Breakfast was not included, but you can buy different kinds of pastries, sandwiches, eggs, freshly-squeezed fruit juices and so on. As on the first day, we could put our luggage into a storage room till the evening. And as on the first day, too, we started our day with a walk in Central Park. This time we wanted to explore a different part of it, the southeastern part. We went to The Lake, where people were canoeing, and to The Bow Bridge – a beautiful place. We moved on to the Bethesda Terrace and The Fountain, a place you may also have seen in movies. On our way out of the park into the direction of Rockefeller Center we unintentionally saw a statue of German poet Schiller and of Italian voyager Columbus, who discovered the New World.
The next point on the agenda was Top of the Rock, going up Rockefeller Center (ca. US $ 35). The view across the city was amazing! We were sitting in the afternoon sun, being thankful for the great weather, enjoying the Big Apple beneath us.
Following the Top of the Rock, we started our search for “Shake Shack”, a fast food restaurant, which doesn’t have branches neither in Canada nor in Europe yet (apart from London). The burger was extraordinary good. Anyhow, normally I would not line up for a burger for twenty minutes! It’s abnormal how wild they are about it.
During our search, we passed the LOVE sculpture, an iconic pop art image by American artist Robert Indiana, where Nicole and I had to convince our friends to take a foto of them… ;-)
After our hard-earned burger, we moved on to the second biggest Victoria’s Secret store in NYC, which is located close to the Flatiron Building. It is a triangular 22-story steel-framed landmarked building located at 175 Fifth Avenue in the borough of Manhattan. Next to Victoria’s Secret you can find a Sephora store – the perfect spot for any woman ;-)
It was time to go back to the hostel and to change into something comfortable for our bus ride back to Guelph. I was very thankful for the neck support pillow, which Nicole had bought for us before the trip. Thanks to that, I was able to at least sleep a bit during the night.
All in all I was very positively surprised by New York City. Yes, it was crowded, yes it was exhausting, but it was cleaner than I had expected and I had a secure and comfortable feeling while walking through the streets. Central Park is a green oasis in the middle of skyscrapers and the city benefits from its coastal position at the meeting of the Hudson River and the Atlantic Ocean.
I will come back some day.