I'm in New Yorkkkkkkkk!

This post is definitely going to seem out of place, but I HAVE to blog about it! At the end of March I decided I was finally going to visit Erin in New York. I have never been to New York and what a better way to see it that with my lovely cousin? I had it all set for the weekend after my birthday, but then I was required to stay at work and be on call. :( Luckily, between my schedule and Erin's, we were able to find a common weekend. End of April! I was so excited... even though it was a few weekends before I had to leave ISU.

I was lucky to have my parents drive me to the airport on Friday morning to fly out to LaGuardia. And that was the beginning of an amazing trip! Please enjoy these pictures and commentary of the coolest trip I've had in awhile.


First of all, I have never flown alone before. Second, when I do fly, I HATE being at the window seat. I did both of those this time! So this was a picture of me overcoming my fears. :) I survived flying out of O'hare and into New York!



Erin met me at the airport and took me to a bus which took us to the Bronx. It was exciting, we drove through 4 of the 5 areas of New York in just that time! We got to her (adorable) apartment and got ready to walk around and get dinner.



We (finally) decided on taking a walk over the Brooklyn Bridge first. It was very beautiful and exciting!



After we walked over the Bridge, we went to a yummy pizza place in Brooklyn. It was very fun to walk over the Bridge and have random conversations with Erin. We hadn't talked like that in a long time and it was wonderful. :) Once we got to the pizza place, we waited in line for about an hour... which was ok, we got to talk more!



Here is a picture of the AMAZING pizza we ate at Grimaldis. Incase you were wondering, we finish the whole thing. :) DELICIOUS!



We had a very cool walk back to the Bronx over the Bridge at night... I can't even describe how pretty it was!



The next day, we got up early to meet Erin's friends for a yummy Indian food lunch. Then, we ran off to... TIME'S SQUARE! We picked out a show that we wanted to get tickets for, but we wanted to try to get half price tickets, so we went to stand in line for awhile. I was seriously stunned about the size and lights and busy-ness of it!



After we bought our tickets, we had some time to kill, so we went to see the Empire State Building. Talk about a massive building! We decided to pass on the $26 tour fee to see the top. :P



We were on an ethnic food kick, and while walking around, we found a cute festival thing around dinner time. It was about to close, and a lot of the food was being sold for very cheap. What good timing! We found this sushi for about $5. Talk about DELICIOUS and very affordable, lol. We decided to take it to Central Park and eat it together. How adorable. :)



After we finished our dinner, we had time to walk around Central Park... and we got this adorable picture in front of a pond. Talk about love!


A beautiful view of the trees in Central Park. Next time I visit, I want to do a bike ride tour of the park. :)



After our wonderful Central Park tour, we went back to Times Square to watch the show we bought tickets for.... Wonderland! It was a take on Alice and Wonderland, but was set in New York and the main character fell into an elevator shaft instead of a rabbit hole. It was AMAZING! It was funny, entertaining, well written, and had wonderful music. It was the best experience ever!



On the way back home to the Bronx, we stopped back in the middle of Times Square to get a picture of me with all the lights. Again, I was in awe of how busy and bright it was, for 10pm! What an awesome experience.



The next day, we decided to check out the Statue of Liberty. We went to buy tickets and got into line for the ferry, while eating hot dogs and pretzels from the carts. Yummy! I cannot even express how cold the ferry ride was! Brrr... but we finally got to Liberty Island and it was amazing! After we saw Lady Liberty, we also went to Ellis Island to look around and get educated.



That day, we also went to Ground Zero. It was a very humbling moment and very powerful. This is the memorial wall. It was amazing how silent the grounds were compared to across the street, where it was bustling. Very powerful moment.



That night, we went to dinner at a great Italian restaurant in the Bronx. We had quite the experience. We planned on eating at Roberto's, a place that Erin loves to go to. We walked over to it... and found that it was closed! What?!?! We were devastated! But luckily, there was a sign on the door indicating that the owners had another location, a few blocks away. Well, why not! So we went over there and were overjoyed to see that this location had basically the same food and atmosphere. We split 2 entrees and a bottle of wine. Whew, that wine sure got to us! :) It was a great meal and I would totally love to go back there! Plus, that waiter was pretty darn adorable.... ;-)




The next morning (after an evening of even more wine at Erin's apartment, and watching Obama's speech), we went to breakfast at another one of Erin's favorite restaurants. We had yummy eggel sandwiches and did NY Times crosswords. It was so adorable and I want to do this again with her!



The last thing we did on the trip was see Fordham's campus. It was absolutely beautiful! I'm glad Erin loves it so much because I certainly did!


It was a great trip and I had a BLAST. I can't wait to go back and see more of New York and hang out with Erin some more. I can't even express how much fun I had seeing an exciting city with a dear cousin! Thanks for being a great tour guide, Erin! :) <3