36 Things About My 36 Hours in NYC

1. Sleepover at Ruben's house Friday night since we had to wake up at 5am Saturday to catch the 6:30 bus. (found these crowns in Ruben's host family's house...I suggested a sleepover picture!)

2. Four and a half hour bus ride at the back of the bus with some annoying middle schoolers who wouldn't stop talking while I tried to sleep. 

3. Arrival at Penn Station, adventure figuring out the subway system to get to our hotel in East Village (near Chinatown). The subway system is a lot like DC's metro, but just exponentially more complex. It's also disgustingly hot and humid inside the underground stations. Like, being inside a mouth. Like, it's not even worth it to take a shower if you've gotta go down there. Gross. 

4. Eat at Little Italy, a really picturesque place and yummmm. Feel like I'm Julia Roberts in Eat Pray Love. 

5. Get to Times Square. Taking it all in, at first I'm stupefied and loving it. After about an hour, I'm like "dang, it's suuupper crowded and really quite dirty here. I'm kinda over it." But really cool to see it. 

6. We get $32 student tickets to Mary Poppins at the Amsterdam theater (on 42nd Street!)

7. Wander around Times Square, visit the huuge Toys 'R Us store, and Hershey's store.

8. It starts raining, so we take temporary shelter in Sbarro. Walk to Rockefeller Center, see NBC studios, among other cool Rockefeller center stuff. 

9. Realize we're one block away from St. Patrick's Cathedral, the Basilica of Archbishop Tim Dolan! Walk up to the Church right in time for 5:30 mass. God provides!

10. Walk back to 42nd Street for Mary Poppins. MIND IS BLOWN BY BROADWAY. Absolutely magical show. Musicals can really have an incredible effect on me. I was ecstatic at the end and beaming at the employee in the aisle next to me, who smiled gently back, probably laughing to herself at the star-struck Midwestern. I am just thrilled that we got to experience this show. 

11. Experience Times Square all lit up! Pretty amazing. (reppin' the 3-1-4 once again)

12. Sleep 5 people in a room for 4 for about 7 hours. Aren't we cute?

 13. Wake up early(ish) to depart for Williamsburg, Brooklyn, otherwise known as "hipster central," according to our very own hipster, Ruben. Actually ended up being one of the coolest places we saw in NYC in my opinion.
14. It used to be one of the worst ghettos in Brooklyn (a woman I work with at CareNet told me this--she actually grew up there!), but now is a super artsy young sorta-thriving area. We saw the Flea Market on the riverside, ate one of our most delicious meals ever in a local eatery, and saw a beautiful skyline view of New York.

15. Hop back on the crazy subway. See an impressive independent performer (there's a whole bunch of musicians who utilize the subway users as an audience).
16. On our way to the 9/11 Memorial, experience a street show by 5 guys who did break-dancing and gymnastics, and really commanded the crowd in a powerful way. (Clap! Come in closer, guys!), and by the end were pretty uncomfortable because they didn't just ask for money, they almost robbed with kindness. They were very clever and smart (making it a contest for which state would give last, etc), but it was borderline not okay.
17. Visited the World Trade Center Memorial. Very powerful.

18. Get back on the subway, have an emergency bathroom back necessity and get off the subway.
19. Realize that we wouldn't have made it to Central Park anyways, (by now it was 4pm and we had to leave for our hotel to grab our bags by 5pm to make the bus)
20. Decide to walk back to our hotel, and do our activism on the way.
21. Yes, activism! Read this awesome post by fellow intern, Lindsey, about the experience! The previous week we had ready-ed flyers about Obama's extreme pro-abortion stance coupled with SFLA's "ivoteprolifefirst.com" initiative. Education pieces encouraging pro-lifers to vote pro-life first. Also see my blog post about why voting pro-life first matters.

22. It started raining again. Took shelter in Urban Outfitters.
23. Made it back to our hotel to grab the luggage we had left there, and high-tailed it to Penn Station.
24. Four and a half hour bus ride back.
25. Drive thru DC back to Ruben's (we had parked at Union Station), realizing how much we LOVE Washington DC. It is so clean and so pretty and so calm compared to NYC!
26. Sleepover again at Ruben's since Leslie and I live an hour away and had to work early the next morning.

27. New York was really awesome, and I'm glad we went, even though it's definitely not the city for me. Just too darn big and busy and dirty.
28. But it was an incredible melting pot of ethnicities and races, and that was cool. I've never experienced anything like it.


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29. I'm only at 29! That's awkward. But you know, I guess I did sleep for about 7 hours, so technically I only had 29 waking hours in NYC. So count yourself lucky because I'm cutting myself short tonight. That's my trip in a nutshell!

Now I can say that I've been to New York City for more than a 2 hour layover with my family back when we flew to Sanibel Island (and still managed to buy an I Love NYC shirt).

I must admit, this has been in my head since: "I want to wake up in the city that never sleeps..."
New York, New York!!