A byootaful Life

New York was beautiful! Even with the dirty snow from the crazy blizzard piled throughout the city and even though we were there over new year’s and there were literally millions of people crushed into the city (think the usual population of over 8 million people, plus all the tourists who flocked in to see the ball drop!) I thought it was wonderful. I was so pleasantly surprised that New York felt like somewhere I could actually live, if only I could afford it!

After dropping our luggage at our hotel (which turned out to be a hostel/hotel – our friends all booked rooms in the hotel part which meant private bathroom, double beds and televisions while Phill and I booked our room in the hostel part, which meant a cell of a room containing only bunk beds (at least it was a 2-bed dorm) and a single sink in the corner, and a shared bathroom which was not the nicest of places to enter – but hey, at least we saved some money) we decided to jump on the subway and head right into the heart of it all – Times Square.

Can you say…

holy

sensory

overload

Batman!

There were people EVERYWHERE! We literally jumped into a sea of bodies and then inched our way around. If you stopped for one second (to take a photo for example) you were bumped and jostled and nudged by the passing bodies. We looked around and thought to ourselves… what have we done? If it’s like this today, what’s it going to be like tomorrow, when we’re here to see the ball drop?! Don’t get me wrong, we were all still super excited… but slightly freaking out too!

We crowd surfed our way to Rockerfeller Center, where the Christmas tree stood proudly, next to the ice skating park. There were so many people, you had to jostle your way to the front in order to get a photo of the sunken park. I held my camera up in the air and snapped random photos. See the queue to ice skate? Craaaaazy.

Oh and here’s a hot tip – don’t wear black! Everyone was wearing black. I went in my white coat and even though it ended up looking a bit grotty by the end of the trip, it made me much easier to spot in the crowds. One of our friends wore a bright blue beanie which made him easy to spot. And trust me, it’s very easy to get swept away by the crowds and separated from your friends, so you need to plan for it.

After watching the ice skaters for a while (two of them got engaged, aww) we headed to the Observation Deck at Rockerfeller Center. Phill and I always end up visiting observation decks wherever we go – it’s a great way to see the cities. We always try to go mid-afternoon because you can often go up in the daytime and then stay as it goes dark, so you get daytime photos and night photos all on the same ticket (which can often be quite pricey). It was pretty cold up the top, even with my coat and scarf I was still shivering. We got some good photos of New York (I didn’t realise how big it is!) and even caught a glimpse of Lady Liberty but it was too dark to photograph her well and anyway, we’d be seeing her the next day.

We headed back to our hostels around 9:30pm, absolutely exhausted. We’d pretty much lost a whole night’s sleep during the plane ride over so we were eager to flop into bed and recharge our batteries. The second our heads touched the pillows, we were out like a light.

Stay tuned for New York: Day 2!