Having visited London and Paris, I could not wait to see New
York. After spending a lottt of time in Texas, we finally were home for two
weeks. Yayyy!!!! By the way, for people who do not know, we live in Virginia,
close to Washington D.C. New York is
about four hours (by road) from Virginia and so, we decided to visit New York
one weekend while we were home.
I kept confirming with my husband if we were seriously going
to New York as he had not booked our travel or stay and it was almost Wednesday.
We were planning to leave for NYC on Friday. :/ Oh yes, my best friend with
whom I was travelling was none other than my husband. :) Traveling and writing are two
things I can never get tired of; you can call them my hobbies! By writing, I
mean sharing my personal experiences and not making every article or blog a
serious episode. I prefer writing about what I like over the same old facts or evidences
that you can find on Wikipedia. I have always wanted to blog but, never had the
time, mood or motivation. Thanks to my BFF (best friend for life – husband) for
motivating me and telling me how awesome I’m at writing and in general, ;) I
finally started writing a blog!! :) I cannot thank him enough for all that he has done for me.:) Anyway, let’s get back
to NYC.
Finally, after a lot of questioning and forcing, Puneeth (my
husband) confirmed our travel and stay in the city, that’s right, downtown
Manhattan! I could not wait to get there. In seconds, my excitement died as my
husband said he was taking me night sky diving in NYC! I know it sounds funny
but, I had to believe him as he is crazy. Trust me he can find things like this
and surprise me or rather, shock me! He loves himself some thrill
and adventure. I on the other hand am a person who will run miles away from
thrill, adventure or anything that even sounds similar. No way, I was not
willing to skydive. I kept dreading the fact that that we had to do this and
literally cried on the way saying he had ruined the trip for me.
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| The city :) |
On arriving there, I realized the night skydive was only to
irritate me. Fuerza Bruta was the actual plan. It is an off Broadway show
involving live music with breathtaking aerial displays in a performance that’s exhilarating.
If you enjoy being crazy, love music and do not mind trying something
different, it is a must watch. After watching the show, we decided to grab
pizza on our way to a club. Oh yes, we were going dancing ;) That was our
Friday evening in NYC.
A glimpse of the show
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| The End of the Fuerza Bruta show. |
Our Saturday started with a walk on the Brooklyn Bridge. It
is one of the oldest bridges in New York. We walked the entire stretch,
starting on the Manhattan side, ending our walk in the Brooklyn Bridge Park. From
here, we got a perfect view of the Manhattan skyline including the two major
bridges, The Brooklyn Bridge and The Manhattan Bridge. The view was simply
stunning! After the bridge, it was time for some lunch and so, we decided to go
to ‘Little Italy’. They have amazing restaurants here. Another thing to look
out for here are the graffiti; do not miss the alien baby. My cousin and his
wife joined us for lunch after which, we went to Central Park. Puneeth’s friend
and his wife who live in New York showed us around the park. A sunny day, lot
of people, tremendous display of talents (people dancing, playing music, etc.)
contributed to the park’s lively atmosphere.
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| Brooklyn Bridge |
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| The Manhattan Bridge |
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| A view of the Brooklyn Bridge from the Brooklyn Bridge Park |
It was around 6 PM, time for us to head towards Rockefeller
Centre. It is a complex comprising of 19 commercial buildings, few of which are
top of rock observation deck and NBC Studios (Jimmy Fallon’s show is filmed
here). The reason we went there was the
Top of the Rock Observation Center. It is an observatory on top of Rockefeller
Center, with an ocean-liner style design that offers a beautiful view of the
city. We wanted to watch the sunset. Unfortunately, that was not possible as
the sun for some reason, did not want to set that day. It was 08 00 pm and he
was there, shining bright and refusing to leave. However, we had to, as Times
Square and Max Brenner (Chocolate Bar according to me) were waiting for me. :) I’m a chocoholic! Ask
me to have chocolates and only chocolates for a meal and trust me, I will. I
have in the past and I will in the future. Nothing has stopped me, not even my
mom’s yelling! ;) Puneeth kept talking about Max Brenner and I could not wait
to go there. Before heading that
direction, we stopped at Times Square. It was crowded. In fact, my mom saw a
picture of me in Times Square and had nothing to say about how pretty I looked
and instead said “look at the crowd, it’s more than what you see in Bangalore
(my birth place and most favorite city in the entire world), India”. After
spending some time at Times square, we had dinner and went to the chocolate
bar. I had the best hot chocolate ever at that place. After enjoying our lovely
drink, we went to Webster Hall, which is one of NYC’s oldest night club and
concert venue. It has been operating since 1886. That was it for that day; we
were exhausted after the 10+ miles of walking from morning.
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| Little Italy :) |
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| Central Park. |
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| The Rockefeller Center |
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| NYC from Top of the Rock Observation Deck. |
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| The Sun, not ready to set even at 8PM. :) |
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| Times Square |
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| Check out the crowd @ 10 30 PM :) |
Sunday was the day I was most excited about. The reason
being, a dream of mine coming true. I had three cities in mind that I wanted to
visit which were London, Paris and New York and in these cities, a must visit
for me were Tower Bridge (LON), Eiffel Tower (PAR) and Statue of Liberty (NYC).
I have visited Tower Bridge and Eiffel Tower. It was finally time for Statue of
Liberty. Before visiting the statue, we stopped at Wall
Street and clicked a few pictures with the Charging Bull. From there, we walked
to 9/11 memorial. This Place got me emotional. It was hard for me to stay
there. We walked around for a few minutes and left. Our next destination was
Statue of Liberty. A ferry dropped us to the Liberty Island (The Statue is on
this island). This ferry first takes you to the Liberty Island followed by
Ellis Island. We did not visit the Ellis Island as we were running out of time.
We had purchased tickets that would allow us access to the pedestal on which
Lady Liberty stands. The museum that told us about the history of the statue
was the most interesting part of that day, for me. Finally, after all that sightseeing, it was
shopping time! We went to Times Square and spent a few hours shopping. This
marked the end of my NYC trip. It was time for us to head back to Virginia.
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| The Charging Bull @ Wall Street |
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| New York Stock Exchange |
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| One World Trace Center |
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| Statue of Liberty :) |
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| Me, my best friend and Statue of Liberty :) |
I had heard a lot about NYC and could not wait to get here
and when I did, I was highly impressed. There is so much to see, do and learn
in this city. A crazy number of people visit the city every day. This city literally
does not sleep, there is something happening at every hour of the day. You can
never get bored of this place. I would definitely be going back, less as a
tourist and more to enjoy all that the city can offer. :)
