Ryan Herbert

Holy cow New York City, you were awesome!! You were a bit overwhelming and noisy, but seriously awesome. We stayed for 3 nights in Manhattan at the Appalachian State Loft, which is only $40/night for alumni, and is right in the middle of the city. Can't get better than that!

Since we were there such a short time and neither of us had ever been to the city, we really crammed as much as we could into our visit. The first day we checked into the loft in the afternoon, then got some NY pizza (delicious) and went to Central Park, then explored a bit. At that point it was raining and getting dark, so we got some Asian food to go and went back to the loft.

The next morning, we went to Times Square all morning. We were originally hoping to get Broadway tickets at the discount TKTS booth early, but evidentially they don't open on Tuesdays until 2pm. So, we wandered around Times Square, got lunch, went to a pub, and got tickets later in the afternoon for Phantom of the Opera. Since Eric hadn't seen it and it was one of the few shows with discount tickets sitting next to each other, we nabbed them! We went back to the loft to freshen up, then went to the (awesome, of course!) show and dinner.

The last full day, we got up early so that we could make it on the first or second ferry to the Liberty Island/the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. The statue was beautiful, and they had these audio tours that were included with the tickets that were really informative and well done. Eric's grandfather came to the US through Ellis Island, so the entire experience of seeing the Statue like they would have seen it, then seeing Ellis Island was really interesting. We had a late lunch at an Italian place we're 95% sure was owned by the mafia, then walked around Wall Street, the Federal Building, the 9/11 memorial park, then went to the 102 story at the top of the new One World Trade Center. We were dead on our feet by then!

I really do get the appeal of NYC. The buildings are beautiful and diverse, as are the people. There is SO much to do and to see. You could practically live your whole life in a square block or two if you had to, and might not ever get tired of the things around you. Everything is fast and busy and interesting. It's easy to understand that feeling that you can be anything that you want to be there, because when you look around, you see someone who IS the thing you want to be. I liked visiting... But I also really liked leaving and getting back to the nice, quiet country! :)Read more