This past February, my boyfriend, AJ, and I went to explore the various excitements of New York. We had many plans to visit the local attractions and experience the buzz of the cities. On our first day, we arrived in the late afternoon in the wonderful city of Manhattan where we stayed at a beautiful hotel with stairs draped with a beautiful dark red carpet. We were starving and decided to take a trip to get dinner. We had some classic New York pizza and decided to relax at the hotel for the rest of the night. 

On our second day of the trip, we started our morning off with some bagels and cream cheese, or "schmear". I had a cinnamon and sugar bagel with plain cream cheese, toasted, of course. Our breakfast was delightful, to say the least. Our next stop was Times Square. We found ourselves a taxi and arrived at the Madame Tussauds famous wax museum. It was so intriguing to see the different wax statues and how realistic, yet almost creepy they looked. I was very excited to see the new wax statue of Beyoncé that recently was made and revealed. She was dazzling in a silvery, metallic dress with a large headpiece that was sparkling beautifully. After looking at quite a few more statues, we decided to figure out where the next lunch spot should be. 

We walked out into the busy streets of Times Square, and people from all over were walking around, most people seemed to be in a hurry, but there were also a lot of other tourists. We found a nearby Italian restaurant to have lunch. We walked in and it was a perfect “mom and pop” family-owned restaurant. We were seated and soon devoured the best pasta bolognese we’ve ever had. After our lunch, we decided we needed some dessert, so we headed to the nearest ice cream shop. 

On our way there, we were looking at all of the brightly lit digital billboards and it was a little overwhelming and also fascinating because we had never seen so many ads in one place. From ads for movies to skincare products, upcoming concerts and so much more, there was a plethora of media before us. I only thought of all of this for a moment though because AJ’s and my eyes soon found a picture of Mitski on a screen, her name in huge letters, and the date February 3rd, 2024, which was the current date. For some background, Mitski is our favorite music artist. We were thrilled, we had to see her. We quickly scanned the QR code on the screen to look for available seats. Unfortunately, the tickets were completely sold out. We gave each other a sad, disappointed look and decided that we definitely still needed ice cream. We continued walking through the busy street, completely devastated. When suddenly, another couple dressed in all black who weren’t looking too cheery themselves, approached us. They complemented our outfits and then by sheer luck, offered us two free tickets to see Mitski at the Bowery Ballroom. We were absolutely ecstatic and couldn’t believe what had just happened. We quickly got our ice cream. AJ got a scoop of cake batter and I got a scoop of cookie dough. 

We found a taxi as fast as we could and made our way back to the hotel room where we realized we lost our room keys. We completely panicked and ran back down to the front desk and tried explaining that we lost our room keys. The concierge was a bit rude and didn’t seem to want to give us much help. He even accused us of trying to steal a room. We asked to speak with the manager and were asked to show our ID’s. Thankfully, everything was cleared up and we got two new room keys. We headed back to our room only to find out that we had left our first room keys inside the room. We were so embarrassed with each other, but we didn’t have enough time to figure out which of us was responsible for forgetting the keys and started to put together outfits for the concert. We were so nervous and ended up wearing what we were going to wear to dinner later that night. A lot of time had passed while we were trying on different things, so we only had one hour to get food and get a taxi to the show. We made it to the Bowery Ballroom just in time for the show to begin. Excitement ran through my veins and my heart was racing. The people in the crowd were very kind and we were able to make it closer to the stage. We enjoyed the show thoroughly, singing along to every single song that Mitski performed. It was one of the best experiences of our lives. We were still filled with energy by the time the concert was over, so we decided to walk around the area a little bit before we found another taxi. We stumbled upon an antique store, where we found a beautiful porcelain doll that we couldn’t pass up. After a long stressful and exciting day, we were finally ready to call it a night and went back to the hotel.

On our last day of the trip, we went to see the Statue of Liberty. It was a very cold day and we had to take a ferry to get to the Statue of Liberty. The brisk wind was slapping our faces as we learned more about the landmark. We arrived and walked up all 354 steps to get to the top. We made it and took a long look at the city in front of us, taking in all we had experienced within the last couple of days. From the busyness of the streets to the wonderful landmarks and spontaneous outings, we had a wonderful experience that we could never forget. New York was truly one of a kind and I would love to go back one day and experience all of the other things it has to offer.