On One's Toes...

So the last time I had been to NYC, I was four, the World Trade Center still existed (clearly since I had gone up the elevators in it) and I don't remember anything else about the trip....and so my trip to the city this winter was technically my first. The story begins thus; a group of 12 of us (international students at Cornell) had to catch flights out of NYC to get back home for winter break and we left by the 1 AM bus on a Saturday morning after stuffing our luggage in the terribly under-spaced luggage compartment below the bus. The bus ride was, I'm assuming, good on the whole (I don't know for sure since I slept through all of it). We arrived at the Port Authority terminal at 5:30 in the morning, one and a half hours earlier than expected, and our flight was at 11 PM that day (I am still considering suing the bus company for getting us to NYC earlier than expected).

Times Square

Toys R Us

Empire State

So the twelve of us are sitting at the bus terminal, where everything seems to be closed, trying to figure out what to do with all our luggage while we roamed around the city for the rest of the day. After one and a half hours of waiting we finally found a place to leave our luggage at the terminal and got ourselves some breakfast before we began our day in the city. The twelve of us walked to a Starbucks nearby and decided what to do while sipping coffee.

UN HQ

Chrysler Building

Most of the group was pretty
tired and just wanted to relax and maybe watch a movie, and so me and three others got up to go sightseeing around the city. We first made our way to Times Square (OMG the lights were blinding even during the day!); Hershey's Store <3 lol....So well after taking an enormous amount of pictures at Times Square, I wanted to see the Chrysler building and so I typed in Chrysler on my iPhone (the ever reliable GPS (not)) and it directed us to the West Side of Manhattan (wrong side if you hadn't guessed yet) and finally after having walked for half an hour, we realized that we were in the wrong place and that there was no Chrysler building around, and so we hailed a cab that took us to the Empire State since that was next on our list. Well, we did not have the time or the patience to go all the way up to the top and so we satisfied ourselves with just pictures of the building and then walked to Broadway. After Broadway, my three friends wanted to go back to the terminal and so I continued the sightseeing trip alone (sad I know =P).

Chrysler Building

Grand Central Station

I really wanted to see the Chrysler building, so this time I typed in Chrysler building on my iPhone and it directed me to the right spot; that building was worth the effort, trust me, so beautiful!!
Anyway after the Chrysler building I made my way to the Grand
Central Station, and then finally walked all the way to the United Nations headquarters...That building cannot be described in words; the whole complex looks like its separated from the city, standing on its own with no connection to the hustle and bustle of NYC. Well, the last thing of note that I did in NYC, other than having lunch with one of my best friends whom I hadn't met in a long time, was shopping on Times Square (= unhappy parents)! Happy Holidays everyone!