NYE in NYC

Yep, we went to New York City for New Year's Eve (and New Year's.)
Sorry for all the people who were misled and were watching for us on TV, because although we were in the city for New Year's Eve, we were not in Times Square.

Let me start off by saying that NYC totally trumps Philadelphia. Like, compared to NYC, Philly is your smelly little cousin that wets the bed. So, in this analogy, New York City would be Kevin in "Home Alone" and Philadelphia would be Fuller, Kevin's dorky little cousin who drinks too much Pepsi the evening Kevin has to share a bed with him. Yeah, Fuller is cute and stuff. But Kevin is a sweet little kid who can build awesome traps and says stuff like, "Buzz, your girlfriend. Woof!"

New York City was cleaner than Philly. It's safer than Philly. It's way better than Philly...I mean, what's not to love? Except for maybe that big rat that ran in front of us while we were walking downtown (and by big, I seriously mean like 10 inches or longer. Thankfully I thought it was a piece of trash blowing in the wind until everyone informed me otherwise.)

Not to say that Philly isn't a great city to visit (please come see us!) but it is definitely not a great place to live. And although we both know that we don't love it here, we will continue to make that best of it and we do have fun here!

Annnnnyways, here's what our little trip looked like:

Our bus got to the city a few hours before my friend was returning from her visit home, so we had some time to kill just by ourselves. We had no plans, just roamed around. We first stopped at a Starbucks to see what was close to us and got a few ideas of what we might want to see that wouldn't be too far of a walk.
We headed to Times Square first. Which was shockingly clean! I was so impressed! (Apparently it's a lot dirtier and smellier in the summer.)
We saw where the ball was going to drop from, but didn't see the actual ball. Which is weird, because apparently it's up there year round. Maybe we're just not as bright as we seem. But if you look closely at the last picture, with just Ryan in it, you can see at the very tippy top the pole it's supposedly on and the "2011" sign at the bottom of the pole.

 

Then we went to the Hershey's "Factory" aka tourist store (and by "went to" I mean that I took this picture and then we decided it was too busy in there to actually waste our time walking around in it)

 

Across the street from the Hershey's store was THE M&M'S STORE! Which DUH, I had to go to and look at all the green M&M stuff, and get a picture by the green statue. I really like the M&M's store, and I basically want to work there. But only when I feel like it. I couldn't have a set schedule with them or anything, cause that's NOT fun.

Next we headed over to "Mood Designer Fabrics." And hello, if you don't recognize this, we can't be friends. (Except, I'm pretty sure that by saying that, I'm offending all 5 of my readers.) Mood fabrics is only THE BEST fabric store EVER! It's where they shop for fabrics on the TV show, Project Runway. And everytime they go there, I'm like, "Sigh...I want to LIVE at Mood."
It was closed :(
I was pretty much broken-hearted, but still grateful that Ryan was willing to find it with me (we may or may not have walked past it like 3 times before realizing where it was. That scaffolding sure was tricky!)
"Thanks, Mood!"

Then we went to Papaya's for lunch. And if you don't know what THAT is, don't worry, we can still be friends. It just means that you are one of the very few people in America who have never watched Seinfeld. Or remembers the episode where Kramer leaves the movie line because he is practically dying from his craving for a Papaya King hotdog. And even though we can still be friends, I'll probably look down on you.

Confession: We actually ate at Gray's Papaya, which I thought was the same as Papaya King, just in a different area. But apparently Gray's is one of Papaya King's competitors. So next time, we'll have to eat at the REAL Papaya's.

Then, my friend, Elisabeth, was back in town! So we went to her place for the evening. We just hung out, went shopping for wine for the evening and made some pizza! We left her place around 10:00pm, and went to a small bar down the road from her apartment.

Side note: Elisabeth's apartment is only 6 blocks away from Times Square! And her classes are in THE FREAKING EMPIRE STATE BUILDING! She's pretty much the coolest person I know.

 

That's us at the bar we went to. The bartender took a really blurry picture of us, but it was the only picture I got of all four of us (me, Ryan, David (Liz's boyfriend) and Liz) so I had to include it! Oh, and bonus! The bar gave us all a free glass of champagne at midnight! It wasn't the tastiests of champagne, but hey, it was free! And when you are basically broke, free is like the best thing ever! Okay, okay, free is like the best thing ever even when you aren't broke.

The next day, Liz and David took us out for a little tour of the town! We had lunch at John's pizza because we really wanted some legit New York style pizza. Mmmm, it was tasty. However, and this may be blasphemous considering I grew up in the Midwest and I now live on the East side, but I don't really like New York OR Chicago style pizza. Call me crazy but I kind of just love a pizza that's right in between the two.
But regardless, John's was good!

Of course we had to take a picture by "Smith's Bar"

The rest of the day was spent essentially wizzing by all the touristy spots. They took us downtown and we walked in Battery Park, where you can see the Statue of Liberty at a distance. We also went to Ground Zero. You can no longer walk right up to it because they are building the National 9/11 Memorial there, and it was very strange walking by it. I thought it would be a lot more...I dunno...respectful in a way. People were just walking by it like nothing ever happened, it seemed not right to me. But apparently, it used to be more of a memorial until they started building. Now it just looks like a construction site and it doesn't really stir up emotions, although it should. Hmmm.

After that, we just walked around downtown because that's Liz's favorite part of the city.
Oh, and we drove by Rockefeller Square...Circle...Center? Not sure, haha. I wanted to see the big tree, and that did not disappoint. Even though we just drove by it and it was like this,
"Okay, you'll see it right in between these buildings up here..."
"There it is! Oh wow, that was pretty!"
I wish I could have that tree in my front yard every year. It was beautiful.

And that was our NYC trip! We are already planning another visit sometime this summer! I can't wait!