New York Trip Recap (Day 1)

Hallelujah! I have finally managed to write my recap of what happened on my trip to New York back in January. January! It’s been longer than a month since I actually went on this trip, but I’m just now getting to blogging about it. Once again, let me reiterate that grad school is a time sucker.

I’m going to break this recap up into four separate posts based on the four days (technically five if you count the flight back) I was in NYC.

Okay, so if you don’t know the gist of it, I went to New York with my older sister in early January to talk to New York University’s faculty for the Summer Publishing Institute as well as meet with editors at Simon & Schuster. I also went to simply get the feel of New York City and decide whether or not I wanted to move there after I finally graduate. (Spoiler alert: I really want to, so I can work in publishing.)

A view outside the plane window before takeoff.

To begin with, I have to admit that this was my first plane trip. Yep, I’m 23 years old, and the first time I had ever been on a plane was a month ago. Crazy, right? Basically, this meant I was super unprepared for everything, so that’s why my sister was coming with me. She’d been to New York before and she’d traveled on planes, so she was my travel guru. Of course, this didn’t mean we didn’t take some wrong turns every once in a while. (Airports are insane.)

Speaking of airports, the first time I ever flew, I got pat down by the TSA. Not even just pat down. They actually checked my hands for some sort of residue stuff. Ugh. And, no, they didn’t find anything. I’m not that kind of girl. Unsurprisingly, my sister was super amused by all of this.

After that, we got on our two-hour flight from Chicago to New York. And, I have to admit, it was perfectly fine. I very much enjoyed my experience on the way there. (The way back was a totally different story.)

The view right outside of our hotel room. We were on the 32nd floor.

Once we got to New York, we got a cab to our hotel: the Millennium Broadway Hotel. (My first cab ride!) I will never drive in New York if I live there. Public transportation and my own two feet will be my methods of getting around. That traffic is nuts!

The view outside the opposite end of our motel.

Our hotel was right off of Times Square, but we didn’t take any time to explore right away. Instead, we took a few pictures outside our window and promptly decided to take a nap with SpongeBob playing in the background. We’re such go-getters. In our defense, we’d gotten up super early after staying up late to get to the airport on time.

Me standing outside of our hotel with Times Square in the background.

After our naps, we decided to explore even though it was drizzling outside. Once we stepped out into Times Square, though, we were kind of overwhelmed. It was raining and people were moving so quickly, but we were on a mission to find food. We ended up eating at a place right across from our hotel, Virgil’s BBQ. (My sister joked that you can take the girl out of the south, but you can’t take the south out of the girl.)

Virgil BBQ's cuisine. A pulled chicken sandwich with fries for me, and mac & cheese and something else for my sister. I don't remember what she got...

We also found a deli across the street from our hotel that affectionately become “our deli,” as we bought water, breakfast muffins, and snacks from that place daily.

And that pretty much concludes day one. The plane trip and our nap took up a majority of the daylight hours. Plus, it wasn’t the most pleasant outside, so we decided a night in to recoup wouldn’t be a terrible thing. Day two, however, was an entirely different story. Stay tuned for that mess of an adventure.