SOCIAL MEDIA

12.19.2013

NYC Adventures Part 1: Our First Day


Here we are with part 1 of my NYC adventures! What better place is there to start than the beginning? We took a red-eye the Friday night before Thanksgiving. I had been fighting a cold all that week, so I decided to take some NyQuil and knock out for the whole flight. I fell asleep right after take off and woke up just as we were starting to make our descent into JFK. It was 6am and it felt so magical to peek out my window to capture these first glimpses of New York. It was quiet and I was happy.
Once we got our bags, we had to figure out how to get from JFK to New Jersey, where Dai's friend, Maya, lives. I don't know what we were thinking when we were booking our tickets, but for whatever reason we did not fly into Newark. Which would have been much easier. After 4 hours of trains, buses, subways, a Dunkin' Donuts stop, and walking, we finally arrived at Maya's cute little apartment near the train station in Jersey City. Though there is some inconvenience with not staying in the city, it worked out really well staying with Maya. It was a free place to stay, was only a15-20 minute train ride into the city, and we had another person to hang out with for part of the time.

I convinced Dai to let me nap for an hour or so before heading back out into the city to start our adventuring. We took the subway to the Flat Iron district to hit up Shake Shack in Madison Square Park, because it had to be our first stop, duh.

Dai and beautiful Maya soaking in the city.

The trees! Those colors! My goodness. I'm in love. There is just a richness in them that you don't see in CA.




After seeing so many pictures of this place, I finally got to stand here for myself! Woohoo! I was feeling very Hey Natalie Jean, you know.

Shack Burger, cheese fries, and peanut butter chocolate shake. Yep. Don't worry, I shared ;)

This squirrel was quite the charmer, scavenging for fries and eating them on his little perch.


After our Shake Shack outing, we headed to Times Square (which I don't really have photos of because it was overwhelming), then wandered around Rockefeller Center, and took in the Christmas magic. From there we took a bus and a fairy to end the evening with another one of Dai's friends. It started snowing while we were on the fairy! That was quite a treat :)

So, that was our first day in New York! As I was going through these photos, I was getting teary eyed. I just loved this trip so much and haven't taken the time to look back at my photos until putting this post together. I am excited to start writing the rest of the posts!



Jessica said...

such pretty photos! That squirrel is so adorable, haha. I live so close to New York and I've only been twice. I should really go again :)

Megan said...

I love all of the photos! Very pretty! I was there not too long ago....definitely somewhere to keep going back time after time!

Britt @ One&20 said...

I love these pictures!
I will be there in less than a couple of weeks!

Jess // Foreign Room said...

Thank you! You should definitely go again! I feel like if I lived so close I would be there quite often :)

Jess // Foreign Room said...

Thanks so much Britt! Have the greatest time! It is lovely :)

Jess // Foreign Room said...

Thank you Megan! Yes, I think I will definitely make many more trips there in the future! Can't wait to go back again when it isn't so cold.