NEW YORK CITY...volume one

I only lived in New York City for one year, but it was one of the best experiences I have ever had (besides the awful freshmen year of college that came with it...still hate you SJU). 

I was once told that everyone should live in NYC for at least a few years in their life. When I first heard this, I thought that seemed a little extreme because I thought that NYC took a very specific breed of person to survive there...I thought it's definitely not for everyone! Now that I have lived there..I would say that is a great piece of advice. Any person can move to New York, but I feel it's definitely a natural selection thing going on. Some will grow to love it so much they can't live without it, and others will realize they can't hang. New York definitely gave me a thicker skin and taught me to be more independent. What better place to start your college life, basically your adult life!? It is truly becoming a little fish in a big pond. I have New York to thank for the self-sufficient, independent person that I am now. 

I will say that living in Los Angeles prior to moving to New York made the transition from living at home to living on my own easier (side note for those that don't know: I grew up outside of Dallas, but went to summer school in LA in 2009 and 2010 before moving to NYC in August of 2010)...LA is a big city, but DEFINITELY is the training wheels for living in The Big Apple. 

I feel like I could write for days about all my experiences in NY...and later I will in a series of blogs, but for now, I am going to share a very old post from my Tumblr about a crazy day in New York just for fun. It just demonstrates the true craziness that went on and "fly by the seat of your pants" attitude I had when living in New York...

SO this is my first tumblr post. I decided to start tumblr because I have had too many crazy times in the NYC not to share them. 

Here is just a recap of the last few days of my college life.

Thursday 12/2—Pimpin’ Sexy Chocolate for Purses and Ho Ho Hoboken.

On Thursday, Sexy Chocolate a.k.a Monica and I set out to go to New York City’s infamous Chinatown. The journey did not start out so well because it was friggin’ raining. What the crap? Anyway, being the troopers that we are, we left Queens for Downtown. Upon our arrival, we headed for the cash machine (illegal vendors may be the last place only cash is accepted). As we were leaving the bank, TONY stopped us and offered us Coach. After we walked around the block up the stairs, spun around three times, and did whatever it is we do for purses, I bought an awesome tan Foach bag (Foach = fake Coach..yay!). After the purchase, we were on our way, in search of more vendors. All the way up Canal and all the way back, after a few NYC souvey purchases, not a single vendor approached us. Was it the rain or the fact that the police were crawling? There’s no way vendors just don’t approach young college aged girls…they know what we want…BAGS! As we reached our starting point, a man turned and said you ladies want Gucci…oh hey it’s you guys! It was TONY…what the friggin’ crap? A small world Chinatown is. So TONY tried to talk Monica into buying something..she SO did not want anything from that creepy guy. He put the moves on her, droppin’ lines like “I like thick girls..”. Then TONY pretty much felt Monica up, he was hugging her so tight. I just laughed. After he got that she didn’t want his product or HIM, his last attempt at more business was giving his phone number so I canuse him every time I’m in Chinatown. ERGO, I PIMPED SEXY CHOCOLATE FOR PURSES!

After that leg of the journey was complete, we decided we needed o go to TARGET. Well according to the trusty iPhone, the closest Target was in Hoboken, New Jersey!! This is understandable as the sheekness of Manhattan just doesn’t really call for places like Target. We rode to the World Trade Center and then zoomed over to New Jersey on the PATH train…so easy, it was amazing…thank you God for mass transit…it really is a blessing. On the ride there, we realized…DUDE the Cake Boss bakery is in Hoboken..yessssss…and it is .2 miles from the PATH station…more yesssss. So we went there first. PLEASEEEE, not worth the wait and so not as cool as a place you see on TV should be. The snowman cupcake was uber cute, but the icing tasted like metal (just like store bought) and please….the cake part was so amateur. Are you friggin’ kidding? A place like that should be boss. SO disappointed! Next was Target. We walked through the shadiest places in Hoboken/Jersey City to get to Target…and I did not feel unsafe. It was like Hoboken is a bubble of safety…a nasty, dirty bubble, but a bubble. Maybe I have just been living in Jamaica, Queens for too long. (Thanks to iPhone’s sexual predators app, I learned that 230 sexual predators live within 5miles of my university…woop woop.) Anyway, we went to Target and it was awesome. I bought Christmas presents, candy, and a rollerboard to carry it all back in…soooo much fun. So long New Jersey, we gotta go back to The Big Apple…it was a pleasure.

Back to Manhattan we went. We were starving…I mean staaaaaaaaarviiiiiiiiiiiing. We went to the Sea Port and all the friggin’ restaurants are closed. What the crap Sea Port? We walked and walked and ended up eating at McDonald’s..oh hell. 

Thursday was quite an adventure that I only hope to repeat. I mean, I live in New York City, the city that never sleeps.

Why shouldn’t I explore all it has to offer?

INTRO TO BLOG

SO there are so many ways to attack this blog. I feel very fortunate that I get to travel so much, small trips, big trips, they're all learning experiences for me. When I was pondering how I want to format my blog, I originally thought to write as I go, but I feel like I have been to so many places, and experienced many things that I want to share them all! So I have decided to spotlight a different city every few days...I'm just going to choose a place and share it! I will do my best to offer tips, tricks and must sees for those of you traveling to these places in the future, or those who may just be curious. I would love feedback form my readers (if there are any of you out there!)

Here it goes...