One Girl and a Big World

A Weekend Trip to NYC

Hello everyone!
Welcome back to the blog.
Yes I know… it has been a very long time since I last posted anything. But I’m writing now so yay!

Today’s blog is the story of my surprise 16th birthday trip. In order for you, dear reader, to enjoy this properly, I will need you to transport yourself back to 2019. It’s amazing how time flies, isn’t it?
I do not know what you were up to five years ago, but for me, I was being asked what I wanted to do for my 16th birthday. I had found out that the Broadway musical Anastasia was coming to Houston (where I used to live (you guessed it) five years ago). So I decided to look up the dates and prices for the musical. Now, if you know me well, you know that I do not like to spend a lot of money, and as much as I wanted to go see Anastasia, I was just not comfortable spending that much money to go see it, regardless of whether it was my birthday or not.

I decided that I would spend my birthday instead with my close friends and go out to dinner and that was that. Well, two weeks later, I was sitting at our breakfast table doing something (I know longer remember what) when my dad asked me to go get something he had printed from the printer. So as the angel that I am, I went and retrieved his piece of paper.
I brought the sheet back to him and went back to doing whatever it was I was doing. My dad was kind of confused. He asked me, “did you look at the paper?” To which I responded, “no, why?” My dad then handed me the paper back and said to look at it.

Looking down at the paper, I saw that printed on it were two tickets for Anastasia, and I got so excited! But I still had not realized the full extent of the surprise. My dad asked, “Where is the musical showing?” Without looking at the sheet, I responded with, “Downtown Houston.” He said, “Sofia, look at the sheet. Where is it showing?”
Finally looking down and really looking at it, I saw what the full surprise was. The sheet read, “New York City, Broadway.” I was actually going to New York to see a Broadway!

DAY 1

Two weeks later, my mom and I boarded onto the plane that would take us on a weekend trip to New York City. As a person who has lived in Houston, the first thing I noticed about New York was not all the buildings lining the sky, but instead, I thought to myself, “Dang, and I thought Houston traffic was bad.”

Our first day in New York, which granted, was half a day because we arrived midday on a Friday, was a little short, but my mom and I made the most of it. Before checking into our hotel which was only a five-minute walk from Broadway, my mom and I decided to go out walking and see what we stumbled upon (we stored our bags with the front desk of the hotel).

The first thing we found was the New York Public Library which was absolutely beautiful on the inside. We took a self-guided tour and explored all of its chambers. As a bookworm, this library was absolutely magical. After the library, we walked to the Grand Central Market and just eyed all of the food that was being sold. As it was approaching sunset, we walked back to our hotel and checked in.

Now, the Anastasia show was that Friday night, but we still had some time to eat dinner before the show, about two hours approximately. We decided to go to Times Square and see what we could find. Well, we decided upon Olive Garden, which I know, is not the restaurant you would expect to eat on vacation, but we chose it because we had a great view of Times Square below. And I’ll be completely honest, I was STARVING and that chicken alfredo was just what I needed after a long day.

At 5:30, my mom and I left the restaurant and realizing we had time, we found the window of one of my mom’s favorite tv shows and saw them recording their show! After solidly embarrassing me by trying to wave at the workers to get their attention, my mom and I were now ready to attend Broadway, and I must say, I was really excited.

When we arrived at the theater for Anastasia, the doors had already been open for a while so there was no wait time to enter. We simply showed the security guard our tickets and walked in! I could feel the excitement settling in as we found our seat, and for the next three hours, the actors did a wonderful job with the musical. It was the perfect balance of the Disney movie with some more realistic proponents added into it. It more than surpassed my expectations.

With the night ending, my mom and I walked to our hotel and crashed for the night.

DAY 2

The following morning, we started off strong. We woke up early, albeit a little tired but ready to take on New York City. Out on the streets, we began planning our day and decided we would visit the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island first. We grabbed the Metro system down to the station closest to the ferry for the Statue of Liberty. Here, we almost got scammed by a lady claiming to sell tickets for the ferry.

*If you ever visit the Statue of Liberty, be extremely wary of people trying to sell you tickets. Ignore everyone and walk straight to the ticket office. People will try to trick you into thinking you need US citizenship or that there are different boats to the Statue of Liberty. Statue City Cruises are the ONLY authorized ferry company to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. Use discernment!*

After safely avoiding being scammed, we found the correct entrance to the ferry for the statue and Ellis Island. The whole experience was so cool. We were able to climb certain portions of the statue and afterwards, we were taken to Ellis Island where they have a museum dedicated to the history of immigration to the United States. I highly recommend this activity.

After about three hours of visiting the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, we were dropped back off in NYC and we began our trek up Manhattan. We first passed the Wall Street Bull, then we visited the World Trade Center and Ground Zero. Ground Zero is another activity I would highly recommend. It is not for the faint of heart but they had a really great exhibition. For a much earned meal, we then stopped at the Shake Shack. A burger has never tasted so good haha!

At that point, we had seen a good bit of that part of New York and we began just walking around and exploring. It was at this point in the day that I had the idea of seeing if there were tickets for the Aladdin Broadway show. We visited a ticket office, and by shear luck, there were two tickets left for a show Sunday afternoon! My mom was very generous and agreed that it would be fun to watch another Broadway. We now had an activity for Sunday night! After buying the tickets, we began to make our way back to the hotel and by the time we got back, night was falling so after a full day, we decided we were going to crash. We spent the rest of that night watching the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon until we fell asleep.

DAY 3

On day three, my mom had arranged for us to meet a cousin of her’s and his son who lived in New Jersey to go see the Metropolitan Museum together. After my mom and I had breakfast at the hotel, they picked us up early in the morning from our hotel and we all drove to the Met. From that singular experience, I have learned that it takes a lot of skill to drive in NYC. After finding parking and entering the Met, we spent about two hours viewing the galleries and I was able to find a lot of paintings I had studied the semester before in my culture and art class. The Met Museum is another activity I would highly recommend.

After we walked through the Met, the four of us stopped for lunch in the museum then we walked to the Guggenheim Museum. We did not pay to visit the museum’s exhibitions, but we were able to enter and see the architecture of the building from the inside. The Guggenheim was not exactly my cup of tea, but it was cool to visit nonetheless. After that, we walked back out and through Central Park for a little bit. The park was rather dead since we went before spring, but I can only imagine how beautiful it is during spring and summer.

Once we arrived back to our parking spot, we drove for a couple minutes before my mom’s cousin dropped us off on 5th avenue so that we could explore that area. And here is a funny part of this trip. I wore the wrong shoes for NYC. I had a pair of boots on, but the style was not made for walking and I began to get really bad blisters on my heels. So, my mom never taking an opportunity for granted, made a deal. She was going to give me her shoes and she was going to go buy new ones…

And that is exactly what she did! I do not even remember the store anymore, but she was very happy walking out of the store with a pair of new pink boots that she still uses to this day. So technically, she should thank me for wearing the wrong shoes and getting blisters because she came out the winner in this deal and all I got were bloody feet haha (not even kidding, I stained her shoes with blood).

After another full day, we decided to take a quick trip to the Brooklyn bridge before our Broadway show that night. I was hobbling the whole time because of my feet. But, momma got her way and we walked halfway across the bridge before we turned around and had to go find a pharmacy to get my poor Achilles heels band-aids. What can I say, I have a way of making things interesting. At that point, we took a Metro ride back to Broadway and we enjoyed our last night in New York watching Aladdin. The Broadway was hilarious and very well done. It was worth every penny. After it was over, we walked back and crashed once again. Walking all day is exhausting.

DAY 4

The following morning, we caught a bus to the airport and flew back to Houston. That trip was an incredible experience and I am so glad for all the memories from our little adventure. During our time in NYC, I also bought myself a Swatch that has a map of Manhattan over it. And here began my collection of Swatches from around the world as well! So thank you mom and dad for my 16th birthday surprise! I have never forgotten it 🙂