This past weekend I had the opportunity to travel to New York city for one of my best friend’s birthday’s. It was 3 days packed with walking, eating and doing touristy activities. I have to admit, prior to visiting NYC it never occurred to me that I’d want to live or work there one day. I always saw myself as more of an L.A. person (cliché actor thoughts). But I have to say, New York has a piece of my heart now and I can’t wait until I get to visit again. The architecture and atmosphere of the city really got to me, everything seemed so different or cool. And the shopping, oh my god the stores were so fun to walk into, especially the smaller ‘hip’ stores that we don’t have in Ottawa or Toronto. Other than the crazy need to j-walk at every intersection, I found that New Yorkers aren’t as scary as I thought they’d be (no offense new yorkers). There was a sort of nonchalant-no cares in the world type of vibe, which is good seeing as you can do or wear pretty much anything there and there’s not as much judgement. Also, can I just say how much I love Shake Shack! I’s so disappointed that there isn’t one where I live like it breaks my heart every day that I can’t have Shake Shack. Oh and I’m glad to announce that I had my Blair Waldorf moment on the Met steps like the basic bitch that I am.
So, other than being a total tourist and taking pictures of literally everything that came into my eyesight, we had one interesting ‘going out’ night. Friday night consisted of us getting Shake Shack, wine at the liquor store and spending 4 hours getting ready and pre-drinking. We left our hotel to find a bar at around midnight! Which is crazy for us because usually we get to bars/clubs before 11pm to get in for free. Anyways, after spending 40 minutes trying to find a fun bar near Times Square (not as easy as it may seem) we finally settled on the Iron Bar. They had some great early 2000’s music and very, very, strong drinks. So there we are drinking and singing along to the music when this random guy pops up and hands my friend’s sister a glass of champagne and says he’ll be at the table in front of ours if she wants to talk. Obviously, she didn’t drink it since he could’ve put something in it. It was kinda weird though as we’re used to guys talking to us then taking us to the bar to get a drink…that way we know there’s nothing sketchy in it. After that, this other random dude and his friends show up and order my friend a glass of wine (that she didn’t drink) and then they collect their shisha machine thing and plop it on our table and start to hang around us like what??? We don’t know you so please leave us alone thanksssss. I’d understand if we were being more responsive to them but we clearly were not into him or his friends. Especially after he kept trying to convince my friend to go to Korea town for karaoke. Like no sir, we do not know you, we’re from another country and thus we will not be following you to a part of a city that we know nothing about. I can totally see how that may come off as cold but I tend to be quite paranoid thanks to all the crime shows I’ve watched and following a stranger to a section of a city that has a high crime rate isn’t something that screams ‘safe’ to me. Then again, I’m sure people who are more adventurous would have gone and not found it weird but that’s not me. We ended just leaving and getting milkshakes at McDonalds because we are the picture of health and watching house hunters in our hotel. Quite the exciting bunch we are huh.
The next day was more walking around in SoHo and 5th avenue, which was super fun and made me cry a little bit at how expensive everything was. Then I almost cried again when I walked by the NBC studios, I was really hoping Colin Jost or another member of the SNL cast would be chilling out front. Obviously, there was no one there but it was still pretty cool to walk by it.
Overall, the trip was really fun and next time I go I’ll stay for a longer period of time to experience even more of New York
Xoxo
-Mel
By Melissa Marie 