NEW YORK HERE WE COME

A day where everyone in our host family had been looking forward to for a long while! NEW YORK HERE WE COME! In this blogpost something a little bit different: an amazing trip to the famous city: New York! Read along to get to know more about this exciting trip!

On the day that we had to leave, we first had to drop off the puppies at the kennel. The rest of the morning I spent packing a little more. Since it was Wednesday and we had school the days before I didn't really have the time to pack everything.

Around 11 o'clock we headed to the airport. Before we left we had lunch in the Sky Lounge. It was a 6 hour flight so we had to make sure to eat enough.

And then finally it was time to leave: getting on the airplane towards JFK airport New York!

In the airplane I worked for school, and watched a bunch of movies ;) (Lion King, Avatar, FRIENDS).

When we arrived we got into one of those famous yellow taxis to go to our hotel. While driving, a lot of movies flashed in front of my eyes because of all the famous buildings we passed. It felt really strange.

Once we arrived at the hotel it was almost midnight so we ordered pizza to have a quick meal. After that everyone was extremely tired and we went to bed.

Day 2 was a little more easy going. We had a really good breakfast at the hotel. And after we had to hurry to catch our carriage ride through Central Park. Luckily the hotel was right next to the park and the starting point was just a few blocks away. 

From the New York zoo - from the movie "Madagascar" - to the FRIENDS fountain, we got to see all these famous places! You cannot imagine how big Central Park actually is. We only saw half of it and it took us about 2 hours! I myself am a big FRIENDS fan so I was really excited to see the fountain :). 

After the carriage ride we got onto a boat tour around the beautiful city. We sailed by (again) a lot of famous buildings, bridges and eventually even the Statue of Liberty. She was way smaller than I expected! But it was still very impressive to see this lady almost everyone on earth knows.

The boat tour took about 2 and a half hours which made us really tired for some reason. We decided to go to the hotel and rest for a bit before we went out to have Nana Rui's birthday dinner. It was a really fancy restaurant. The food was SO good! Never in my life had I experienced such a thing in my mouth ;).

Our 3rd day in New York was the busiest day we had. After a quick breakfast at Starbucks we hopped into an uber towards Lower Manhattan to visit the 9/11 Memorial. On the sides of the pools that were made where the Twin Towers stood, they graphed all the names of the people who died that day. It was really impressive and sad to see so many names.

In the 9/11 museum we gathered a lot of information about what happened. There were damaged fire trucks, briefcases, shoes and so on from that day. The thing that really made me cry within a second was the exhibition where all the pictures of the victims hung up and relatives told stories about them. When we got out of the museum we needed a little break because it was quite overwhelming what we just saw.

After a little stop by the hotel we took another uber and drove to the MET museum. We only stayed for about an hour but it was amazing! It's a super big art museum and it has a lot of interesting stuff. If you ever go to New York this is absolutely something you want to do!

We only had an hour at the MET because we had lunch plans at a sushi restaurant. And when I say that was the best sushi I've ever had, I mean it! The fun thing about that place was that it was right next to Times Square.

That actually was our next stop: Times Square! We took a ton of pictures, enjoyed the view and shopped a little. Not too long though because we still had a whole agenda in front of us. 

After a little while we decided to go back to the hotel to chill before we went to the Bronx. That's where I saw my very first baseball game. Go Yankees!

When we got back from the game we went to Times Square again to see it by night. It was so overwhelmingly beautiful! It was really different than when you see it by daylight. We had dinner at Olives Garden right next to Times Square so we still had a magnificent view. After a long day it was time to head back to the hotel to get enough rest for our last day in New York.

For the last day in New York we decided to have breakfast near the Magnolia Bakery, where Marti really wanted to go. We ate at Le Pain Quotidien, where they have a lot of Belgian things! A perfect breakfast to start the day with.

Afterwards we walked all the way to the Empire State building. That took us about half an hour. A good morning walk ;). And yes, we went inside of the building! Another amazing New York Skyline view! I videocalled my parents to show them because it was so incredible! I really hope one day we can come over here together with my family. When we got out it was lunch time so we grabbed something to eat on the way to the hotel. That's where we stayed until the evening, because we were so tired from all the great experiences we've had.

At night we went out again to go inside another building, where I kind of forgot the name of... Another skyline but now at nighttime! We had dinner in this cute little restaurant known for its burgers and then the last day came to an end. 

That was my amazingly great experience in New York City! I'm very thankful for my host family who took me there!

Love,

Lotte