New York
This November I went to New York for the first time. . We landed on JFK airport and took the airtrain to the city and in the distance the skyscrapers of New York were already visible. It made me enthusiastic instantly but first we needed to drop our luggage at the hotel. My hotel was near the Queensboro Bridge in Queens. Not one of the best neighborhoods of New York, but there was no moment that I did not feel safe there and it is very close to Manhattan
One of the first things I did was buying a metro ticket for one week. I only paid thirty dollars to get unlimited access to the public transits to go anywhere within New York. The first day I visited Roosevelt Island because this was only one stop away from my hotel. There is a really nice view upon Manhattan. With the transit card it is also possible to ride a cable car towards Manhattan from the island. After roaming through Manhattan I visited the 9/11 memorial. I had a weird feeling seeing all the names of people who died there, but suddenly I saw a very recognizable building, which immediately reminded me of another vacation in Valencia and the buildings from the architect Santiago Calatrava.
The next day I visited the American museum of Natural history. When I came in and told I am a student, the guy at the pay desk asked me how much i wanted to pay. I was flabbergasted about this question because I thought the guy made a joke. He actually told that you can choose your own price in many museums in New York starting from five cents to a million dollars. I will not judge you, when I was a student I paid five cents to get in he added. Thinking about a fair price I decided to pay ten dollars to get in. The museum gives insights into the life of different cultures all over the world from the old Chinese to the Inca’s and from African culture into the times slavery was a normal things.
In the evening I saw a sort of burger tent named Shake Shack. What surprised me the most was the enormous line of people, which you normally only see at a theme park. When there are so many people standing in a row, the line almost screams to me to join and I did. I took a burger and fries and once I finished my meal I directly went back to get another awesome burger. It only lasted ten minutes before I could order my burgers. If you are in New York, you should really visit Shake Shack. It is really worth the extra dollar if you compare it to McDonald's for example. I also went to Burger Heaven which also had a very tasty burger but the service in this restaurant was not really good. Because the service was not good, I only gave a small percentage of tip, what made the waitress very angry and he did not even say bye when I left.
During the other days I visited a lot of other ‘touristic’ places of New York. Took the ferry to Staten Island, walked over The High Line in Chelsea and of course visited the Chelsea Market. The Chelsea market was very crowded, but it is a very nice place to see and buy some food to get some energy for the rest of the day. After visiting Chelsea I walked through Soho, Greenwich Village and East Village. These places were in my opinion the best parts of New York City with a lot of small shops, nice places to eat like Pasticceria Rocco that is famous because of their cookies and other pastries. Here you can buy an American Cookie for four dollars but it is so big that you can almost eat it as lunch. They have a widespread choice of coffee, that does not taste like tea, like other places in New York. Pasticceria Rocco is a place you really should pay a visit to.
My time in New York was really amazing and even though I was there for almost one week I still have the feeling I only saw twentyfive percent of the city. It is a really great place to visit and I’m sure I will visit this city again.
