New York City

Just got back from a weekend in NY with my bff Mailan :) And wow, i have many stories to talk about.... but let me begin from the top... well, hotels in NY are pretty expensive..and last minute, mailan and i decided to priceline one in northern New Jersey. So we got a REALLY good deal. But it was like 20 mins from the city...Anyways, we woke up friday morning...I put on my "I Love NY" tshirt..so i can look like a dorky tourist...and we packed our things and left. We took a bus to our stop..and from there, we found the big bus that was supposed to take us to NY. Everyone kept telling me NOT to take the ChinaTown bus no matter what. So we of course avoided all the websites that said chinatown. But of course, when we arrived at our stop, it was in CHINATOWN. Greattttt.... Well, we were starving. so i walked inside a Subway to get us a sandwich..and right before i get to the front of the line, the bus started to load.. so no food...No food + a Longggg car ride = SARA was notttt HAPPY. The bus was pretty comfy. and we slept a little bit. But it took 6 hours!!!! We hit major traffic. Well anyways, we finally get to NY and we are both STARVING. So what's the first thing we see??? A McDonald's LOL! And we ate there...Authentic New York City food, mmm mmm....lol. So now we are in the city, by the big Macy's. And we're not really sure how we are gonna get to our hotel. But we decide we can figure it out ourselves. We find the subway station and we go inside...omgggg the NY subways are SOOOO hot and uncomfortable. NO air at all!!! The metro in DC is soooo much better. Anyways, it took us a while to figure out which subway to take and where to go. But we put our brains together and figure it out lol. After a very long trip on the subway, we get off on like 180th street. Which is by the George Washington Bridge. And from there, we ask a bus driver how to get to NJ. Our friend Ed said he would pick us up from this mall in NJ. WELL, we find these little green and white buses that take u to Jersey..and we are both holding our bags, walking calmly, when a hispanic man yells at us, "VAMANOS VAMANOS!!! ANDALLAY ANDALLAY!!!!" Yelling for us to jump on! LOL. Well, we get on the bus and pay $3. hahahah. And i SWEAR it was the weirdest bus ive ever been on..... the driver was collecting cash. And kept stopping on the side of the freeway, like, LITERALLY in the middle of nowhere, to drop people off... Mailan and i felt like we were illegal immigrans trying to cross the border to get into America!!! And it didnt help that the driver was blasting mexican music in the small bus...
So we finally got to the mall, and we wait for our friend to pick us up. Here are some pictures of our first moments in the city: (the first is of me waiting by the NJ mall to be picked up lol)







Ed kindly picked us up with one of his friends...and dropped us off at our hotel. Our room was sooo awesome! 2 big beds and a living room area with a big comfy couch and a flat screen tv. Mailan and i relax a bit, unpack...and get ready to go out. Ed came back to pick us up and took us to an Afghan restaurant in the city.. lol. Afterwards, we met up some more people at this realllllly cool lounge in the city. The upstairs had a big bar with TV's playing America's Best Dance Crew, a dance floor, and the dj...Downstairs, was a huge room with a bunch of pin pong tables, pool tables, and fooseball. There was couches and stuff too. But it was a really big and fun place. We danced and hung out. Mailan and the guys played ping pong lol. And we finally got back to our room around 3 and slept!!

**This above picture was taken b/c of the big Gossip Girl billboard :)

After sleeping till around 11, we woke up and got ready to go to the city. WELL, we didnt really know HOW we were gonna get to the city from our hotel, but we figured that we would figure it out on the way lol. A driver came and picked us up and dropped us off at the mall we were at the day before..which is literally ONE freeway exit away. Charged us $15, RIPOFF. And we walked to the little green and white bus, which we were SOOO fond of...hahahah. Seriously, this bus is SOOO ghetto.The driver counts his cash while he's driving. And there's no automatic door. There's a handle that he manually pulls to open and close the bus door.... nice...

Look at his left hand. Thats the cash he takes from people. So we illegally crossed the border again LOL. We got the the city and when we got to times square, the first thing i saw was the naked cowboy! LOL. Last time we were in NY, i didnt see him...so i definitely haddd to take a picture...so i waited..and i went up there. and omgggg the naked cowboy is a pervert. eww he was like whispering stuff in my ear and he was just really creepy. But what did i really expect from a man playing a guitar in his underwear..?? lol

After, we grabbed a bite to eat and walked to Central Park. It began to rain a little so we bought some umbrellas from the street for $5. When we got to the park, we were convinced to take a bike ride. Well, the tour guide was peddaling and we basically sat in the cart lol. It was actually really fun. We got to see a lot of the park and the guy explained a lot of stuff to us.



We asked the guy to drop us off in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. So we got out and walked into museum... it was amazing! Such a big place, and so many different exhibits. The one we spent the most time at was this Superhero's Fashion & Fantasy Exhibit. I'm not a big fan of comic books and superhero's, but they were all dressed in designer costumes!!! Dolce, Armani, Dior, Jean Paul Gaultier, and many many more big names. The costumes were gorgeous. And they had the authentic IronMan costume that Robert Downey Jr. wore in the film on display.

Afterwards, we walked around and took more pictures. I'm not even a big fan of museums but this one was really cool.





After hitting up the gift shop and checking out everything we wanted to see, we walked along central park again until we found a bus. We wanted to take the bus towards the big Macy's and shop a bit. But i looked out the window and saw the NBA Store and SHREIKED!! The rain was comign down pretty hard but i HAD to go inside. So we jumped off and spent the next hour and a half walking around the NBA store, while i admired everything. I was in awe....it was like the coolest place. Seriously, if i ever get married, i'm registering for gifts at the NBA store LOL. We made a bunch of friends there, with the guys who worked there. And mailan took pics of me inside. Like, really..this was like heaven to me. I didnt want to leave. Everything was sooo cool. Except all the stupid BOSTON stuff EWWW. I made it a point to be loud and obnoxious over how much i hateee the Celtics. OH. and what a coincidence that i was wearing yellow, and mailan was in GREEN. Gross... Also, if u look at the pictures, i have my umbrella in a few of them. But i lost it somewhere in the NBA store when we were trying to leave. and it was pouring outside. I retraced all my footsteps but no luck. Someone jacked my umbrella :( So i had to buy another one. For another $5. And by the time we got to our hotel, this one broke...it wouldnt close. haha. so i lost one, and broke the other. And mailan was really excited for her umbrella. She was gonna use it in DC. OR give it to someone as a present (note to readers: if mailan offers u an umbrella as a souvenir from the city, do not take it. its a hand me down lol) BUT, by the time we got to DC, her umbrella was gone too! No idea what we did to these umbrellas-ellas-ellas.

I bought a few little things...shirt, kobe pen, cards, AND THIS NBA STORE WATER THAT THE GUY SAID WOULD MAKE ME PLAY LIKE KOBE!!!!!! I didnt share it with anyone...Ed really wanted a sip but the water was too precious...

Anyways, we strolled around 5th Ave for a bit and then headed back to our room. We couldnt stop laughing on our mexican bus this time around. i dont know why...but we were just cracking up the entire trip. Well, i asked the driver if he could drop us off in front of our hotel. And he said no problem. But i saw that we passed the hotel. And he stopped. On some like random median on the freeway...like, the place where the freeway splits. And he told us to get off. and he drove away... UMMMM, so we could see our hotel from where we were. BUT, and here's the big BUT, it was across the freeway! And the only way to get there from our spot was to run. And if we did, we would have gottten run over!!! hahahaha, seriously, stuff like this only happens to us.

Well we finally figure out that our only option was to walk down this pathway that led to another freeway. And we walked through bushes and trees and dirt paths...and walked on the side of the freeway. And made it to our hotel... LOL. It was a mission.....

After, we both showered and got ready to go out. Ed, Mushy and a few other came to pick us up from our room. And we headed out for the city. We ended up at a club. And the music was really good. and the place was cool. but it was just way too crowded. So we only stayed about an hour. And we left and walked around Times Square for a bit. After, we went to a diner in Jersey and ate dinner/breakfast lol. We had such a great time hanging out with all of them. And NY is such an amazing city...(even tho its really dirty and smells...its still awesome)




So we got back to the room, slept in the superrr comfy beds. And woke up at like 10 the next morning so we could pack and leave. Ughhhh, AGAIN we had to deal with that damn mexican bus!! We walked a mile with our heavy bags to the bus stop... and got on our little green and white $3 bus for the last time to go back to the city. We made it to the subway, and ALL of the subways were VERY hot and stuffy and gross. But this one was SO strange lol. They had like fans blasting!!! The wind was blowing our stuff away. But i guess its better than it feeling like a sauna...lol

We got off at some random spot thinking this was where our bus was meeting. But when we showed a woman on the street the address, she was like NOOOO. And informed us that we were in the totally wrong area lol. So we had to take a cab to CHINATOWN in NY. ughh...DC's Chinatown is nice and clean, organized, normal...the one in NY is like a totally different country!!! Well, we found the bus, got on and put our stuff there. We were both hungry and every food place was Chinese. Nothing looked edible. But there was this little bakery shop 10 ft away. So i went there...and bought all this random food...some pastery filled with chicken, one with fish, little desserts, rolls, etc...EWW everything was nasty...but i was hungry so i tried to eat some. BAD IDEA b/c i had like acid reflux the entire ride home :( So mailan asked me why i didnt just by chips. And i didnt see any. But there was a little booth selling pringles. And i decided to get off for a sec to buy some. I left my phone and everyhting on the bus. and i was picking out snacks. When i see Mailan jumping off the bus yelling for me. So i paid for the snacks really quickly... and she informed me that the bus started to leave without me...AND THEN the bus started to drive off without both of us!! And our bags were in there..OMG. So we run. Just like a block. Until the idiot driver stops. opens the door for a sec and we jump on.... grrrr, he was awful. Mailan told me that the driver started to drive off and she went up to him and said, "Sir my friend is still in the store, can u please wait 30 seconds???" And the guy was like, "NOOOO!!! NOO NOO NOOO!! NO TIME!! NOOO TIME, WE GO NOW!" So she started pounding on the door and it opened. and she jumped out to get me...WOW, this jerk was gonna leave us behind....lol

Anyways, after 4 hours of listening to this stupid driver yell really loud on his cell phone in chinese, we made it to DC. NY was really fun. It was great seeing our friends and hanging out with them. And we actually did a lot in the little time we were there. We had a lot of issues with transportation..lol...but i swearrrr i would only be able to tolerate that drama and all the stupid complications with mailan :)

***Things i forgot to mention: Saturday night, while we were getting ready to go out, Mailan was waiting for me to finish...so she was touching up her makeup and hair in the other mirror. And for some odd reason, she decided to use her curling iron to straighten some of the frizz by her forehead. Unfortunately for her, she got too close to her forehead and burnt it. She kept complaining that it was stinging. but there was no mark...Until we got to the diner at like 3am. And i sat down, looked at her and yelled "Holy crap, your forhead!!!" And i couldnt stop laughing. i finally decided to let her use my little mirror to see the damage. And ya, it was pretty bad.. two purpley lines..haha

****Also, it was raining in the city saturday. and while we were walking atound 5th Ave, Mailan slipped twice really badly, BARELY avoiding a crash. I really have no idea how she caught herself. B/C one of the slips was soooo bad, she like literally kicked in the air. And of course i just laughed....but karma kicked in while we were on the Subway. There was no seats open. So we were standing. and it was hot and smelly. And crowded. And this subway jerked at one point and i literally fell backwards. Some how, a guy behind me caught me before i hit the floor!! Sooo embarassing... lol