New York City: Day One

We woke up at seven to get ready for the day and eat breakfast. We were all talking about how excited we were to go sightseeing! The breakfast was not really tasteful but we didn’t let that get us down. At 8.30 am we all went outside to wait for the bus that would take us to The City.

Skyline of Brooklyn

Our first day started off well when it turned out that the bus driver of the German group hit our bus with his own bus and the police had to go down to sort it out. Luckily, it didn’t take too long and next thing we were on the road to New York City!

If it weren’t for our looks, every person passing uswould have thought we were a group of Asian people. Taking pictures of everything. We picked up our tour guide, I think his name was Jonah but I am not sure so I just kept calling him ‘Mister Tour Guide’.

Pretty boy 

He took us for a walk through Central Park, showed us Strawberry Fields, the fountain that they used for the theme song of Friends as well as a statue of Alice In Wonderland. You were allowed to climb on there so Menno, being the grown man that he is, decided that it would be fun to sit on her head.

Next up was 5^th Avenue, the ultimate place to go window-shopping. We visited the Apple store, the Trump Tower (yay Starbucks!) and of course we went into Abercrombie & Fitch. It felt like coming home, in The Netherlands, before we were forced to renovate the whole house. I wanted to buy a bottle of Fierce but they didn’t take Maestro and I was not willing to use my new credit card for perfume…

Paying a little surprise visit to my
friend Donald

For lunch we went to Macy’s and we got a ten-dollar voucher to use. Most of us got pasta and it was so hot Yentel and I burned our tongues. We didn’t spend a lot of time there as we had a more important place to go to: Soho and Chinatown!

I was very passionate about finding either a CVS or Walgreens because I forgot my mascara at home (Yes, in the liquids bag for those of you who read that blog…). So Jorien and I were determent to find one, as she needed a styling iron. On our mission to find one, naturally, we went into a few more shops. At that moment the weather gods thought it was enough and they sent rain to the beautiful place called Soho… I, being the most fashionable of all the girls (uhm), wore a transparent poncho was I was not planning on getting wet clothes! Definitely a good look on me. At the end of the two-hours shopping spree I ended up buying my mascara at Forever21 (ma store yo!) for just $4.12 as I thought the other ones were too expensive.

Walking across the BB

We hopped back on the bus and drove over the Brooklyn Bridge, definitely an amazing sight to see. Once we crossed we went to a little restaurant(-ish) place and it started pouring again, so we used it to shield ourselves from the rain. Once the weather was okay again Mister Tour Guide decided we would walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. Here we all got our Asian back on (click click).

Credits to Hard Rock..

Before we knew it we were back on the bus and on our way to Times Square! We had dinner at the Hard Rock Café and I must say they do a delicious Caesar salad. We had finished our meals and were allowed to go shopping on our own for 2,5 hours! A small group of girls shopping in Times Square, woohoo! We went into all the stores we wanted to and decided to stay together but once we were in American Eagle Outfitters me and Jorien lost track of the others and we had no way to reach them as we didn’t have phone cell connection. So we decided to just continue shopping and meet them where we were supposed to gather all as a group at 9.30pm. We had a blast and it was nice to go out shopping with her.

Me and the girls at TS

When it was time to go back to the buss we realized how dark it had gotten but because we had been in the middle of Times Square we didn’t notice. The electricity bill of that place must be outrageous.

Writing about what we have done in just one day makes me realize how much we have done. It is so much in such a short time. I can tell you it was a very quiet ride back to the hotel. Everyone was shattered.

I really liked the group of people we were with. There was only twenty-two of us, Susanne and Noor included, so you really get to talk with everyone and get to know each other a bit.

Much love,

Naomi