Anything beats the plague of Summer Boredom that seems to fall over the homes and spirits of almost every High School kid in the nation this time of year. When the topic of conversation around the house is, “What do you wanna do?”, and when I dream about taking a nap so that I’m not so bored, something needs to change. Luckily for us, my step-dad, Andy, lives and works in New York City and decided that we should all take a trip up there to see what life is like in the “City that never sleeps.” Now my family is from South Florida, so the culture is very different here from anything you will see in the Northern United States, especially New York. Our family has been north before though, but never to New York, so we didn’t really know what to expect going into the trip. Something happened though when we arrived in the city for our first time; the feeling was different from any I had experienced about just being somewhere before.
We came in through the Lincoln Tunnel, (Yes, there was traffic) and went to 34th St. and 8th Ave. to our final destination, the New Yorker Hotel. From the instant we entered the city, all the buildings were so surrealistically huge, and I felt so indefinitely small. (I think it had something to do with how the scenery shifts less as you move since everything is much bigger and farther away). Either way, New York City was amazing and I felt so much more free there than I ever did at home or anywhere else for that matter. As I moved through the streets each day, just seeing the colorful people around me and the towering buildings above me, made me feel so alive and in place. New things become old with time, however, and I got used to the feeling of the city with the help of my step-dad and family.
Andy has been working out of the New Yorker Hotel for years now and he is a veteran of the city. He showed us all the ins and outs of the city: Penn Station, Madison Square Garden, Times Square, the Post Office, the best pizza joints, you name it. The fondest memory I have is when we went to a pizza place one night. It was a normal night, and we ordered our pizza, but it wasn’t till after we ate that we realized it was 2 am, despite the street being filled with people and the pizza place being open. The possibilities are endless in this city, pizza at two in the morning, so many other places to see and work at; I want to go back now!
When I was there a few years ago, all I was worried about was how to have fun, and don’t get me wrong New York’s great for that too. But the more important thing that I find myself focusing on now with so many others, is the job potential a place like a place like New York might have. There are so many stores and office buildings there, that you would really have to hide yourself to not find a job or an internship. And if that doesn’t work out you can always take the free market approach and sell stuff on the street. I don’t recommend that, but it’s always an option.
In short, New York is my favorite place in the U.S. It’s an amazing city that you really have to visit to understand. If you haven’t been there yet, you really need to make it an Empire State of Yours.
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