Location: New York City, NY, USA

Adventure awaits!! So. Much. Adventure. This morning we woke up at the crack of dawn, eyes bright and feet aching to get going. We wanted to skip the line ups to get to the top of the Rockefeller Center, which was definitely necessary because even in the wee hours of the morning there were quite a few people there.

We went up 70 stories in 45 seconds, our ears popping the whole way up in this flashy elevator packed full of people. Once we got to the top I rushed to the edge and immediately found out that Katisse is afraid of heights. How did this not come up before we were 70 stories in the air!? I also found out Kat thought the Statue of Liberty was the size of the Empire State Building, when really it’s only 305 feet tall -a tiny little thing off in the distance.

After thoroughly confusing the Empire State Building and the Chrysler building (the Chrysler building is way prettier), taking a few photos, and me having an emotional moment of ‘oh my god I’m looking at the New York City skyline in New York I’m in New York’ we made our way back down to street level.

We walked up fifth avenue and passed by the Tiffany store, Saks fifth avenue, brand name flagships and Trump Tower. Every building was so beautiful and clearly very high end. But right smack in the middle was a huge Gap store and I thought this is literally the only store I can afford to go into on this whole street. I thought it would also be funny to get a picture of us flipping off Trump Tower but there were about 20 policemen stationed around it soooo maybe not.

We meandered slowly up to Central Park and even though I’ve seen pictures and videos of it, they didn’t do it any justice. It was beautiful! There were bridges and ponds and huge rocks everywhere with towering trees covered in Ivy-like plants.

There were street art stalls everywhere offering personal portraits or original art. All of this was set to a backdrop of violins or jazz music or guitar. We must have spent at least an hour walking towards our lunch spot: the Bluestone Lane, which is set in the cloister of an old cathedral and serves the most delicious babychinos and avocado toast.

We walked back through Central Park, passing the Jackie Kennedy Onassis Reservoir (read: huge lake) and over to the American Natural History Museum. Anyone who knows me knows I was just bouncing as we got closer to the museum as natural history museums are my favourite. Out front was a giant statue of Roosevelt…. colonialism at its finest is all I’m going to say about that!

Inside we checked out the Big Bang and space exhibits, the African Mammals hall, the dinosaur room and the biodiversity hall. There was this huge herd of elephants right when you walk into the Mammals hall, and it was a bit shocking to see that many all together. Usually it’s one or two at most but there must have been a dozen in this room, frozen but looking like any second someone would press play on a remote and they would spring back to life and move forward.

By this point we’d been at it for 8 hours already and we had some blisters forming on our feet, and coffee wasn’t doing the trick so we headed home for a quick siesta before moving on to the Chelsea Market.

The Chelsea market is in this old building that resembles a mix of a factory and a train station, with exposed brick and stone, black glazed wooden floors and exposed metal pipes and trusses everywhere. Each side is lined with hipster clothing shops, bakeries, oyster bars and pizza places. It was one of our favourite stops so far today. Above the market is the High Line, an old train track that was abandoned and became completely overgrown, but has since been turned into a platform park/garden that stretches across 2.5 km of old tracks.

Our feet were totally spent by this point but we had one stop left. Dinner with my friend Gordy!! On my last trip to Europe my Irish friend from university was studying in Switzerland, and I managed to meet up with him in Geneva for 2 days. Here we are again! Another part of the world, another chance for some banter and fun. We waited for him and his family in Washington Square park, where we saw rows of old men playing chess, and a jazz band that included a guy playing two separate trumpets at the same freakin time. HOW.

It was lovely as ever to see Gordy again, and have him meet Kat as well. I love when people from different parts of my life get to meet! We all got some American (i.e undercooked) burgers and chatted as easily as if we’d all known each other for years. Gordy’s family is just like him: welcoming, hilarious and so easy-going.

His family went back to their hotel and the 3 of us went out for beers near our air b&b, with Kat eventually tapping out, leaving Gordy and I playing quiz quarters (a game we made up) till late into the evening. I went up to the apartment, completely exhausted but smiling so wide from such an amazing first day in New York.

HAS IT ONLY BEEN ONE DAY?

WOW. BRING IT ON.

S