On 29th of August my family and I went to New York… well actually my mum was going for work but didn’t want to miss my birthday so we all went!
The first day was nothing more than a long flight, a MASSIVE burger and sleeping. It was on the second day we started going around. Breakfast was in the hotel since had a few breakfast coupons and then we went out to the empire state building. We weren’t that far so we walked (and of course Banana Republic was right there so we HAD to go in acccording to my mum, but I did find some nice jeans and a tshirt…). As soon as we got in we were met with a ‘mini’ version of the empire state (it was about 10 feet) and we soon arrived at the elevator after passing many pictures of celebrities who had been there, including the Cookie monster (which i got reminded of as I was eating Crumbl while writing this…). We also got to see all the movies where the Empire State got filmed in, such as Spider-man, and of course King Kong. There was a King Kong had coming through the wall and screens showing King Kong through some ‘windows’. Unfortunately my phone, well, its not even a phone anymore its more of a touch screen which you can’t touch, doesn’t have a camera and my dad hasn’t shared photos yet so i don’t have many photos.
After passing all of this we got to the 84th floor (i think) and we got to stand outside and got a great view of New York and the landmarks, including World Trade centre which we went to the next day, Statue of Liberty which my mum pretended to be, and the Edge, which my sister was scared of…
We then went to meet my Dad’s university friend in New Jersey and spent most of the day there. For lunch we had burgers (again) and dinner we shared a mexican bowl because we actually couldn’t intake any more food.
On day two we woke up early and had some bagels for breakfast (they were sooo good) and went straight to the world trade centre and 9/11 memorial. It was one of the more heartbreaking museums and actually one of my favourite. They shared voice calls, messages sent and sotries of those who survived. As we went through the museum they had old supports and structural pieces from the collapsed building. There was a short presentation sharing a live replica of what happened and where people were at the time. It started by showing when the first plane crashed into the North Tower and the call from one of the top floors of the building saying that they ae stuck up there, then the second plane hit and a woman shared her story of escaping. She had to choose between leaving everyone behind and focusing on making it, or helping others. As soon as she got out she fainted, and when she woke up, it was gone. Both towers, just…gone.
There was a small part of the museum which was a timeline and showed the paths of all four planes that were hijacked. 9.48, North tower hit, a few minutes later, South tower hit. People from the streets was crying, praying for survival. Nearly an hour later, there were over 300 firefighters in the buildings, and ujst like that you could see the south tower started to wobble. If you blinked, you missed it. Within a couple seconds, the whole tower came down, killing all pedestrians on the side, including a little girl and her mother. then the north tower came down a few minutes later. What used to be a wonderful skyline with skyscrapers and two distinct towers, now was nothing. You could see the two towers distinctly from anywhere, and suddenly, in just one hour, it was all gone…
We then watched a half-hour documentary, made specially for the museum only, about how the US took down Osama Bin-Laden and al-Qaeda after 10 years. Unfortunately i can’t share much since it is made especially for that museum.
We then walked across brooklyn bridge where we got a wonderful view of the new skyline witht the new World Trade Centre and the statue of Liberty in the distance. Imagining the fact that people would have been on the birdge and seen the Twin towers go down was quite terrifying. After the mile long bridge, we met my mum’s boss and a statue named Rusty Ralph (it’s not actually i made that up), and spent the evening in a temple. For dinner, we got NEW YORK PIZZAAAA, which was delicious (i had three, and you can imagine how big they are…)
on day 3 we went to the Statue of Liberty, which was tiny compared to the buildings we had already been to. WE took a train to WTC and walked from there to the dock, where we got FRESH FRUIT for lunch, which hit the spot, and we then took a ferry to Liberty Island. We spent a couple hours there, taking pictures and walking up (not to the crown).
After this we then took a train to central park where we walked around for a bit and swiftly went home for THE SAME PIZZA which i was craving because it was so good. We went back to the hotel and i couldn’t sleep, obviously, because i was gonna turn 14 the next day…
My birthday rolls around and i wake up at 5 to LOADS of messages. My mum had a call from 9-10 so my dad, sister and I went to Starbucks for breakfast, and then we headed off the the Rockefeller centre, where we took the famous photo on the beam. We then headed off the IHOP for lunch, which was actually quite disappointing. The pancakes were good, but nothing else was actually that satisfying. After this the day consisted of chilling and shopping.
We went to many stores including Superdry, Abercrombie, Aeropostale etc. Fortunately, most of these stores had sales, especially Superdry which was closing down, so we didn’te spend as much as we thought we would. I spent an unreal amount of clothes, and even got a necklace because why not?
In the evening we went to Times Square and then a nice Thai restaurant for dinner, which had some of the best red curry EVER. It was then about 9pm when we were walking back and walked back through Times Square at night which was so much better than in daylight.
Unfortunately that was our last day and the next day was wasted on a flight (because of time difference), which my sister ate a WHOLE bag of Chester fries (not good) and i managed to stay awake the whole flight, so that’s the plus!
Anyway, this trip was definitely up there, and it was one of the best birthdays i had ever had so thank you to my parents, AND to my school for starting later because today my sister started school today and we arrived home around 11pm yesterday so she is really tired.