Empire State of Mind

It's been sixteen days since my first journey to New York City, and it's in my blood. It's this absolute need to go back as soon as possible, in any way possible for any reason possible.

I watched more than my fair share of MTV's TRL in my pre- and early teenage years, and I always wondered what it would be like to stand outside and cheer while the show was being taped. I've tuned in to Dick Clark's Rockin' New Years Eve every December 31 and always wondered what it would be like to be in that huge mess of people and to see those bright lights.

For a mid-Missouri girl with a landlocked family, it seemed a pretty far-off dream. Maybe someday.

I somehow managed to save enough money for a trip to Boston (and if you know me, saving money is not something I'm a pro at) to visit my best friend Evelyn, who goes to Boston University. Just for shits, I checked Megabus to see if there were any routes between Boston and NYC. And once I entered the dates and clicked the "Search" button, the glorious price of $9.00 each way greeted me. How could I say no?

Ev had a full schedule on Tuesday and wouldn't be able to hang out with Sean and me, anyway, so it was a done deal. Sean had been there before with his high school choir and thought he knew a little about the area. But what we did was nothing like the structured trip he'd had before.

My mom flipped shit when she realized that we were going there without a plan. We were going to get off at 7th Avenue and 28th Street and see what happened (with Sean's SmartPhone in hand as a map). And that was the best damn plan I've ever had in my entire life.

I'm not one to plan things because shit always falls apart. I spend so much time attempting to get everything perfect, and then nothing ever works out. So why plan where we were going to eat? Why meticulously plan each route we would walk? Why even figure out what the hell we were going to see? Why not just wing it?

We got off the bus at 7th and 28th and said to each other (multiple times), "What now?" We went with basically our only option, which was to start walking. And we were hungry. There didn't seem to be a shortage of food joints, so we ended up at Salsa y Salsa and had a fabulous Mexican lunch. The walls inside were painted lilac with paintings of huge hibiscus flowers, and bright colored decorations hanging from the ceiling with neon-colored paper lanterns strung outside the restaurant. I had chicken enchiladas with black beans and rice...kinda spicy but delicious.

After consulting Sean's trusty phone, we decided we were pretty close to Greenwich Village and Washington Square, so that's where we headed. It was just like you see on TV and in the movies - old men and young kids sitting at tables in the park playing chess. The sun was shining beautifully through the bare branches of the trees, and people were sitting inside the fountain with the Washington Square Arch standing just yards away.

By this time, my old-woman aches and pains had started to kick in, with mainly my back causing me problems. It was time to sit in the fountain (which didn't have water in it, of course.) It was a 40-something degree day, but with the sun beaming down, I decided to take off my coat for awhile and just enjoy the beauty of the whole scene.

If you know anything about Counting Crows or how obsessed I am, it was a bit of a pilgrimage (cue "Washington Square"). And although it's probably not the same street as in the song, Sullivan Street lay right on the outskirts of the park. Needless to say, that was the street we took down toward Battery Park. It gave me chills.

Coming into NYC was rough. It was the part of town you didn't want to see, the part of town you didn't want to find yourself in. Run-down buildings, trash everywhere, stray animals trying to find food. For me, it wasn't an immediate good omen, and I really wondered if the trip was such a good idea after all. We then went through Harlem, and things continually started to improve. But there will always be that first image in my head.

We reached the Financial District and then Battery Park, where I saw the Statue of Liberty for the first time. If there was one thing I wished I had planned, it would have been the ferry trip out to Ellis Island. But who knows? We probably wouldn't have had time for it, anyway.

We saw this amazing memorial right in the middle of these huge skyscrapers. The Irish Hunger Memorial. It's this beautiful piece of Ireland right in the middle of the city. It may have been the strangest juxtaposition I've ever seen, but it was absolutely spectacular. It's a hillside covered in tall grass with stones and an authentic Irish cottage that was rebuilt on the site. It was the most bizarre thing to be standing in the middle of all this grass, feeling like you're in Ireland, and then turn around and see the concrete jungle. Very strange but very awesome.

After walking along Esplanade, we turned around to start walking back into the city. We walked completely around a construction site before realizing that it was ground zero. There was a tour group going through the area, so we stopped to listen to the guide as she talked about the memorial that was built into the site of the building across the street.

It wasn't anything like I imagined it, and I can't exactly explain why. I couldn't piece it altogether in my head. After seeing so many videos on the news and so many images in the paper during September 2001, I felt like I was there when it happened. I felt like I had seen it happen. But on this day in March, I just couldn't connect the dots. When I stepped into St. Paul's Chapel, I felt it. I saw the pew with the scratches from the firefighters and policemen sleeping in their uniforms. I saw all the badges that had been sent in from around the world to show support. I saw a cot that the rescue workers slept on, with one of the many stuffed animals that had been donated for them to sleep with. I saw all those that volunteered to help take care of the rescue workers. And in the end, that's what it was about. It wasn't about the horror that the world had seen but the genuine kindness, compassion and dedication that people showed throughout the weeks and months following September 11.

Our time ran short quickly after that, and we made our way up Broadway some 40 or 50-odd blocks. We were hoofin' it. Stopped at McDonald's for a shake and fries, thinking we'd end up eating elsewhere, but we didn't. I got to visit Desigual (my favorite store ever after finding the brand in Oviedo), and then we continued on our journey to Times Square.

There's just something magical about seeing those lights for the very first time. This is the place I've seen on TV, this is the place I've seen in the movies. This is it. It's just something so unique. There's so much color, so much movement, so much rushing, so much life. You just have to sit there and take it all in.

I'm glad that was our last stop on the trip. Because it left me wanting to see it again. And again and again. I want that office that the editor of Budget Travel magazine has, looking down into Times Square.

Although it probably won't be my permanent residence, I'd love to try living in New York. It's just something so strange and different and fascinating.

In some ways, I think I was born a New Yorker. I walk like a New Yorker. And New Yorkers don't mess around when they walk. They have somewhere to be. I'm living that same fast-paced lifestyle in an area where it's just kind of bizarre to do so. I felt a lot more at home being my usual rushing, get-down-to-business, I-have-somewhere-to-be type self in New York.

I need to be surrounded by people, and I need to be active. I need to have lots of things to see and lots of things to do and places to go. And there's no shortage of that in NYC.

Who knows? Maybe someday you'll see me in the Empire State.

After all, I'm already in the Empire State of Mind.