...New York, New York!

"So good they named it twice." Yup, I was finally heading to the city on the top of my list of cities I wanted to visit. And despite always wanting to visit "the city that never sleeps," and living so relatively close to it, believe it or not, it would be my first time in NY!

I should probably start with a warning that there's going to be a lot of photos for the rest of the posts, and it might take a while to finish up the rest of them since I haven't gotten most of the photos up yet (over 2500 to sort through). NY alone was such an experience that I took a lot of photos so I wouldn't forget it too soon. So I'll try my best to keep the text short, but no guarantees (I know, recently they've been running a little long).

Just a short and sweet post this time though. I flew into NY on the night of the 30th (flying on frequent flyer points), and since I didn't want to try figuring out how to get around big NYC at night from Newark Airport (plus I've always found it strangely difficult to figure out public transportation systems just after getting off an airplane for some reason even though I could easily figure it out any other day), I decided to stay at the nearby Hilton Newark Airport for the night and then head into the city in the morning. This was a really nice airport hotel, and I enjoyed every minute of it (obviously so much better than hostels). Plus I got 2 free bottles of water (hey, free is free hahaha)! On a short side note, I booked with Continental for the rest of my flights (I know, I know...) and to keep from ranting, I'll just say their frequent flyer tickets are a rip-off: they all cost at least $75 (which they charge as a service fee), so you're not really flying on points, but I guess it's still better than paying full price.

Very comfy king size bed!


The view from my room the next morning - a snow storm had just come in overnight! So you can imagine I was praying the snow wouldn't continue on into the night to possibly spoil my New Year's Eve plans.


A view outside Newark Airport the same morning. This was taken with my cell phone; you'll notice from now on, almost all my cell phone photos will have image errors - I accidentally formatted my phone after New York before backing up all the photos, and these were the best images I could retrieve using data recovery software.

Technically, I wasn't in NY yet (I was still in NJ). So on the morning of the 31st, I packed up and caught the free airport shuttle back to Newark Airport, where I then took the AirTrain across the terminals to the Newark Airport Rail Station, and then the NJ Transit train to New York Penn Station (this seemed to take longer than it sounds haha). Finally, I arrived in New York!