As a first blog post, I wanted to talk about my recent trip to NYC!

We had this trip scheduled for October 2024 since February. I won’t say we were preparing for this trip since then, because actually we barely prepared for it (ups). But here are some of the things we did during our week there.

Preparation

This trip came about a little bit out of nowhere. I remember the morning we bought the tickets, I was staying with my friends Vale and Andres in Hamburg because I had just attended the Pierce the Veil concert the night before. We were having breakfast with Vale and my husband told me that some band he wants to see will be playing in NYC in October (about the band, I’m not sure…something like a King Crimson revival but with members of different bands? Think about the Avengers but for old music enjoyers). And he was like…maybe I can go for a few days…and I was like…maybe I should join you and we can have a vacation. So I ended up buying the concert ticket (just one, for him) and the flight tickets a bit later that week. Fortunately, traveling from Berlin to the US is always around 400 Euros, so the two tickets were way less than 1,000 via British Airways with a short layover in London.

Then came the accommodation search. Oh boy, things were EXPENSIVE. I did a short search via Booking (yeah, I know that people often recommend booking hotels directly on the hotel website yadda yadda but I cannot be bothered). I like the option of being able to reserve but pay when I’m there. So I found a hotel in Queens for around 2,100 Euros in total, from October 3 to October 11. But I was pulling my hair out because how was it possible for the hotel to be more than twice what the plane ticket costed. Anyway, I put a pin on that and luckily I found another hotel a few months before the trip that was around 1,500 Euros in total. The hotel in question was in the Bronx (Wingate by Wyndham Bronx/Haven Park) — more on that later.

I didn’t want to overprepare an itinerary since this was going to be my third time in NY, and the second for my husband. We already saw the classic landmarks, the MET, Empire State, and whatnot, so I wanted something more relaxed and maybe explore the city a bit more. Although we were curious about how the city was going to be, as our last time there was in 2018 and a lot has happened since then haha.

Trip

At first, I was so glad that the layover was short but then we almost missed our Heathrow-JFK connection. We were literally the last ones getting into the plane and the airline crew were waiting for us to close the gate.

The flight was during the day which I don’t love (I’m a huge airplane sleeper so if the flight is at night I can sleep almost the whole duration without a problem). But, I have to say it was nice to arrive in NYC in the afternoon. On the flight, I watched Drive-Away Dolls which was completely censored and they cut all the funny parts (took me a while to figure out what was actually inside the suitcase as everything was censored lol), and Before Sunset. I watched Before Sunrise in October 2023 according to my Letterboxd, and it was my first time watching any of the films of the trilogy. I’m gonna have to wait until my next airplane trip to watch the last one because in this one only Before Sunset was available.

Things we did…

So as I was telling you before, the hotel was in the Bronx. The hotel itself was nice, but the area was not so nice, although we didn’t care. We live in Berlin, and we’re desensitized by how dirty the streets are at this point. We even saw a raccoon.

The nicest thing about the hotel is that it was literally one block away from the subway station (Lines 4 and 5), and a few minutes away from Line 6. So super well connected. As soon as we left our luggage at the hotel we went to the nearest Chipotle because we were starving. That particular Chipotle was nasty and the food was not even that good which kinda put me off and I didn’t try Chipotle again during the trip.

Day 1 (but actually day 2)

So after eating, we just went to the hotel and fell asleep. The next day the itinerary started. The plan for that day (Friday, October 4) was just to walk around and then at night, we had dinner planned at my friend Sebastian and her wife’s place. We were very looking forward to meeting their cats, Leche and Panko.

In Manhattan, we went to the NY Public Library but unfortunately couldn’t enter the main reading room as the tours were all booked, but I took this picture and we tried again a few days later.

As my friend lives in Brooklyn, we decided to go to the Brooklyn museum in the afternoon, right before dinner. Now I regret that we went too late (and also the museum closed earlier than usual because they had an event) because the museum was HUGE and it had so many interesting things. I wanted to go again during our stay but unfortunately couldn’t make it. I even saw some Moo Deng art.

Then dinner came and we met our four-legged hosts

Day 2

On our second full day, we walked through Central Park. As an Atlas Obscura enthusiast, I always look for things to see and visit on that site, and the Blockhouse in Central Park appeared listed. This old brick structure was finished in 1814 and was a front during the Revolutionary War. It took a small walk up a hill, but the weather was super nice.

We also saw SO. MANY. SQUIRRELS.

After that, we had brunch at a place called Bluestone Cafe which was right next to a church, and it looked pretty cool on the inside.

We continued our walk towards 59th Street because I wanted to take the…cable car? tramway? to Roosevelt Island. Not gonna lie, it was a LOT of waiting (maybe around 1 hour?) because only one tram out of the two was working. But we managed to get in and have a decent viewing spot. It was definitely worth it although I don’t recommend it for people who are afraid of heights, as the tram moves quite a lot — for my husband, it was not so fun.

It was our first time on Roosevelt Island and it was so pretty. It has an amazing view of Manhattan, an old building that was a Smallpox Hospital back in the day, and also a cat shelter — although we only saw one cat, who was pretty chill.

Later that day it was my husband’s concert — yes, the one that originated the entire trip –, so I had some time for myself and I went to Barnes and Noble. I was so tempted to buy the Wong Kar-Wai criterion collection set but it was 200 USD (aaaa). I ended up buying Kafka’s diary collection, and another collection of poems by Sylvia Plath.

Day 3

Next day (Sunday) we visited Coney Island for the first time. It was quite a ride on the subway, not going to lie, and not sure if it was 100% worth it. I love mechanical games so I ended up jumping into a few (and getting pretty stored afterward…my 31-year-old body is not that resilient to that sort of stuff anymore, apparently). Coney Island was like being stuck in the ’80s: the painting on all the stands and buildings was faded by the sun, as well as the mechanical games. I know it was off-season, but that wasn’t really a problem — and actually it was better, as it wasn’t that crowded. In any case, I think it was good to
have gone, but I wouldn’t go again next time.

Day 4

On Monday, we started the day by walking around Union Square. We had lunch at Ivan Ramen, after trying (and failing) to watch its episode on Netflix’s Chef’s Table. As we were walking around, I thought about trying that place assuming it was going to be crowded, but it wasn’t! So we gave it a try and it was SO good. My husband is not a big fan of ramen and soups and stuff but he happily ate the vegan option.

After that, we walked towards Chinatown. We were impressed about how non-crowded it was, compared to our last time in NY back in 2018.

I also had a much necessary bubble tea on the way.

We had tickets to go to the Guggenheim Museum later that day. When I tried to buy tickets the week before, they let you know in advance that the spiral rotunda was closed due to some renovations, so I didn’t feel like paying 30 dollars each to enter. Luckily, they have the “Pay As You Wish” scheme on Mondays at 4pm (and also on Saturdays),
so we took advantage of that. You have to get tickets that same day at 10am, and I managed so all went well.

This was an excellent decision because not only the spiral rotunda was closed, but a lot of exhibition halls as well. We ended up doing the entire museum in less than 1 hour. It was good but honestly, I was glad that I didn’t spend 60 dollars to enter.

We then went to Central Park again. I wanted to see one of the famous John Wick locations (the Bethesda Terrace).

And we also saw a black squirrel! I didn’t know they existed. It was like seeing a unicorn.

Day 5

We had early tickets for the Intrepid Museum for this day, and special tickets to see the Concorde within the museum. Not an airplane nerd, my husband is, but it was honestly pretty interesting. We also visited the submarine inside the museum and I think it was my first time inside an actual submarine. Later that day we just walked around Tribeca and visited some historical landmarks like this one (iykyk).

Day 6

As the previous day was pretty chill, we woke up early and finally went to the reading room at the NY Public Library. It was totally worth it.

Then, we walked aaaall the way to Little Island. It was pretty sunny and hot already, and we were pretty tired by then. But it was nice though, especially because this didn’t existed during our last visit to NY.

We went back to the hotel earlier than usual to get some rest because later that day we had plans: my husband went to watch an NBA match and I had the Loossemble concert. I was super looking forward to it, especially because I loved their last release.

Last Day

Our flight on our last day wasn’t until 6pm so we had a lot of time to walk around. We dropped off our bag at a UPS location using an app called Bounce where you can pay a few dollars and leave stuff for the day. We then took the ferry from Manhattan to Brooklyn because we wanted to eat at Little Rabbit one last time (it has been almost a month since our trip and I still think about their garlic noodles almost every day; I fear I’ll never be able to get over them. They literally ruined every meal for me because nothing will ever taste as good. I wish I was exaggerating but sadly I’m not!!).

That’s it for my first post! For those who have traveled to NYC recently, what do you think I missed? I’ll definitely consider your recommendations for next time!