Doing New York

Today we did New York. We woke up, went to Hot Bagels (really, that’s what it was called), and headed to the Newark train station to utilize the public transportation system into the city. This didn’t really work out. Newark is maybe the saddest, scariest, most run-down, dirty place we had ever seen. Considering that we didn’t even want to leave our rental car there, let alone get out of the car to get onto a train, I do not recommend visiting. Newark needs a lot of work – it was simultaneously heartbreaking and sickening – and definitely about two decades behind the rest of the modern United States. And so we drove ourselves into Manhattan. (I say “we” like I had something to do with it. All I did was observe. Ryan is an excellent no-stress navigator.)

Once we arrived, we parked the car and took the streets by foot. We walked around in Central Park, down Madison Avenue, spent a curious amount of time in FAO Schwarz, stepped through Times Square, dropped into Banana Republic and Anthropologie, bought a bottle of water from a street vendor, and saw lots and lots of interesting people.

Oh, Ryan was there too:

We both decided we were thankful for the experience, but also glad to be home. There’s no place like home – especially when home is Charlotte, North Carolina. Clean. Friendly. Small. Green. New. Lovely.