One Girl, Two Coasts: A Trip to NYC

Last Monday and Tuesday, I took a little trip to New York City to meet up with one of my best friends, Sam. She was traveling for the next few weeks, and then would be spending an entire year in Mumbai, India for research. I'm super excited for her and cannot wait to hear how India treats her!

Anyways, I took an early-morning bus over to NYC from South Station, and then met Sam around noon once we'd both gotten there. The bus ride wasn't too bad; it was actually rather comfy since I got a free upgrade to a front-row seat on the upper deck right in front of the window. A guy who'd reserved that seat tried to sit there with a child, and the bus driver said it wasn't allowed, and asked me to move there instead. Yay!

Once Sam and I met up, we did some walking to a farmer's market and waited to meet up with a friend of hers. His name was Anthony and they interned together at Sloan-Kettering while they were both in college. Now, he's trying to become a Ph.D candidate and is working at a lab. Needless to say, when I listened to them at lunch, there were more than a few conversations that went right over my head.

For lunch, we decided to choose Max Brenner, which I hadn't yet gone to before and was super eager to try (it's chocolate-themed. How can you go wrong??). I ordered a burger with avocado, tomato, and other veggies, and it came with cocoa-dusted waffle fries (so good). It was a great meal; we finished it off by finally deciding on the Fondue for Two. Definitely will be returning to Max Brenner to try some of the other things on their menu. It was deeelish.

Afterwards, we explored a huge bookstore nearby, walked around Soho, Greenwich Village, got bubble tea, and then went to Chinatown for some black sesame ice cream and cheap, yummy dumplings for dinner (4 for only one buck. I mean, seriously. You can't get much better than that.). We said goodbye to Anthony and headed back to Port Authority so that we could get on a bus to go to Sam's house in nearby New Jersey.

It was a nice, relaxing night once we got back to her hometown. After talking a lot and spending some more time catching up, I slept like a rock and woke up feeling amazing the next day. We roamed Manhattan again the next day and found a lot of beautiful parks by the water. It was a gorgeous day and was nice to just walk around and take in some sights. We also went to the 9/11 Memorial Site and the Seaport Harbor area before walking to the area in which the Megabus would be sitting to drive me back to Boston.

After having a nice lunch at a diner nearby, I said goodbye to Sam and got on my bus to go back home. It's crazy to think that we met two years ago in China while we were teaching in this tiny little school in the mountainside, and have become great friends ever since. Funny how life works, huh?

On a side note: we're leaving for China in a day!!! It's time to get packing, so I'm going to sign off for now. The next post I make will be from GuangZhou, China. Wish me luck, friends! Time to go see my relatives after four years...hope it all goes well.