Empire State of Mind

February 7th - February 12th, 2023

New York was not at all how I space planned it in my head.

Through movies, YouTube videos, songs, and TikTok’s, I had always pictured New York to be this glorious “concrete jungle where dreams are made of.”

I had mapped out where certain attractions were and what they’d look like. But to be honest, we accidentally walked passed the Empire State Building a countless amount of times.

The ambiance is twisted; I’ve heard similar comments about the Eiffel tower in Paris.

This is not to say that I didn’t enjoy my time in New York. I had a blast.

But we definitely did not take the typical tourist approach to the city. According to freshnyc.com, The Empire State of Mind is defined by “the ability to make our own rules. We don't follow social 'norms'.” So that’s what we did.

The geographical side of my brain is not my strong suit. I didn’t know the most visited part of New York was only a very small sliver of the entire state and I didn’t know we were on an island until like 4 days into the trip.

Whatever.

We stayed in Times Square which yeah, yeah, I also did not know is NOT the place to stay but we had already put a hefty deposit down before I received that news so there was no going back.

We were instantly hit with the reality of New York City hospitality which is cramming 4 girls into 200 feet of square space in which our suitcases of various outfits filled up half that footage.

Our view from the 14th floor was a side street off of Times Square that was loud all hours of the day.

I forgot my melatonin. But little did I know this was foreshadowing our week ahead of us where our typical sleeping hours were from 5am-Noon. Exhaustion successfully put me to sleep every morning of our trip.

We arrived on Jenna’s 24th birthday and went out for Ramen.

Desperately searching the streets for any place that sold a bowl of noodles for under $20.

You’re not going to find one.

Our dinner was pleasant but my bottled still water I accidentally ordered slapped me in the face for 7 bucks.

Afterwards we walked around Times Square.

Nobody stares at you in New York, everyone just kind of minds their own.

When you do make eye contact, people have no hesitation to talk to you.

A man in a bright blue jacket stopped in his tracks when he made eye contact with us.

Immediately following was an invite to a bar where he was going to celebrate his buddy’s birthday that was also that day. Oh to be young, pretty, and so stupid.

I like to think my good guy, bad guy radar is pretty accurate. So I looked at my friends and said,

“Okay where’s the uber?”

We hopped in and before we knew it, we were Downtown with a random man we met on the street.

It was 4v1 at the time so the odds were in our favor.

“I brought prizes!” Donno said as we walked into the dimly lit bar where we met all of his friends.

None of them went by their actual names but instead it was Waterboy, Mama, Ray, and a couple others.

Essentially Waterboy sucked at football in high school, Mama was the only girl of the group, and Ray was a worker for the NYPD who told us to call him anytime we needed help while we were in the city.

Geography is certainly not my strong suit but making older men giggle that night apparently was.

We drank wine, played cards against humanity, and learned that Lebron James had just beat some record all the girls in the bar that were actually from LA knew nothing about.

When the bar closed and we got kicked out, we hopped in their cars and headed to another location.

I had two main goals going into our trip.

Karaoke
Sit on someone’s fire escape

At 2:30am, less than 24 hours in NY, we had already completed my first goal.

Arriving at a karaoke bar where they booked us a private room and we performed songs for each other the next 2 hours.

Empire State of Mind by Jay-Z and Alicia Keys was the first song they played for us. Classic.

If you haven’t already guessed, the theme for this entire trip is labeled by one word.

Chaos.

This rang true on our drive over to karaoke where Donno shook his braids in our face from the passenger seat, rapping Bad Bunny lyrics to us and getting out of the car to dance at every red light we hit.

At this moment we were all finally having the same realization.

What the hell had we gotten ourselves into?

My friends know that any trip I go on somehow gets us into situations I can’t explain but I’m going to try really hard to pinpoint each series of events in this blog post.

Ray drove us back to our hotel that night, in circles around the city giving us recommendations and making sure we got a good look at the Empire State Building from every angle.

Spanish food is good past 100th. Manhattan East Village pizza, they have something with cheese, lots of cheese, order it. Birria-Landia tacos, “Heaven in a mess,” Ray says.

Clocking out at about 5am in our hotel room to then wake up so incredibly dehydrated.

Our saving grace was the complimentary mini water bottles and processed muffins from our hotel lobby.

Our plan that day was to visit the World Trade Center. We got on the wrong subway and quickly accepted that that wasn’t quite where our night wanted to take us.

Stumbling upon one of my favorite views of the trip. South street near Pier 15 with a city skyline you see in google stock images.

We sat on benches facing the water with 20 something by SZA playing from the restaurant behind us. This part felt like a movie moment.

How lucky I am to travel and experience such remarkable cities in my twenties with some of my best friends by my side.

We walked down Wall street to get to the nearest Joe’s pizza.

This was one of the only recommendations we actually went through with.

Cheap, delicious pizza, that even my Italian father was jealous of when I sent him a picture.

Enzothemagazine is an account I’ve followed on Instagram for awhile now. A magazine created by a couple of humorous boys in the same realm as my past internship with GASP magazine. (PSA: they’re actually doing a collab event in LA this month that you should go to if you’re in the area and reading this before February 25th.)

I’ve always wanted to attend their events in LA but have never been able to make it to them.

Coincidentally, they posted a game night they were having at their NY location so after our slices of pizza, we went.

I got second place in Super Smash Bros with my dependable character of choice, Pit.

Played rumikub with Leeban and got absolutely destroyed in the trivia round of the night.

No, I know nothing about the movie The Godfather which a small majority of the questions revolved around.

Later into the night, we met up with our design friends at a speakeasy that made you walk through a barber shop to get to.

And a vodka cranberry later, we went outside and shared a couple cigs with a dude that lived above the bar.

After Nevi tried climbing the ladder to his fire escape, the guy ended up just inviting us to take the stairs and climb through his bedroom window to get to it. A much more reliable footpath.

Goal #2. Check.

We sat on their living room couch as one of the roommates told me I reminded him of Charli D’amelio in which I almost convinced him I was related to.

My first bacon, egg, and cheese bagel was consumed on the third day. With poppy seeds stuck in my teeth, we proceeded to our first firm visit at Gensler, where we learned about exceptional design, the actual reason we were in New York in the first place.

design friends outside the Gensler office

By this time we were starting to figure out the subway. $33 for unlimited metro card swipes for 7-days. Emphasis on the unlimited because if you’ve never been to New York and come from a city with terrible public transportation, you’re going to make a lot of mistakes and will need it.

For all the horror stories I hear about the subway system, (we did have one incident but I’ll get to that) being back at home, I actually have started to prefer it. You share a space with the people of the city around you and can end up in places you didn’t plan on, which to me, brings all the adrenaline. You also never have to worry about parking like you do in Long Beach. My maps app is still automatically converting to subway transportation and reminding me every time of my post-travel sadness.

In between firm visits on Thursday we walked through The Met and commented on Egyptian artifacts with a really poor British accent. The man at the front desk thought we were locals and I felt honored but at that time we were talking in our native-tongue, Californian.

Our second firm visit was with Focus Lighting in Harlem. This area of NY seemed to be a lot more mellow, as mellow as NY can get, that is.

The building was a beautiful exposed brick and their office was filled with projects they’ve worked on. The most notable one was the NYE ball drop lighting design, an aspect of New Year’s eve I had never really taken into account until then.

The man who guided us through the office was really chipper and after more than 2 decades spent at his company, he still was very enthusiastic to be there which was very reassuring.

It literally made Jenna cry walking out of the office.

We ate more pizza from the store that shared a wall with our hotel as we got ready to go out again. The employee was very kind and gave “Luv Pizza” a worthy name.

Dressing up in our outfits we thought were “so New York” and heading to another bar near Soho.

It ended up being dead so we took the subway, met a man that swore he was “from the stars” and could give us tattoos while he read us our fortunes but we kindly declined and headed to McDonald’s instead.

Enjoying our mcflurry’s as the homeless man entertained us by knocking on the turned off tv to get it to work.

On Friday we hit the Guggenheim and imitated the paintings like the disrespectful art students we are. Bank of America cardholders get in for free every first weekend of the month by the way.

We walked to the side of Central Park, which was another part of the city I had imagined so differently. Thanks to the pigeon lady scene of Home Alone.

As I was taking a film picture, I lowered my camera and got caught off guard when I realize a man standing, staring at me, less than a foot away from my lens, with his hand raised.

“What, you’re not gonna give me a high five?” He says.

Respectfully, I slap my hand across his and he proceeds to hug Jenna and I. Again. Again. Anddddd then again.

I had maxed out on physical touch for the day just from this stranger.

Jenna compliments his rings and he slowly grabs her hand and slides the ring on her finger.

So yeah my roommate got engaged to a rando on the street in New York, it was magical.

Now adding engagement session photoshoots to my portfolio and here’s a picture to prove it.

Subwaying to Chelsea Market, we expected to look similar to the Pike Place Market we visited in Seattle last year. I guess we forgot we were in New York where it snows occasionally and that any market was probably going to be indoors. I bought symbolic jewelry charms and met two fashion students from New Hampshire who were in town for NYFW.

A couple streets down from the market was a remarkable view. Another beautiful city skyline where I finally saw the tiny spec of mint green also known as the Statue of Liberty. I have never been more excited over oxidized copper.

After picking up bandages for my blisters at the most architecturally beautiful CVS I had ever been to, we headed to dinner with our design friends and after wrapping my feet in the restroom, I ordered a full eel and phenomenal plum wine for the first time. It literally just tastes like capri-sun which for a newly 21-year-old is right up my alley.

Our walk over to yet again, another bar, we witnessed a fender bender with a taxi driver and angry van owner. Each blaming the other for whose fault it was of course.

The bar was packed, but nobody seemed to like dancing except for our group. A couple times I was approached by males that told me I was really good at dancing which I’m always kind of confused by since I just do the trusty churn the butter move. I’m sure hip movement has something to do with those comments. I’ll take it.

I proceeded to watch the guy who was flirting with me get kicked out of the bar for starting a fist fight and if that doesn’t accurately describe my taste in men, I don’t know what does.

The next two bars we walked to were right across the street from each other. We danced in one while some of our friends waited in line for the other.

I kissed a homeless lady on the cheek (with consent of course) in hopes to make up for my lack of cash in between this bar and the next.

This one was on the top floor with lots of city lights to see out the window. I’m a sucker for a good view. There was lots more dancing at this bar and it was a lot of fun with all my classmates I usually see in a much more studious setting.

not said top floor view but pretty lights regardless

But if there’s one thing the West and East coast have in common, it’s that men are pigs on both sides.

One of them trying to talk to me even after I kissed Jenna on the lips, told them she was my girlfriend, and then proceeded to BARK at him.

Yes, BARK.

Men, if you’re reading this, and a woman ever starts BARKING at you, take that as a hard pass and leave her alone.

Lizzy was the MVP that night, getting all our drinks paid for by other silly men.

After hearing the last song, we were going to uber back to our hotel but our cheap asses decided to take the subway instead.

Of course, with our impeccable luck, we run into boys our age while waiting for the train.

Jenna walks over to them, with her smooth talk British accent that one of the boys relayed.

But his accent sounded a lot more authentic, because, well, it was.

He was from New Zealand, and to our poor judgement at the time, they sounded very similar.

We hopped on the same subway as them and at the this point, we really had no intentions of hanging out with them. That was until we realized we were going the complete opposite way of our hotel, taking it as an excuse of a sign from the universe to head to Brooklyn with these boys at 4am.

I told one of them that I just wanted to see a sick ass view and where do I follow him? In between the subway cars, where the cars meet and I highly doubt you’re supposed to stand there. But I’ll give it to him, it was cool, and I got to see the view while we crossed over the Brooklyn bridge.

I’m starving at this point and I had already eaten the m&m’s in my backpack 3 bars ago.

So the second we walk into the only bar open past 4am in Brooklyn, the bartender gives me a bag of sour cream & onion chips.

We sit and chat with our new friends about traveling, the time Lucas was on shrooms and got in a car accident, New Zealand and how they don’t actually say, “put another shrimp on the barbie,” how everything in America is apparently cherry flavored according to Shawn, and how good Lucas can juggle the three tampons in my backpack.

They invited us to Chinese food the next day but by the time we got back to our hotel at 7am and had just chased the sunrise from our subway seats, we knew damn well we were not making it to Chinese food.

The subway from Brooklyn to our hotel that night was one of the most hilarious nights of my life. Given we had all surpassed delusional, about to piss our pants, and were sharing a silent wait time with all the people waking up to get to their morning shifts.

Jenna after realizing she just saw a glimpse of the sunrise

We woke up the next day, ate a couple muffins, and headed to Brooklyn to have dinner.

Yes, we woke up and had dinner, to give you an idea of what time it was.

Our first meal, if you don’t count the muffins, was chicken tikka masala and garlic naan bread.

Attempting to reflect on everything that happened thus far, we all talked over dinner about how content we were. Despite all the bars, we lived so presently and created a reality for ourselves without constant social media in our face, responsibilities, and the what-ifs.

Traveling really does fuel you, especially without a strict agenda and merely just accepting opportunities as they arise with a curious mind.

When you meet new people and learn their ways of life in a city foreign to you, that connection is priceless and a part of traveling I will always strive for over popular tourist attractions.

Hypocritically, we proceeded to walk across the Brooklyn bridge to seal our last night in NYC.

We stopped to get ice cream served out of a fish shaped cone and headed back to our hotel.

Lizzy, Sanne, and I all exhausted after averaging almost 16,000 steps every day, knocked out.

Jenna ended up going back to Brooklyn for live music with the boys we had met.

But on the way, made sure we didn’t leave New York without a subway horror story for us to talk about and a man whipping out his nether regions for her. Like I said, pigs, on both coasts.

Oh to be young, pretty, and so stupid.

When booking our flights months before, Jenna wasn’t able to grab a seat on the flight Lizzy and I had booked that was 30 minutes later than hers.

When we got to the airport, we were told that it was too late for Jenna to board. But fortunately, there was somehow a seat on our fully booked flight she could hop on.

Countless times in this life and specifically during this trip, I am reminded that everything always works out for me. I give kudos to my optimistic mind but mainly just having so much trust in the Universe’s timing.

Leaving New York I sat next to a woman who told me of her time in the Soviet Union. She was a teacher at a private fashion school in LA coming back from a show one of her friend’s was having for NYFW. Apparently the Soviet Union has an incomparable entertainment industry that now I’m dying to learn more about. She gave me her number after talking to her for quite some time about fashion, design, entertainment, and all shareable aspects of art.

As Lizzy said at our last dinner of the trip,

“We didn’t visit New York, we experienced it.” I couldn’t agree more.

And although we never got around to seeing the 9/11 memorial or the little green lady up close, I wouldn’t trade my time spent with new and familiar faces for the world.

Everything always works out and this trip to New York really solidified that for me.