-and if you're scared and alone, just know that I'm already home.

I have to say that I have officially obtained a copy of Ed Sheeran's new album that came out today June 23rd 2014 and is three years overdue, Multiply, and I'm doing my first full run through. Only on song one and in tears. Here we go...

Part 3:

Waking up today was not as eventful as yesterdays morning. Instead of having twenty minutes to get ready, we had twenty minutes to sleep the night prior. Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating a bit. It was more like five minutes. Between getting back to the hotel late, taking showers, packing, talking for ages, twittering, and jumping on the beds, it was around 3 by the time we fell asleep. We had to get up at 6. Yikes. We woke up tired, but at least we woke up with not much to do but slap on some clothes and makeup and haul the rest of our things to the lobby where we enjoyed some french toast sticks for breakfast. Well, I did. I don't know what the others ate. 

After watching the local NYC news and hearing of the morning commute, and feeling one with the New Yorkers, we were off ourselves. I really did have a temporary attitude shift while there. More of a "I'm going to cross this road and you're going to wait for me. I'm not sorry" kind of an attitude. 

Our first stop was The Top of the Rock, which is located on top of the Rockefeller building of course. Let me sum up what my vocabulary consisted of while up basically on the top of the world: amazing, unbelievable, unreal, wow, my god. Need I go on? That experience, just putting the city into perspective was amazing. I just wanted to bring a folding chair up there and chill for an entire day. I don't think I've ever enjoyed a view more. The Top of the Rock is definitely a must if you're planning a trip soon. Next time, I'm going for the sunset. Just amazing. The headers of the first two New York blogs were panoramas that I took up there. 

From The Top of the Rock, we headed down to the docks or the harbor, not sure of the technical name as of now, I'm sorry. It was time for our boat tour of that harbor area and the Statue of Liberty. Let me tell you, I was horribly disappointed in the Statue of Liberty. I built up in my mind that this thing was absolutely massive, but that's probably because it's an island itself so there's not really any surroundings for a size comparison. The thing is tiny! You go from being surrounded by buildings that are hundreds of stories tall to this little chunk of disappointment. I apologise for all of you Statue of Liberty enthusiasts that would defend that monument to the grave, but I'm not impressed. I will say, it's impressive for the era it was built in and granted, it was shipped in from France, but I was just disappointed. Here it is, though. 

Next, we went back up to middle Manhattan for a tour of Radio City Music Hall. I know, pour time planning, but that's how the schedule lined up. The tour was very interesting. We got to see both the general works of the building and some parts of the skeleton such as the hydraulics under the stage. It went quick, but was fun to see. 

Then we headed back down to see the 9/11 memorial which was phenomenal. The feeling is a lot to take in, and I can't exactly describe it. Just like a pressure pushing down on your chest type of thing. All the names of the fallen are engraved around the rim of the infinity-reflecting pools, and you truly cannot see to the bottom of the pools where they recirculate back up to the top. It's just surreal to physically see how many lives were lost. Each day, they go around and place a white rose of the names of those who would have celebrated their birthday that day, and we found one pictured below. They also pointed out one tree that is standing between the Twin Towers which was the only tree standings after the Towers collapsed. It's still blooming wonderfully and it's protected. I don't know if it's seen as a symbol, but I'd like to think of it as a symbol for the survivors that made it out of the buildings when their friends and coworkers, maybe even family members, didn't. They're left to stay at the site very much alive and thriving, but with a constant feeling of grief holding them to the scene of the incident. They've now completed the museum to go with the memorial, but it hadn't yet been finished when we were there. I highly suggest stopping by. 

But, in the good news department, they're done building the new Freedom Tower. It is not yet furnished, but it's done.

After that we drove down to Little Italy and ate some delicious cheese manicotti at an adorable restaurant called Casa Bella (the Bella is right, not sure about Casa, it was C-something), and got some gelato to go! 

That was my very eventful and terribly short trip to New York City. I cannot wait to return and look forward to even better adventures for a longer period of time. I apologise for the long wait for the trip when I should have done it the moment I got back while my thoughts were fresh in my mind. I'll remember that for the next trip, which by the way, is like a week and a half away? Oh my gosh, I need to get packing. Bye guys! 

-Belle xx

-I promise this city won't get in our way-

Well, here's yet another day in New York for all of you. Sorry I cut the last one off. I was typing it late into the night and decided to end it after depicting one day. This post is dedicated to day two! Much more action packed seeing as there wasn't any serious driving that took place. I'll try to be a bit more descriptive as well, like I said, I was exhausted on Friday. Here we go...

Part 2:

Picture this: You've just slept seven hours in attempt to counteract the hour of sleep you got on a twenty-two hour drive the day prior, and you're not a morning person. The hotel you were staying at was supposed to have a wake up call ready for 6:30 AM, yet it never comes. Your backup alarm stirred your roommate awake, but you're still out cold. Your roommate falls back to sleep, but is again woken up with a knock on the door from another friend on the trip. They walk over, get the door, doesn't check the time, and goes back to bed. The first time you're awoken is fifteen minutes before you need to leave. This is what I experienced walking up in New York for the first time. HELP. 

Lets just say, the room that was previously cleaned up from the metaphorical tornado that destroyed it the night before was now back to the disaster zone it had previously been. We ran down stairs to the complementary breakfast as fast as our legs could carry us and shoved down some food that I hadn't been hungry for. I still had yet to put my makeup on, but figured I could put some on in the car on the way into the city. But, all the rushing was worth it, because we got a beautiful sunrise view of New York. 

Traffic was it's usual self, but it sped up when we reached the Lincoln Tunnel which, fun fact, is one of like four entries into Manhattan and is 1.3 or so miles long. You've got to get across all of that water somehow, may as well go under it. 

We ended up driving around the city for a while, just exploring. There's so many places to see and so little time, it's a little overwhelming trying to take it all in at once. But I couldn't have been more content. The next stop: Times Square. 

When I entered Times Square for the first time, I felt like this wave of wow hit me. Like I've seen the place in so many photographs and on TV and in movies that it almost felt surreal. The people are just so interesting to say the least and the shops are enormous. The buildings are insanely tall and they have multiple floors below them that they just blast out with explosives, like how is that structurally sound? I'm just glad I wasn't the one designing it, otherwise New York would have collapsed in on itself long ago. We first stopped by the FOUR STORY Forever 21. The concept and amount of clothes they had was unbelievable. The actual selection, not so great. I didn't find a single thing to purchase. Pretty disappointing, but life goes on. But here it is, incase you all are curious....

From Times Square, we went down to the Subway, and I'm not talking about the train, no. I'm talking about the city BELOW the city filled with shops and restaurants. We ate dinner at an Italian restaurant where we just had a quick buffet thing, egger to move onto the highly anticipated show that night. The food could have been better, but I guess I shouldn't have been expecting too much from a buffet. It was pretty cold, but the conversations had were great making up for the below par meal. From there, we headed over by Juilliard, where you know everyone walking around the school could possibly become the next Mozart. But we weren't there to rub elbows with the talented, no, we were there for the New York Philharmonic's Pixar Concert. 

The concert was phenomenal. As the orchestra played the songs from all of the Pixar movies, the clips from the corresponding movie would play on the screen, and yes, I did cry during the Up melody. Not afraid to admit it. After that was over, we just drove back to the hotel for the night and hung out before falling asleep anticipating the next exciting day to come. 

To be continued...

-Belle xx

If only New York wasn't so far away-

I'd like to start this post off by making a formal apology. 

I, Belle, would like to apologize for being both an inconsistent blogger and a horrid person. Making you guys wait FIVE WEEKS to hear about my adventures while in New York. I'm sorry, and it probably will happen again. Sincerely, Belle. 

Well now that's out of the way, lets get on with the post! How has everyone been? I feel like it's been forever (cause it has been) and quite a lot has happened! It's officially summer, stress consumed my life the past two weeks but it's over now, and the premiere of The Fault In Our Stars was LAST NIGHT AND IT WAS AMAZING. But that is all for another time, right now, we have travels to talk about. 

I haven't yet been to a city that I feel I enjoyed more then I did New York. Everything is so big and interesting and the city has such a specific charm to it that you either can't stand or are obsessed with. I'm sure you can guess which category I fall into. And they're spot on when they tell you the city never sleeps. Between the hours of traffic and the constant movement and energy that radiates from your very being, I got about ten hours of sleep total the two nights/three days that I was there. But lets start at the beginning, shall we?

Part 1:

Traveling with a large group of awesome people is both great and terrible. Transportation is not easy, or cheep. If it were up to me, I would have chosen the first flight out to New York possible and it would have been a quick and painless flight. But no, we drove. Twenty. Two. Hours. Of. Driving. I'm sure there are quite a lot of you out there that are fans of road trips. I am not one of you. By the time we were about an hour out from our hotel, we were tired, irritable, and just about ready to kill one another. Due to some troubles and slow downs on the way (and a poorly timed send-off), we would have at the most twenty minutes to get showered (if time allowed), changed, and down into the heart of Manhattan. More specifically, Broadway to see the beloved classic Wicked. 

We checked into the hotel, sprinted to our rooms, and got ready as quickly as one physically can. I don't know about you, but putting tights on when your sweaty and irritable is nearly impossible. By the time we were ready to head out the door, our room had looked like a pack of wolves had ambushed it. We made it down to Broadway with no time to eat dinner, so we just headed into the Gershwin Theater and found our seats on the balcony. Wicked was phenomenal, but I had seen it twice before that so it was nothing new. Personally, I would have liked to have seen Rent. There's always next time. 

Coming out of the theater, we were greeted with the only thing you don't want to see when your all dressed up. Rain. Not just like the casual sprinkle, no, a downpour and/or typhoon. And we still had wanted to eat some dinner and take in the views of Time Square. Long story short, my shoes were filled with water, my button up was soaked due to the fact that the rain had managed to get through my wind coat even with an umbrella, and I didn't get any night shots of Time Square. But man was it beautiful. Our next game plan was food and to get out of the downpour. So naturally, we jumped into the first pizza place was saw which was Sbarro's. My appetite had been lost by then and the slice of pizza I ordered was larger than my face, so I only got about half down before tossing the rest. It was time to head back to the hotel being it was around 11:30 and we were about ready to pass out due to exhaustion from the drive earlier. It was quite an interesting experience for the first day in New York.

To be continued...

-Belle xx