New York, New York, she took your heart away... (Pt. 1)

When I was 11 years old, our R.E. teacher asked us a series of deep and meaningful questions. One of these questions was “If there was only one place in the world you could visit before you die, where would you go?” See what I mean? Deep. Meaningful.

I didn’t have to think about my answer at all. “New York”, I said. The girl next to me retorted “Ooo, if I could only go to one place in the world, I’d want to go somewhere abroad”. I blinked. I’m not sure where she thought New York was - just past Rhyl, probably.

But the idea of going to New York had always been a dream to me. Everything about it seemed iconic, inspiring, mesmerising - it was the backdrop to films and TV shows, and there had been songs written about it. There has never been a song written about Abergele, North Wales. It was where Miracle on 34th Street was set. I watched Miracle on 34th Street, on average, three times a week during my childhood. Shots of Central Park and Times Square had enchanted me for years - it looked so exciting, and so alive.

Basically, I really fucking wanted to go to New York. It was a place where dreams came true. And I wanted my dreams made true, dammit.

My friend Lauren and I met in the first year of University and quickly bonded over our mutual lack of maturity and enjoyment of the finer things in life: Morrisons chicken curry slices and Heat magazine. We idly talk about going to New York but, as always, thought it was probably one of those passing fancies that would never materialise. Like meeting Russell Brand (*ahem* http://bit.ly/bi9tgg) I mean, it costs thousands to go to New York. Where are two unemployed students going to get thousands of pounds from?

Oh, hello bursary. It’s what David Cameron would’ve wanted, I’m sure.

So in May 2010 we booked to go to NYC on 30th January, 2011 - we’d be there for my 21st birthday. And so, the countdown began…


January 26th, 27th, 28th

I’m going to give you a sample of some of the texts that were flying back and forth between myself and Lauren. We were a little excited.

L: I’m sat grinning over my chicken soup, thinking about this time next week!

Me: I’m absolutely bouncing now! 3 sleeps until it all kicks off! Eeeeeeek!!!!!

L: Two more sleeps until Saturday! It’s happening Amy!!!!!

Me: I’m hyperventilating while my mum pours Kalms down my throat!

L: I’m doing my washing and ironing: ‘Next time I wear you I’ll be in New York effing city!!!!’

Me: I do that too! And when I have a shower before I go I’ll think ‘Next time I have a shower I’ll be in New York… Next time I have a wee…’ etc etc.

L: Are you not going to shower or use the loo between now and New York?!

Me: Nooooo!

L: I’m buzzing with excitement! People are phoning to tell me to have a great time, I feel like a celebrity!

Me: I feel physically sick with excitement! I have an erratic heart beat!

This went on for quite a while. We also got very exclamation happy. !!!!!! OMG !!!!!!


Saturday 29th

We had a direct flight from Manchester to JFK at 10am Sunday morning, so the night before we went to stay in a Travelodge closer to the airport. Just somewhere to put our head down for the night. HAHAHA oh if only.

First though, we dumped our luggage and went out with my lovely family: Emma, Shaun, Ellis, Finn, my aunt, uncle and mum. We had a delish meal and I was allowed to open my birthday present from Emma & Co (like Tiffany & Co, innit) early so they could gauge my reaction. It was a Pandora ring and it is beautiful! Silver and topaz, I love it to bits.

We wanted to get to bed early because Shaun was picking us up to take us to the airport at 6am, so we were tucked up by about 9pm.

This was until our friendly neighbourhood chavs in the room across the corridor started getting ready for their night out, which involved blasting Rihanna’s ‘S&M’ on repeat for 2 solid hours and shouting things like *in thick scouse accent* “Morgan, where’s my fucking eyelashes? You do this every time!”.

Then they went out dressed in an outfit fit for a gypsy and we finally got a little sleep. Until they returned at some un-Godly hour running down the corridors screaming and banging on all the doors on the way. We had to get up early anyway so we just cut our losses and started getting ready, while listening at the door to the drink-fuelled chats that were going on outside:

*thick scouse accent*

“Charlottte, why are you crying?”

“I can’t tell you! I can’t tell anybody!”

“Whatever it is Charlotte, you can fucking tell me!”

Yeah tell her Charlotte! Go on! I’m a bit of a nosey bitch!


Sunday 30th

So we were up at 3am (THREE. AY. EM.) because of Morgan and Charlotte’s Jezza Kyle style dramas, but we were too giddy to even care. Nothing could piss on our parade that day. Direct quote from Lauren “I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy at 3 o’clock in the morning!” - I hear ya sister.

We arrived at the airport to a pretty aggressive security guy whose questions went a little something like this: “When did you pack your case? Has it been with you since then? Has anyone asked you to put something in your case? What is the purpose of your trip? You don’t look 21. Are you carrying any fire arms?”. STFU dude, so I have a face like a Cabbage Patch kid, I’m still 21. And would I tell you if I was carrying fire arms? Seriously? I hope you don’t just take people’s word for it.

But anyway, don’t you just love taking off? I do. It was a really smooth 8 hour flight, and we were given loads of nice food. Yes, plane food that was NICE! And unlimited drinks, all of it free. Don’t mind if I do. *knocks back orange juice, on the rocks no less* The air stewards were all American and lovely and “oh, you girls!”. I got a bit fixated with the ‘track your flight’ thing on the TV in front, and just watched the plane go over the Atlantic ocean for a considerable amount of the journey (in between watching Glee, Easy A, and playing a game with a fish but my fish kept dying and I had no idea why). Lauren and I found much amusement in the names of places we flew past, such as ‘Happy Valley Goose Bay’. That is a real place, guys. And then before we knew it, we were in NEWWW YOOOOORK! CONCRETE JUNGLE WHERE DREAMS ARE MAAAADE OOOOF! We had an eye scan and finger prints taken just incase we turned out to be crack-a-lacka-mental and then we were on our way to our hotel!

We were staying at the Marriott Marquis right in the centre of Times Square - the closer we got, the more excited I became. It was 8pm UK time (3pm NY time) when we arrived at the hotel - we were tired and felt a bit grubby after just sitting for all that time but Oh. My. Life. The hotel was amaze. The glass elevators! The massive room! The Times Square view! First thing Lauren and I did was jump on the beds, natch. When I spotted a magazine on our coffee table with Ed Westwick on the cover, I really knew we’d hit the jackpot. We quickly unpacked and headed straight for the bright lights!

Times Square was completely overwhelming at first. I’d never been somewhere so… tall. It was so strange being surrounded by massive billboards and lights that I’d seen in so many photographs, to then be there amongst it all. It seemed a bit surreal. The shops were all taken to the extreme, par exemple: Toys R Us had a 60ft ferris wheel smack bang in the centre. M&M World had about 50 different colours of M&Ms to choose from, literally.

We walked into a huge Disney Store and an American girl screeched “I love your hat, that is SO CUTE!”. Ha, erm, thanks! (After about the 5th variation of the same hat compliment, we came to the conclusion that America could really benefit from an Accessorize). We ate at one of the many McDonald’s while Piers Morgan stared at us through the second floor window (from a billboard, not in a peeping Tom kind of way).

Bear in mind, I live in North Wales. My nearest Starbucks is a 45min drive away. My mind was being BLOWN. By 8pm NY time we’d been up for 22 hours and felt a little dizzy surrounded by all this razzmatazz, so we head for the hotel and I went straight to sleep, feeling a little out of my depth in the big city…


Monday 31st

However, by the following afternoon I was waltzing round like Jenny from the freakin’ Block. I made myself right at home - we quickly learned our avenues from our streets and just generally got stuck in. We were on 7th and 45th, and were heading for 5th and 34th, and internally I was screaming with excitement because I finally knew what that meant. I was walking the streets of New York! You’ll never understand how much all this meant to me!

We hit all the big shops on 5th Ave: Saks, where mum bought Marc Jacobs perfume, and Macy’s, where I bought a Juicy Couture watch with some of my birthday dollars. I got 10% off because I was an international customer, and was treated like royalty. “21 years old… wow. You have your whole life ahead of you, the world is your oyster! I like your hat”.

We went to the Juicy Couture shop, which was set out as you would imagine a 12 year old girl would decorate her bedroom. Big, plush throne type chairs with gold arms; floral wallpaper; a wide, spiral staircase; large ornaments of dogs that had been positioned to look like they were wearing jewels and carrying handbags; every visible colour was somewhere on the magenta spectrum. Naturally, I loved it.

We also went to American Girl Place, after a lovely lady in Saks had raved about it. Holy hell, that’s a creepy shop! I can imagine it would’ve been a vision of heaven for most little girls, but blimey. Just dolls. Dolls EVERYWHERE! Every variation of skin tone, hair colour, hair length, and eye colour you could imagine. Doll sized outfits and child sized outfits hung side by side on the rails, so that the two could match. The doll could be dressed as a nurse, or a surfer, or own a clarinet, or a poodle; whatever your heart desired. You could even fit the doll with a voice box, if you wanted it to talk. Now, if you grew up in the nineties, there’s a good chance that you watched Sabrina the Teenage Witch. And if you’re anything like me, the immortal line “I’m a Molly dolly, and I’m gonna get you” ricocheted around your head at night when everyone else was asleep. That’s all I’m saying…

We saw the New York Library, which was very grand and imposing, if a little snooty (you had to have your bags checked before you went in and out. It’s a LIBRARY! I’m not that desperate for the latest Biff ‘n’ Chip!). It was a beautiful building though, as are lot of the building’s in the city. I haven’t seen the same architectural magic around here as I did in New York: buildings that make you stop in the middle of a busy street, just to stare at them. Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in particular had that effect on me - mesmerising in it’s intricacy.

But from Catholics to cupcakes, our next stop was ‘Crumbs’, a lovely, sugary little cafe that sold homemade cupcakes the size of three of my clenched fists put together. The decision of which one to have was nothing short of agonising. (I had two over the course of my trip: a chocolate covered strawberry cupcake, and a Hershey’s peanut butter cupcake. Just in case you were wondering…).

I’m trying my best to refrain from describing every meal we ate, in detail, but it was all delicious and came in portions sizes that would feed the whole of Anglesey. We ate in Junior's and it had photographs in the loos of celebrities who had eaten there. Any meatballs that are good enough for Adam Sandler are good enough for me.

That evening we spent a while amusing ourselves with our favourite shops on Times Square, namely Godiva, which sold the most beautiful chocolates, and had girls carrying them around on platters: “Would you like to try our chocolate strawberry fondant?”. Don’t mind if I do. They either had short term memory loss or were particularly generous, as they soon came around again. We all had one hand full of chocolate bars but, as Lauren diplomatically put it as she grabbed another free sample: “Just to double check…”. We also bought a cone of chocolate covered strawberries for night time nibbles. How posh.

Sephora was paradise for perfume and make-up loves, i.e. ME! We must have spent an hour and a half in there; spritzing, glossing, trying a different nail varnish on each finger. We spent so much they gave us a Sephora card which entitled us to a free gift every $100 spent; this involved filling in our details, and when the lady at the till saw that it was my birthday the next day she was all “GUUURRRRLLL! It’s your birthday tomorrow! You can have your gift today!” and gave me some lovely bath stuff that had ‘Happy birthday, beautiful!’ written on it. N’aww.

Back at the hotel, Lauren and I went on our Lift Adventures; we went to the 48th floor, and back down again, just because glass elevators are now and will forever remain endlessly entertaining. Then we went up to the 42nd floor where the gym was, but sadly we’d forgotten our trainers. Bummer. We went on Lift Adventures every night, and sometimes we’d get cheered on by friendly Americans: “You go girls, let it all out!” Hoorah for glass elevators and nice people!

Tune in for tomorrow’s blog when we’ll be celebrating my 21st birthday at Central Park and the Upper East Side, with special guest appearances from Elphaba: the Wicked witch of the West. Oh, how I spoil you… (seriously though, it was amaze).