I was allowed another "sleep in" day at the hostel. Rightfully so, since we stayed out late the night before. Well, all the other girls in the room were definitely in vacation mode (rightfully so I suppose) and woke up ultra early. And were super noisy about it. I had my alarm set for 8:15. I woke up a lot earlier than that because everyone in the room was so noisy. Oh well. I still enjoy the hostel. It was a lot cheaper than any hotel. I don't know if I mentioned how much it was. It was only $45 per night. Super cheap. Way nice for what we paid I thought. I would stay there again.
Our hostel beds
We left by 10 so that we could get find the church on time, and get some breakfast quick also. Church started at 11. It was one of the Manhattan singles wards, and their meeting building is in the same building as the Manhattan temple! There's a metro stop practically across the street, so we got straight there. We figured out where to go. You go in the same entrance as the main temple entrance. If you were to go into the temple, you would have to scan your recommend and such and go one way, but since we were just going to the meeting building we went the other way and to the third floor.
As soon as we knew those were our plans, we went and got some breakfast real quick. We found, again, another cute cafe thing, and both got bagels for breakfast. When we got to church we saw the program and remembered it was Fast Sunday. Crap.
We went back to the church, and sat down. Emily and I generally sit in the front center in our ward in Baltimore, so we did the exact same in NYC. We weren't ashamed of it either. We were a few minutes early. Right away, I saw someone I knew! Brody Priest, from my ward that I grew up in. I've known him my whole entire life! He's now living out in NYC. I wasn't expecting to see him there! He even served his mission in Baltimore a few years back, which adds another twist to things. It was really fun to see someone that I knew in a place that was so far away from home! The ward was so great as well. There were tons of people compared to the Bmore ward. The bishopric member who was conducting even had all of the people in the congregation whose records weren't in that ward stand up, and nearly 2/3 of the people there stood up. That means there were a TON of visitors/investigators/temps/other random people. So cool. I even saw Kedric Glenn, a guy I'm friends with from back in Logan who used to live on Darwin with me. He was there visiting his sister. Such a small world!
Manhattan NY Temple
After Sacrament meeting, we left (we didn't want to stay for the full three hour block...) we walked over to Central Park. It wasn't at all like I imagined it to be. City parks are kind of....lacking compared to the ones back home that I'm used to. But. Don't get me wrong. It was still Central Park. So it was super awesome to be there. We found some really big rocks to go sit on after we walked around a little bit.
Then we walked around some more, and just kind of explored the park as a Sunday activity. In doing so, we found a whole row of caricature artists. I was so excited! Caricature are sooo awesome. I love them! I have this weird giddy excitement about them. I thought they would be freakishly expensive. I walked by one particular artist that I really liked, and I saw his price. It was only $10. I HAD to do it. I walked past, but later turned around and decided that I really did want to do it, and that it was worth it. How often can you get your caricature drawn in Central Park NY? I sat on this guys stool for about 15 min while he drew a picture of me. Emily watched, and giggled at times. I really wanted to see what was going on, but I couldn't!! Every passerby would look at the drawing, and then at me, and then smile. I knew it had to be good. I was so excited to see it. I had Emily take pics of the process.
When I saw the final product, I laughed. He totally gave me a ton of cleavage (I was wearing modest clothing!), and an alcoholic beverage...but oh well. Haha, it's still super cute! I LOVE LOVE LOVE my eyes in the drawing.
I had to pay an extra $10 for the mat to cover the drawing in. Darn it hidden costs! Oh well, it was still worth it I thought! So much fun :) It's my fun souvenir from NYC.
After we finished walking through Central Park we checked out 5th Avenue, which is where all the really expensive, high class shopping is in NYC. There is no way in the world that Emily and I were going to go in the stores as two girls backpacking through the city. We just looked though the windows. The stores were like nothing I had ever seen before. Super high class to the max. I don't understand how anyone would ever have the kind of money to even want to shop there. Trump Tower is located on 5th Avenue. Everyone was taking pics, so I did too :)
Following 5th Avenue, we were starting to get hungry. We had one specific meal planned for our NYC trip for a while, and we still had not had it yet. Emily and I share a passion for Indian food, and Emily had looked up the best Indian place in NYC. Milon. It's on Curry Row. We took a metro for a bit, and then had to walk a bit more to get to it. We got there, and this is what it looks like inside:
Awesome, right?! Yeah. It's completely covered inside in lights that hang down the ceiling to about as tall as I am. We spent forever looking at the menu deciding what we wanted. I got a more classic dish, a Chicken Coconut Korma, and of course some naan bread. Let me tell you. I'm pretty sure that it was THE best Indian I have had. Maybe I was just so hungry and had been anticipating it for a long time...but seriously...it was SO good. Emily and I devoured our food like mad men. It was the best food decision of the entire trip. And the best Indian I've had in a long time.
Then we went to a high rise walkway...thing. It probably has a name, but I'm not sure what it is :) Basically what this thing is though is a high rise walkway in the city with a bunch of plants on it. It's kind of like a nature walk sort of thing I suppose. There are a lot of native plants there. It's a maybe a mile and a half or two miles long? We thought it would be a really nice Sunday activity. I really did enjoy it. I thought it was cool to see plants in the city. I like how they were plating stuff and what not. It was still too city-esque for me though. I prefer real nature. They had real grass planted, just like grass back home, and I had to touch it! It was the first time I had touched anything like that since May. All the grass they have here at parks and stuff is not like the grass at home. I wish I would have taken pics of this, but I didn't. I think I was just too tired. And...my feet were ultra tired at that point too :)
By then it was almost time to go. We had to start walking back to our bus to get back to Bmore. Emily really wanted Pinkberry (frozen yogurt) one last time before leaving NYC, so we walked there one more time, too. We got there, ordered our froyo, and then had to leave to get on the bus. It was a lot of walking to where we needed to in time, but we did it. I finished my froyo as we were getting on the bus.
The bus ride home was pretty uneventful. I slept the first half. Then there was a rest stop. I stayed awake the rest of the way home. We arrived at Penn Station in Baltimore at like 11pm that night. Our friend Lauren was super nice and picked us up so that we could get home safe.
The trip was so much fun! Thank you Emily for being willing to do this with me :) It really was a dream vacation come true. I never imagined that it would be a weekend venture on a bus, backpacking, at a hostel. But I also never imagined that it would be so much fun, and that the memories I created would be as great as they are.
How much was the total for the caricature?
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