The last and final installment of MEGAN TAKES NEW YORK CITY 2021. ( I hope you yelled that in your head).
___
The Statue of Liberty was a sure-thing for me to do. I mean, I'm already in New York, I have to see some history!
TIP: If your boat ride to Liberty Island is at a certain time, get in line at least 20 minutes early! They check bags and screen you (which I had no idea about.)
We also took the official way to get on the island via Statue Cruises. I recommend this ferry 1,000%. I bought sketchy tickets for another cruise around the island and didn't read the reviews before I bought them. As I was in contact with the place, trying to make my reservation, they were extremely rude via email. THEN I read the reviews. They were so bad that I decided to not put us in danger and got official tickets!
Anyway, the ferry ride itself isn't nausea-inducing, so that was a plus for me. I'm saying it was maybe 10 minutes long to get to the Island. They have tons of benches to sit on but you can also stand to get a better view.
Liberty Island itself wasn't all that big. It had a museum, a gift shop, and the actual statue. And of course, beautiful views of the New York Skyline! Here's a cool picture of me and the skyline:
I was kind of bummed about all the construction around the base of the statue. The nice pictures of the statue definitely suffered with the tacky forklifts in the background. But it was still cool to see up close. For some reason, the museum actually made me tear up? It was weird, but it happened.
TIP: Ellis Island and Liberty Island are TWO DIFFERENT ISLANDS! I was so confused about that. The ferry ticket includes both islands, but we didn't end up going to Ellis Island unfortunately.
That was our big adventure for the day as we were definitely tired.
The next day, though, turned out to be a big one for me!
I met a lovely lady named Mavis on Twitter in 2015, during the One Direction era. She was my age, we loved a lot of the same things, but...she lived on the East Coast where as I lived in the Midwest. After years of saying "come visit me" to each other, I got Mavis to come to New York City to meet up during this trip!
By far, one of my favorite humans I know. She is exactly as sweet and funny as she is over text. Plus, she's probably going to be hired by me in the future to be my photographer. That girl has camera skills!
I first met up with her by picking her up at a bus station nearby and we hugged like we were meeting for the first time (LOL). Later on after our breakfast, I left Noe in the hotel room and dragged Mavis to explore more of New York with me.
I wanted to go to NY's biggest bookstore for a long time, The Strand. I finally went and it did NOT disappoint in being so big. They claim to sell 18 miles of books!
I bough some merch and of course, some books, then we headed out to chill in Union Square Park. New York City has way more parks than I even knew. Mavis got melty ice cream and we sat and just talked and took cute pictures.
Then, we got pierced. We looked online for a while for a piercing shop close by that would accept walk-ins but to no avail. I wanted my second nose piercing and Mavis wanted her 4th ear piercing. Alas, the magical Mavis found a shop, she called to make sure we could come in, and they said yes! So, we got piercings at a little shop where Christina and Britney got pierced at before. Iconic. Also, mine hurt so bad. Not complaining though because it's CUTE.
FRIENDS WHO GET PIERCED TOGETHER, STAY TOGETHER
We then picked up Noe after our adventurous day and went to dinner at The Magic Hour, a rooftop restaurant. It was covered in pink roses and was SO Instagram worthy. Other than it being pretty, it...wasn't great. My food was not the best and the waitress never came back? We had to flag someone random down for the bill. But...the pictures turned out AWESOME
My favorite is the one with Mavis and I. Look at the Empire State Building at night!
We were kind of over that place, so we somehow ended up on the rooftop of Margaritaville at cool bar. The view was unmatched. The drinks were pretty good, too. The bartender was super cool (and took off some of my bill because drinks are way too expensive in NY. Thanks, sir!)
The night didn't end there! We left the rooftop bar and ended up in the heart of Times Square. I didn't go that deep into it last time, but we sat on the red stairs and everything this time. Here's Mavis showing her camera skills off with Noe:
My favorite picture she took of me was definitely this one, as she shouted at me "We need some bag action! Bring the bag in front!" (Good call, Mavis).
Then, we went back to the hotel, and slept.
__
The next day was our day to leave. Mavis, Noe, and I went out to breakfast, we went into mall (where I finally purchased Gucci Bloom perfume for the first time. FANCY!) and then said our goodbyes.
It was a very tiring trip and our plane home kept getting delayed. I finally arrived at my actual house around 3 AM. I was exhausted to say the least.
But hey, New York was QUITE the experience!
____
Just wanted to thank some people: Noe, Mavis, my mom, Noe's brother (for driving us to the airport), and my poor body that got brochities because of the plane ride (yikes). And thank you all for reading my New York City adventure!
Any guesses where I'll be going next? ;)