The Big Apple

Every Twenty-Something is supposed to love New York City. Right?

As an aspiring writer and a lover of art and history, my hopes for New York City were high.

Hell, I’m a blonde girl with as broad of a liberal arts degree available and a decent amount of self-deprecation. If Lena Dunham’s GIRLS has taught me anything its that those qualifications are a recipe for New York residency.

I did not love New York when I visited the first time. But, to be fair, the last time I visited New York I was on my first set of braces and the twin towers were still standing. So it had been a while to say the least.

This time I tried; really, I did.

The boy and I went on vacation last week to visit his grandmother who lives in a New Jersey suburb and relax a bit with good books and some sightseeing. We spent three days in “the city.” We visited Washington Square, the Twin Tower Memorial, the MOMA, Rockafeller Center (Christmas tree and all), Times Square (twice), and we ate at Bobby Flay’s Restaurant. We found a local coffee shop and a local craft beer bar. We saw a brilliant musical on broadway. We ate a lot of M&M’s from the M&M store.

Overall, it was a really good trip. I came home with three read books and a lot of good memories. But I did not manage to acquire the New York Itch that causes so many people to arrive at their final destinations desperate to return to Chelsea, or Greenwich, or the Upper East Side, or Downtown or Uptown.

I never have been a very good twenty-something though.

first photo courtesy of LukeDaDuke via Flickr Creative Commons