I have so many amazing photos and things I want to share about our trip to New York that I had to write about it. We booked our trip to the Big Apple almost exactly a year ago and I am still dreaming about walking the streets of Fifth Ave pretending to be in Gossip Girl.
I am going to do a series of posts about our time in NYC – a bit like a New York City Guide, but I have SO many photos and we actually managed to squeeze a lot in, that one blog post just wouldn’t cut it.
SO.
I had been putting off booking our trip to New York for so long. I am the worst flyer and even the thought of getting on a plane was enough to put me off altogether. But last November, I eventually booked it for January – I thought that booking it so close to going would help me get over the nerves of flying but I was wrong. But somehow, I did it. I still had a huge panic attack while we were waiting to board and I still cried as we were taking off – but after that, I was fine. I managed to relax and I even watched a film. I felt anxious during some turbulence but I was so much better than I used to be when flying. I have never been so relieved to have spent an entire flight in my seat watching back to back episodes of Friends than in the toilet having a panic attack. And on the flight back, there were no panic attacks and no tears – don’t get me wrong, I am still terrified but to not have to spend my whole holiday dreading the flight back was amazing. I actually managed to enjoy the entire week without even thinking about flying home.
Okay, on to the good stuff.
We landed at Newark airport at around 12 noon on the 12th of January (we stayed for 5 nights), and we got an Uber to our hotel. We stayed in the Paramount Hotel and we were pretty much in the centre of Times Square – I don’t think we could have tried to get a more perfect location. The hotel was a beautiful, contemporary hotel with the most stunning lobby. The staff were incredibly friendly and were always so helpful. We stayed in the Broadway Classic room – it was quite small, but it is a boutique hotel and when you’re staying in somewhere like New York, you never really spend much time in your hotel room anyway. We were super pleased with it.
The decor of the hotel was gorgeous – the perfect combination of minimalism and contemporary.
We were so hungry by the time we had arrived and checked into the hotel. There was a Shake Shack opposite our hotel so as soon as we had checked in, we headed to get some food. After waking up at 3am to go to the airport and not being able to eat because I was so nervous about flying – oh my goodness, food had never tasted so good! Shake Shack was on my list of foods to try and I was SO impressed.
We didn’t do too much after we’d landed, we wandered around Times Square for a bit, had a mooch in some of the shops and wandered around the area we were staying. We got to grips with the area and came up with a plan of action for the following day. I also didn’t want to do too much on day one and wear myself out for the rest of the trip – I have with Arthritis and Fibromyalgia, so the eight hour flight on its own was more than enough to do me in. That being said, I also wasn’t going to let that get in the way of me doing what I wanted while in NYC.
We went back to the hotel for a little bit to warm up as it was SO cold. It was -4 pretty much the whole time we were there and it was impossible to stay warm! After we’d finally warmed up, we went back out to see Times Square at night and it was just amazing.
Despite how cold it was, seeing New York in Winter was one of the most magical things to experience. I would recommend everybody visiting at this time of year – it truly is incredible.
The perfect way to end our first day in New York.
itsmeegan 