48 Hours In Manhattan | NYC Street Diaries

If I wanted to be technical, I actually had about 44 hours in Manhattan. And then a total of about 20 hours on a train, round trip. But you know, for the sake of it being almost two days exactly, I'll fudge the title of this blog post. At least you know the truth now.

I like these sort of street diaries posts because they give me an excuse to use iPhone snaps that I take that I don't necessarily want to put on Instagram. Also because they are, admittedly, easy to do when I am short on time and don't have somebody to take photos of me. And I guess also because I like when things are a little gritty and deconstructed and aren't perfect. Not that the rest of my posts are perfect, but ya know, compared to these dodgy iPhone 6 snaps, they look like masterpieces.

My train got into Manhattan at around five p.m. on Thursday evening and my train back to the opposite side of the state departed from Penn Station at one p.m. on Saturday afternoon. I had my little end of the week blip in New York City, in which I spent a majority of my time holed up in a family friend's apartment because I think it might just be my New York happy place. And also because the weather was quite shit while I was there. That didn't help either.

The main reasoning for my trip was for some ~business~ to be tended to in SoHo on Friday. I considered staying an extra day but one more day in New York always means one more day of spending and my savings does not trust me on Broadway in SoHo. Or really, anywhere in New York. I can spend my money anywhere, I don't discriminate against neighborhoods to shop in.

Thursday was spent trying to rehydrate (I don't like drinking on the bus because I don't like public restrooms all that much and I hate abandoning my seat and belongings on the train) and relax while running on approximately four hours of sleep, if that. My screwed up sleep schedule and habits are another story for another post, but it was just a chill night in with my family and family friends who basically are family, let's be real. We had snacks, caught up, ate a lovely dinner, and watched one too many game shows before I promptly tried to pass out (and failed, naturally). 

Then I had that stuff to do on SoHo on Friday, which ended up being a cold, rainy, and very windy day. I had all intentions of "window shopping" (we all know my self-control isn't that good) in SoHo, but the rain and wind had other plans. My umbrella is a piece of garbage and I just really wasn't in the mood trying to dodge other people's umbrellas while also simultaneously trying not to maul people with mine and poke an eye or two out. This is why I don't mess with umbrellas, but at the same time, I also don't mess with coats that have hoods, so I'm most likely doomed to an eternity with soggy hair if I don't stop being so stubborn.

After a particularly embarrassing event with my umbrella that involved a lot of betrayal on its part, I decided that maybe it was time to head back to Chelsea and avoid the outside for a while. That was, until, the gremlin inside my brain craved Cha Cha Matcha and I knew from one of my last trips to New York that the Chelsea location was in decent walking distance. I ran a Twitter poll (could you tell that it was 2018?) and decided that I could brave the rain again, sans the umbrella because I wasn't about to risk it going inside out on me in front of a crowd of people and then proceed to smack me in the face when I try to fix it. Effing umbrella. 

I changed into an outfit that I think I literally wore on the blog two weeks ago, but you know what, Kate Sanders can call me an outfit repeater all she wants. I adore the look and the hood on the sweater/sweatshirt hybrid substituted an umbrella and saved me a second moment of embarrassment for the day. It's starting to become that time of year where I only crave iced drinks from now on, so I got my usual matcha with soy milk latte iced and then, of course, my sweet tooth wouldn't let me leave without a matcha dossant. My heart was coveting a matcha croissant, but alas, there were none, so I settled. 

This was, of course, followed by a viewing of The Devil Wears Prada and another delicious dinner with the same lovely trio of family as the night before. And then by a healthy dose of catching up on YouTube while I tried to lull myself to sleep so I wasn't a miserable hag on the train the next day.

I genuinely wish I had more to report back on from this trip to New York. It was less of a trip for fun and more of a trip out of necessity. I wasn't there long enough to make plans with friends and it was fairly last minute on my part, compared to my other trips in the past year. But hey, shit happens sometimes! That's chill. I've learned over the course of the past two years of me going to the city for long periods of time that I'm not a teenaged tourist anymore. I don't need to be out every single second of every single day. I can just chill and enjoy being in the city. It's a nice comfortable feeling, unlike being cramped on the train for ten hours straight. I'm not bitter.

Since I did just about nothing in New York, I decided that I might as well talk about the two books I read on my train rides there and back to take up some space, especially since I really did enjoy both of these books very, very much.

On the train ride there, I tackled Scrappy Little Nobody by Anna Kendrick. I've been dying to read this for a while, but I'm stubborn when it comes to buying 95% of books and will always wait until they're out in paperback. I hate hardcover books. So. Much. I digress, I had heard amazing things about this book and find Anna Kendrick clever and hilarious. I figured if this book was anything like her tweets, I'd be in good shape. 

I'm not going to drone on and on about this book because I can't talk about books, as you might know by now, and people who leave positive reviews will be able to say it ten times better than I ever could. I just found it extremely entertaining without being...too out there. It was very real while still coming from a celebrity. I'm a nosy person by nature, so it was interesting to delve into her childhood, her history with acting (including her blips on Broadway as a child and independent films in high school), and her struggle to become the Anna Kendrick she is today in Hollywood. I mean, I even cried reading this book for god's sake! Damn you, Anna, for talking about the death of a grandparent! 

All jokes aside, if you're a fan of Anna Kendrick's existence and like books of essays...Scrappy Little Nobody should absolutely be on your bookshelf.

I tackled this behemoth of a book on the train ride home. This took me around seven hours to read, which is probably the longest it has taken me to read a book in one sitting in a very long time. I first bought The Royal We back in September when I was in Toronto with my friends and...it has sat on my bedside table since. I had high expectations for this book and I knew it was going to be great, so I kept putting it off for the moment that I'd be able to dedicate enough time to it because I knew I wasn't going to want to put it down. Even if I wasn't stuck on a train with no other form of entertainment, this book would have been finished in one sitting. There are no ifs, ands, or buts about it. It's not that I couldn't put this book down out of fear of being bored, I didn't want to and honestly, I don't think anybody would've been able to pry it out of my hands.

I don't care about anything royal related, to be honest. Kate Middleton's style is great and Prince Harry is smoking hot (so is Meghan though, let's be real), but other than that, I'm not fascinated with the monarchy. At first, before I heard shining reviews about it, I assumed that this book would be one that I let other people obsess over. And then I was convinced by my friends that I would love it and like, trust your friends, guys. They won't steer you wrong. 

Since this book is so fresh in my mind, I know I'm going to spoil it if I try to even talk about details and plot because...it's a lot. I mean, this book is massive and has some time jumps and covers a lot. Like, a lot a lot. To sum it up, Rebecca Porter is an American studying at Oxford in England where the heir to the throne, Nicholas (Nick to everyone, basically) goes to school. She lives on his floor and gets sucked into his group of friends and they fall in love, eventually. That isn't a spoiler. The back of the book talks about their wedding day, so, we're good there. What happens between the first chapter and the last chapter is just a whirlwind of crazy that had me laughing and almost wanting to cry and then laughing again. 

I thought this book was hilarious and addicting. Some could argue that it could've been shorter but I'm selfish and I'm used to reading 200,000+ stories on the internet so...I'll take the 450+ pages of this story by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan any day. 

Also, not to plug my Goodreads, but I post what I'm reading on there and update my progress. Though, more often than not, I finished in one sitting so...that function isn't as interesting. Let's be friends on there so I can stalk your feed for new books to read! I mean, so...nope, that's what I meant. I know what I said!

SaveSave