Our New York Trip

We decided to go on a short trip to New York to help me get used to the idea of moving to New York City. We just planned to go for a couple of days last week. The plan was initially to go apartment hunting but we found out that we got into on-campus housing---yay! So we didn't have to find an apartment which was nice.

We rode the redeye flight at 12:00 AM. When we got to the airport we found out that our flight was delayed, and we didn't end up leaving until an hour later. While we were waiting for our flight we heard an announcement for Stevenson to check in at the desk. Scott went to the desk and found out that they were bumping us up to first class! It was so nice riding the redeye while sitting in first class because we were so much more comfortable! It was nice and we were able to get a little bit of needed sleep. Here's a picture of us in first class:

We ended up getting to New York at about 7:30 or something in the morning. We rode the air train, then went on the subway to get to our hotel. Check-in at our hotel wasn't until 4:00 PM but we decided to drop off our bags early. After that, we decided to go see the campus where Scott will be attending school. We met with the housing people which weren't helpful at all! Then we met with financial aid, which was just as frustrating. After that Scott called our hotel to see if any rooms had become available early. They had a room for us, so we got to check in a couple of hours early! I fell asleep for a bit because I was so exhausted. We met up with a med student and his wife (they are from BYU, just finished up his first year at med school) and saw their apartment since it is very similar to ours. After seeing the apartment, it made me feel better about our future life. It is a bigger apartment than I was expecting which is really good! See pictures below:
On the second day, we decided to go apartment hunting to make sure we really wanted to live on campus. Scott made a few appointments with people to see some apartments. The first guy we met with basically just gave us a lecture the entire time. He kept saying the same things over and over about New York requirements with apartments. It turns out if you want an apartment in New York, you must have an income of 40 x's your rent. So if your rent is $2000 bucks a month, then you have to make $80,000 bones a year. If you don't make that much money than you have to have a guarantor (someone to sign with you in case you don't pay your rent). If you don't have that, then you have to pre-pay your rent like 6 months in advance. Since I don't have a job yet and we don't have that much money, the guy we talked to was giving us a hard time and wouldn't even show us anything. We ended up just leaving frustrated. We talked to a couple of other people, getting similar results. After our apartment hunting, we decided that we were sitting pretty with a darn good apartment on campus!

To bring up my spirit, Scott took me shopping on Canal Street! I was able to get some cute purses! But of course, Scott had to haggle the poor salesman to get a good price. I might just end up with an amazing purse collection by the time we are done living in New York :)
Here's my beautiful new purse!

For lunch, we went to Lombardi's for traditional New York Style Pizza because, well, that's just what you do when you go to New York! Traditional homemade thin crust dough, house-made fresh tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella and fresh basil, with meatballs. This is where pizza originated in New York, and some of the best pizza we've ever eaten.

We went to see the stores on 5th Avenue, looking at clothes and other fancy things way out of our price range! We went into the NBA store and saw this shrine to Michael Jordan. I thought that my brothers would appreciate it.

We also got some cheesecake because, well, that's just what you do in New York! Scott got Chocolate, and I got Strawberry.

The last day we also were able to walk through Central Park and people watch---something I love to do! We also saw the temple in Manhattan which was really cool.
Eventually, we flew home and were glad to be back! It was a tiring trip. We took the subway and walked everywhere! My feet were so sore--I decided that I'm going to get into really good shape living there since I will have to walk anywhere I want to go. I also decided that I'm never going to be able to straighten my hair because each time I did, it just went frizzy! It was a good trip but sort of stressful and emotional for me. There were a few times where I just thought, "this is going to be my life?" And other times where things were looking more positive for me. It is going to be hard moving---but an adventure at the same time.