If you know me, you know that something like New York City is the true wilderness, wildlife everywhere! Since I was flying through on my way to Morocco, I decided to spend a week and see what the place is really like! Connecting and reconnecting, wandering and walking, enjoying the arts… I feel like I had a proper New York City experience!

 

With prohibitively, expensive hotel rates, I ended up using kindred, a house swapping app. And since I had a referral code, I got five nights before having to swap my own home. A fantastic way to check out the program! Overall, I thought it was super cool and I ended up with a sweet studio apartment in lower Manhattan, around $85 a night fee and service fee balance, a fantastic deal, I thought.

 

My second day I headed south, and on my way into Chinatown, little Italy, and the lower east side, motivated first by eating a bagel at the recommended Russ and daughters, and then by finding my way to the financial district to lay eyes on Wall Street. I didn’t have time to go to the 911 memorial or the ferry to Staten Island because I was heading uptown to meet a dear friend from high school for dinner and a night at the opera!

The show was The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, and I really didn’t know what to expect.  Perhaps I had a true opera experience because by the end I was move to tears by both the presentation and the message. It was a stunning work of art, and super engaging at every step. It is unreal what people do with their voices and the live music of the Orchestra enhanced the experience in ways I don’t totally have words for. What was even more fun is that music is to Ari what the mountains are for me, and so it was fantastic to experience the opera through his eyes and influence, enhancing my experience. 

The highlight of day three was wandering that led me to places like the Highline and Chelsea Market before meeting up with Ari and together exploring Rockefeller Center, including the viewing deck from the top.

We topped our evening off with the Broadway show called Maybe Happy Ending.  i’ve been contemplating the question in life, “what is Love?” And the performance endeavors down a similar path of inquiry, arriving at a similar position, it seems. That love is many things, and even the same type of love can be so different for the people involved; varies even by individual for those involved. The music and set were impressive, and I can certainly see why the production won 6 Tonys, including Best Musical! 

My final day I was feeling stimulus fatigue and frankly endeavored to “do less.” I went on a mission to retrieve an Amazon order from what ended up being the SOHO area and found my way through there and Tribeca before meeting up with a friend to cross the Brooklyn Bridge and enjoy lunch before coming back on the ferry. It was cool to see how distinct the character of Brooklyn is from Manhattan and to get a taste of it! And of course fantastic to catch up with a friend because one of my primary reasons for a New York stop was to build and strengthen connections. I enjoy knowing really diverse and interesting people, and anyone who calls New York home certainly fits that bill!

I got coffee with a new friend before doing most of my packing and making it to Thursday kitchen for dinner. And I kept off my New York experience with a comedy show, which was a legitimately good choice! Most legitimately funny, it was everything I thought a comedy club might be.

One final coffee at 787 and I was off to JFK for a hop across the pond 😎