the city that never sleeps
-
Category
Fashion & Style
The stars aligned this month for a quick trip to NYC for me -- a quiet week at work coincided with an invitation to two events that I didn't want to miss in the city, so before I could second-guess the decision, I booked a flight.
{Side note: I'm still trying to figure out when my idea of a "Can't Miss" event became a fundraising dinner with the dean of my law school... When did I become such a grown-up?!}
But I was overdue for a trip and this was a great excuse, so I kissed Bear and Chad good-bye for a couple of days and hopped on a plane.
And oh my gosh, you guys. New York. Sometimes I still miss it so much.
Every time I go back, it takes me a little bit of time to adjust. For the first day or so, you have to get used to all the buildings, all the people, all the rushing and hustling and nonstop motion of the city. It's a little overwhelming. It's also completely amazing.
A while back, I wrote about our decision to leave New York -- it was a really hard one for me, because I knew that I wanted the life that we could only have outside the city, but I wasn't sure I wanted it just yet. I kept wanting "one ore year" of our life the way it was, our cozy one-bedroom in Greenwich Village where I could walk to my favorite gelato shop or all the way to my office in midtown on a sunny day. I loved the diversity and the culture and the food and all the amazing things that only emerge when you pack about a million people into a few square miles.
Yes, it was expensive and exhausting and challenging every day. No, I didn't mind one bit.
But if there's one thing that's almost as good as living in New York, it's this: visiting New York as a former New Yorker.
It's amazing because you can experience the city any way you want. You can see friends and visit favorite spots and remember exactly what your life was like. You can walk by your old apartment door or the place you met your husband (ahem, ahem). New York changes every day, but no matter how long you're gone, there's always somewhere to come home to.
But on the flip side, you can also do something else. You can experience it as a tourist. And in the four years since we left, that's the part I'd been missing. I've gone back frequently, but I've always had an insane schedule that left me running around from morning till night.
This time? I had a whole afternoon off. A very rare luxury for me, so I wanted to make the most of it.
So I experienced New York as a visitor. I shopped at Saks and spent too much on sunglasses. I went to a museum, just to look around. And then I took myself out for dessert at the Rainbow Room, which is a bar on the top of Rockefeller Center that's been around since the 30's. It probably the most touristy, vacation-er, guidebook-hyped spot in the entire city.
No native New Yorker would ever show their face there.
But, you know what? Although sometimes it makes me a little sad to admit it, I'm not a New Yorker anymore. And as a visitor, sometimes those tourist-y, guidebook-hyped spots are exactly what you're craving.
Sometimes you just want to sit back, and enjoy the view.
And so I did.