Hi everyone! I hope you're having a great weekend!! Earlier this week I had the wonderful opportunity to visit my BFF Anna at her home in NYC, which I have done several times before throughout high school, but it never fails to be a blast. I took pictures throughout it on my phone and camera and was able to compile this photo journal, which gives you a good idea of our adventures. Here are my favorites out of what we did:
~ On my first night we drove to the Rockaways -- a stretch of beaches in Queens -- and it was lovely to walk along the beach! It definitely was a more urban beach than what I was used to, haha, but nonetheless the ocean is the ocean.
~ On two of the mornings I was there I ran in Prospect Park, which is about a half mile walk from Anna's home, and I truly love that park! It can get monotonous to run there every morning, but it's a beautiful and extensive park with great running/walking/bike paths.
~ We went to the Met on my first full day there, which was a blast and sooo inspiring. While my family has been once before and that was super fun, that time we were pretty exhausted after a full race day in the city, so going on a fresh mind, and after having taken a full year of Honors Art History in school was absolutely fabulous. New York City always inspires me artistically, and there's no better place to get that inspiration than in the Met. This trip specifically I was looking for inspo on graffiti for a new art piece that I'm looking into, and boy did I get that while walking on the streets as well!
~ One of the other highlights of this week was going to my first ever Broadway show, which was simply AMAZING. I've never been super into musical theater, as I love watching shows and musicals, but I don't exactly listen to the music for fun in my free time. We spontaneously got standing room tickets to "Dear Evan Hansen" about an hour before the show started, and it truly did not disappoint. The acting spectacular of course, but I became deeply intrigued by the graphics on the background (check it out, it's insanely cool!) and how the set worked. The way that lighting and typography played into the story was so inspirational and I definitely left thinking about storytelling differently than when I walked in. The craziest surprise of the day happened when Anna and I were looking through the program five minutes before the start and realized that one of the main actors from one of our favorite shows, Stranger Things, was played one of the characters in Dear Evan Hansen! It was a little mind blowing and we were a little starstruck when he walked out, lol. He and the rest of the cast were incredible, and my first Broadway show was a raving 10/10 from me.
~ Our last adventure was the event that the whole trip had been scheduled around: a Mets game at Citi Field on Friday night. It was electrifying, even if the baseball itself didn't interest me too much, lol. Anna's family are baseball fanatics, and she's been telling me all about these games for so long, that at last I had to see one! Citi Field was scary huge, but fun, as we sat in the "nosebleeds", which are called that for being the highest seats in the stadium -- so high that we watched multiple planes fly scarily low above us into LaGuardia Airport. Unfortunately, the Mets lost to the Phillies in overtime, but it was still a blast and I left with a greater understanding of the extreme pride that New Yorkers seem to take in their baseball.
This short and sweet summer adventure in New York City was so fun, and I'm so thankful for the opportunity to travel and for Anna's family's hospitality!! Enjoy the photos below and have a wonderful day, wherever you're reading from. ❤️