New Jersey and New York
The first stop that I made was still in New Jersey when I boarded the ferry to go see the Statue of Liberty. I didn’t want to see Ellis Island because I know none of my descendents came through there. I just wanted to take pictures in front of Lady Liberty and during the ferry ride because you get to see the New York skyline. When I arrived from exiting the Holland Tunnel, I was so stoked! My heart is in London but people compare the two cities so I’ve always wanted to see if it was true. The first place I wanted to go was this shop on Broadway called Uniqlo. I love Uniqlo because their jeans fit me perfectly; I discovered the store in London and they only have one in the States so I just had to go. My sister is a southern, so she was getting very angry when people were honking their horn at her, cutting her off, and being rude. I had to tell her that everyone doesn’t have manners and New York is a hustle and bustle city so you better move your ass or car out the way. After she realized that she calmed down and happily shopped at H&M.; Lol. I didn’t care for the H&Ms; in New York; they are just 100% better overseas. New York is unnecessarily inconvenient. It’s too many people on one small space and everything is so close so the streets hardly have any space and there is no parking what so ever. Who said everyone wanted to take the subway? A place that takes 5 minutes to get to can easily take 20 minutes because of traffic. You would have to pay me an arm and a leg to move to New York. The city is like London, but I feel London has more space to move around, a little nicer, and less people packed into one space. However, parking in New York is a little easier on Sundays and you don’t have to feed the meters then. I walked through Grand Central Station, Chrysler Building, Rockefeller Plaza, to Radio City Music Hall, Times Square, and to the Empire State Building. Times Square was cool. I was happy that the stores stay open until the a.m. so I was able to get shopping done at 9 p.m. on a Sunday night. My favorite store there was the Disney store! Yes that’s what I said. The Forever21 had 4 floors, first time I’ve seen that. Next, I headed to this famous pizza place in Brooklyn called Grimaldi’s. It seemed like a nice hang out spot; I just got my 16” pizza to go. The pizza was good by the way. I just had to go across the Brooklyn Bridge so I did. I think I could stay in Brooklyn; the good part that is! The next day I road past Central Park while on the way to Harlem and omgee that park is big as hell! I guess because they feel that makes up for all the greenery they don’t have throughout the city. When I got to Harlem I thought, “Oh, this is where the black people are hiding.” Lmao! I took a picture in front of the Apollo Theatre. Promise you I felt like eye candy to all the men that were passing by but I’m not going to lie, I took the compliments though :). I wanted to try Manna’s Soul Food out because I love food and I wanted to see if the east coast can really cook Southern soul food. Honestly, the sides like Yams, Collard Greens, etc were great! But the meat wasn’t good to me, but they can cook some good ham and turkey…that’s about it. People not from the south or have had a lot of Southern home cooking may think it’s the best food ever so I could understand their high reviews of the food. Before I headed to the airport, I had to visit the #7 Mosque that Malcolm started in Harlem. After reading his autobiography I just have a high respect for that man; higher than any other civil rights activist. But in conclusion, I somehow ended up visiting all the boroughs because of all the driving that took place. But overall, I ended up having a great “East Coast Tour” vacation.
P.S. I will never talk about how bad Houston roads are again because New York’s are the worse!!!