23 hours in new york city.

i've talked smack about new york city since i knew what it was. i don't like busy cities, i don't like mean people, i don't like rat races, i don't like dirt, i don't like paying too much for my food, i don't like the cold.... here in my head i had created why new york city would not appeal to me. i took a totally random bus trip there for 23 hours and discovered something... I LOVE NEW YORK CITY. imagine that. in the short hours we had there, our only goal was to soak up the city. a good friend of ours advice was to walk, eat, drink, watch, repeat. we did exactly that and i am so glad we went took the random trip. it was busy, but it was buzzing with this brilliant energy. the people were NOT mean, by the way. in fact, they had a lot of character and personality, and were more open to striking up a conversation than a lot of people around here. as one of our cab drivers said, "there are nice people and bad people all over this world." (side note: the cabs terrified me so i made it my mission to sit in every seat in a cab while i was there). the front seat was the the last seat i tried, and it was surprisingly (or not) my favorite of all. the cab driver and i ended up having a 10 minute transcendent conversation about life, people, love, work, family and i harped on how we were all precious cargo and i also pleaded a little bit for him to avoid killing me with his aggressive driving. we had beautiful weather, yummy food, lots of walking, lights, people, energy, alcohol, laughs and a little bit of sleep. i loved it. below are just a few of my favorite pictures & i'm in the process of making a slideshow with stills and video but it's taking 9,000,000 years to load so when it finally decides it's ready i'll throw it up here. ironically, i didn't take that many pictures. for example i didn't have my camera in CENTRAL PARK (don't get me started on this story...) and obviously didn't take it out for late night debauchery. that only left a couple of daylight hours and a few minutes in times square at night. i tried to capture how new york city made me feel for that brief day.... i must say, i can't wait to go back. 

good times!