Following on from my previous post, we continued on with the next part of our multi sector trip: New York! We departed out of Milan at 16:25 and it was 8 hours and 50 minutes over to John F Kennedy International Airport. Landing at 7pm, and feeling the 6 hour time difference from Europe we took the bus over to the hotel to check in. I was really looking forward to this part of the trip as well as first all, New York, but second of all my friend Scott had just relocated here and we were finally going to be able to catch up with each other after 3 years since we last saw each other at the University of Kansas!

I quickly changed and met Scott downstairs in the lobby. Scott is studying for his masters at Colombia (the brain box) and wasn’t too far from our hotel and after his busy day and my busy flight we went for drinks in Times Square!

A bit of a bar hop around the bright lights of Times Square, and me struggling to keep my eyes open we said our goodbyes and I made my way over to the hotel not before stopping for a Halal Guys. Halal Guys is just a small little food cart on the side of the road near Times Square. A girl I had flown with before raved about their food and said it was a must try when in New York. And I completely understand why! Usually I wouldn’t trust a food cart at the side of the road, especially when its 3am. But the food was amazing and I will most definitely be grabbing food from here again when in New York.

Waking early the next morning with the effects of jet lag but also wanting to make the most of the city, I got changed and took the subway down towards the high line. It was a beautiful day and after getting off at the wrong stop not once BUT TWICE (honestly when are they gonna make the subway as easy to use as the tube??) I grabbed a Starbucks and walked over to the entrance.

Clambering up the stairs I came out to a wonderful view filled with people making the most of the warm weather. The High Line (also known as High Line Park) is a 1.45 mile long (2.33 km) elevated linear park, greenway and rail trail. It was created on a former New York Central Railroad spur on the west side of Manhattan in New York City. Led by landscape architecture firm James Corner Field Operations, the abandoned railway has been redesigned as a “living system” that draws from multiple disciplines including landscape architecture, urban design, and ecology. Since opening in 2009, the High Line has become an icon in contemporary landscape architecture.

 

I walked along the 1 and a half mile stretch admiring the design of it. It was nice to see the greenery that had been built over the train tracks that you could still see peeking through the shrubbery.

Reaching the final end of the stretch, I quickly Google Mapped what was close by. My plan was to go to the Rockerfeller Centre to go to the top of the rock and seeing it was a 45 minute walk, I chose to walk in that direction rather than take the subway with it being a nice day.

Walking in the direction of the Empire State building so I can easily navigate towards the Flat Iron District and strolled the blocks of Manhattan. I’ve spent a good week in New York and never seen the Flatiron building and wanted to tick off another NY landmark and wandered on over.

The Flatiron Building, originally the Fuller Building, is a triangular 22 story steel framed landmarked building located at 175 5th Ave in the borough of Manhattan, New York City, and is considered to be a groundbreaking skyscraper. Upon completion in 1902, it was one of the tallest buildings in the city at 20 floors high and one of only two skyscrapers north of 14th Street – the other being the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower, one block east. The building sits on a triangular block formed by Fifth Avenue, Broadway, and East 22nd Street, with 23rd Street grazing the triangle’s northern peak. As with numerous other wedge shaped buildings, the name “Flatiron” derives from its resemblance to a cast iron clothes iron.

Feeling pretty peckish I wandered through Madison Garden Park when I came across Wagamamas. Not having had one in ages I grabbed a table and ordered some food whilst I skyped my Dad.

Finally on my way up to the Rockerfeller Centre I walked the length of 5th Avenue past all the amazing shops. Every single designer you can possibly think of is here. A girl can dream as she wanders past Harry Winston can’t she?

I stumbled past New York Public Library which I wondered about going inside. The building is beautiful and I can only imagine how the inside looks. With time pushing on and desperately wanting to nap before the overnight sector back to Milan and continued up 5th Ave.

With my time constraints I’d decided to give the Rockerfeller Centre a miss and just have a mooch around Central Park. I wanted to go back to Bethesda Terrace which I’d visited previously but before I watched Gossip Girl and wanted to relive the magic from where Chuck and Blair got married. So I had a leisurely stroll through the beautiful park filled with people walking their dogs, playing with their children or relaxing in the warm autumnal rays.

I could easily spend hours in Central Park wandering around and people watching. How nice it must be to live in New York and have this on your doorstep?

Feeling like I should make my way back, not before stopping into CVS for all my American drug store essentials, I passed the Empire Hotel (another Gossip Girl reference there for everyone) and tried to sleep before the flight.

A long day where I actually walked 10 miles (16.3km) around New York! But what better way to see the city rather than hiding on the subway?

Managing a total of 4 hours sleep in New York before the flight back, I was exhausted and it made for a tiring night time sector for the 8 hours back to Milan. A brilliant trip to break up the length of a US flight but it isn’t half a tiring one! We excitingly had a New York journalist on board our flight, Natasha Nyanin, reviewing our premium cabins. I’m still waiting for her to publish it so I can read her article but here is what she had to say on Instagram photographed with our lovely purser Nemanja.

You can’t always plan magic. I promised myself a long while ago to find poetry in the mundanity of journey-making and to remember that beauty will happen wherever one seeks it • On our late flight from JFK to MXP last night, we had the @emirates A380 lounge (and its crew) to ourselves. We thought we’d try to shoot a few photos but the light wasn’t on our side. The light was definitely inside though because what ensued was an hour of chatting with flight purser Nemanja, and attendants Olivier and Medy over seemingly bottomless glasses of Veuve Cliquot (for Colby and I, not the crew of course). We talked about Tennis (of course) (Someone is a big Djokovic fan and that person is not called Natasha), about the march of technology, the régression of humanity, the difficulty of ageing, how beautiful Ghana is, Ancelotti’s summary dismissal, what it’s like to witness an board death, and of course why each of them loves working for Emirates. My heart is stirred by such moments of uncalculated connection as occurred amongst our motley cast of international characters. Don’t give up on our world just yet: the invisible lines drawn by powerful men are still just that: invisible lines. • 2 Frenchmen, a Serb, a Ghanaian and a guy from Dublin, Georgia walk into a (sky high) bar. The rest is poetry. • #TheArtOfTravel #EmiratesAirline #LeMondeSabsFrontieres • Photo by @colbyblount

A post shared by Natasha Nyanin (@natashanyanin) on Sep 29, 2017 at 5:05pm PDT

 

I will try and include the link for her article when she’s uploaded it!

As always, feel free to follow me on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook for more daily updates:
http://www.twitter.com/Jessicaaahhh
http://www.instagram.com/Jessicaaahhh
http://www.facebook.com/JessicasJourneyWithEK