I had the scare of my life at my hotel room. Someone knocked on my door at 3am! I must have jumped out of my bed. I asked “Who is it?” and heard a mumble at the door, but then I yelled back “Ummm. I think YOU got the WRONG ROOM!” I heard another mumble and then complete silence. By the time I got the nerve to check the peep hole, he was gone. Talk about a New York moment! I was scared shitless!
In the morning I slept in later than I wanted to, mostly because of the door incident. I didn’t realize that my friend had already messaged me that he was waiting for me by Battery Island. I jumped in the shower and got ready as fast as I could. Apparently he was waiting for me at a Starbucks, but I ended up at the wrong one. I felt bad because I knew he had been waiting for a while. I jumped in an Uber to save time heading to the other Starbucks. Luckily it was the right one and we went over to the ticket booth to purchase our ferry tickets. It was set to sail in 15 minutes! Whew!
I grabbed some coffee and we found a spot outside on the boat. Obviously I was getting anxious again. I had to sit down when it took off, but I did manage some courage to get up once in a while to take some pictures once the Statue of Liberty was closer. My friend was at the end of the boat snapping pictures himself.
We docked and then walked over but found out the hard way that we couldn’t get to the Statue. We had to purchase tickets online and it was sold out. So much for that. At that point we took some pictures surrounding Lady Liberty and went back on the boat to head to Ellis Island.
Ellis Island was very informative! We spent hours there, learning about how the United States came about. They also included where most of the migrants settled in the U.S. We even watched a short movie about the conditions the boats were in for traveling to the New World. It put a lot of things into perspective for me, especially since my family came from Guatemala.
Afterwards, we headed back to the boat and discussed what to do next. By this time, it was 2pm and we were getting hungry. We decided on Italian food and a fellow passenger suggested we head to the Upper East side. I yelped a couple of restaurants, but we decided to check again once we arrived in the neighborhood to get a better idea on where to go.
We settled on Via Della Pace restaurant and luckily there weren’t too many people inside. We were taken care of right away. My friend enjoyed his pasta and mine was absolutely delish! I ate the whole bowl! We knew we weren’t too far from Soho and my friend needed to purchase some headphones for the marathon. We found the Apple store and while he spoke to a sales rep, I had the opportunity to charge my phone. I was having the worst luck with my phone the whole time I was there. I needed to charge it constantly. I hardly used the data! Sometimes taking photos drained my phone. It was becoming a nuisance. The sales rep suggested for me to purchase a new battery, but I figured I would do this when I got back to Chicago.
My friend decided on some earphones, but he still needed a sweatband for his forehead for the race. We found a Nike store and looked around. I didn’t realize how many people were at Soho! There were so many tourists shopping around. My friend was surprised I wasn’t shopping myself, but I wanted to make sure he got what he needed for the marathon.
We headed back to his hotel in Times Square to rest up for a bit. His roommate was there and he was getting his things together for the marathon. Unfortunately, it was Daylight Savings weekend, and the time was going to change at 2am. They had to get up at 4am to get ready and have a marathon breakfast buffet the hotel was hosting. Then their charter bus was going to head out at 6am to Staten Island.
My friend got his things ready for the marathon as well. He then grew hungry again (since we had the pasta early afternoon). He knew he had to sleep early tonight, so we headed to Mamma Mia pizzeria down the street from his hotel. We ordered a margaritha pizza to share and then called it a night. I went back to my hotel but since I wasn’t doing the race myself, I took time to walk into some souvenir shops along the way. I also got a chance to pass by Radio City Music Hall. Their Christmas Tree was already up!
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