How to not spend money in NYC: Don't Do Anything.

By Caitlin

Ok, well not "nothing," but we didn't do a lot of typical NYC touristy stuff.  I guess we're just not museum people, Or Theatre lovers. Or city-view obsessed (at least not for $30 a person to go up to the top of the Roc). So that made not spending money pretty easy. What did we do? We walked a lot and we ate a lot.  With only a few days in the city, we were more focused on wandering around than spending time at any one site. We spent time in the Financial district, Brooklyn, Midtown, SoHo, Chelsea, Meatpacking, Union Square, West Village, Flat Iron District and Greenwich Village...we covered a lot of ground in 48 hours and actually never took a cab ...though we did rent Citi bikes!  Jed was channeling his inner New Yorker (which he sort of is by birth) when he nearly got into a shouting match with a large man who was casually strolling in the bike lane while we were biking up 8th avenue. 

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By the end, we did, however, have very sore feet. pro tip: If your travel companion has an inexplicable pain in his foot and is hobbling through Madison square park, switch shoes! Obviously, this only works if you have similarly sized feet and are both wearing gender-neutral shoe styles. lucky for Jed I have big feet and happened to be wearing Men's shoes. (No shame!) 

"Parks are awesome."--Leslie Knope.
We spent the better part of a day in Central Park. I wish we lived in NY just for this park. To be in it and to not see city in any direction would make living in a vast sea of steel and concrete so much better.  It made me wish I had a dog, and rollerblades, and was capable of running the 6 mile perimeter.  It also made me wish we had $528 billion so we can purchase the park as our own private playground.  We also really enjoyed the High Line,  a repurposed elevated train line that is now a park. It's a beautiful landscaped path through a few cool 'hoods that had buildings with really funky architecture. Even though there were a lot of people on it, it seemed immune to the bustle of the rest of the city.  

What is so cool about New York City? It's regarded as one of the best cities in the world and I wanted to know why. I lived in a pretty awesome city for a few years (Chicago shout-out) so how different could NYC be? At the end of our trip I'll feel more informed to offer an opinion on the best cities, but I can say we fantasized about how cool it would be to live in the Big Apple as we strolled through the city streets. 

My only regret is that I didn't meet Beyoncé.