A Few Hours in New York City

A big shoutout to United Airlines for cancelling the first leg of my trip twice thanks to the Boeing 737-MAX9 plane. In an effort to prevent flying planes where doors fall off, they were temporarily grounded. Lucky me, had an itinerary where my first leg from Tampa (TPA) to Newark (EWR) was on this model of aircraft. After getting cancelled once, I called United and sat on the phone for an hour and a half and bumped my itinerary back a day. Same flight times, just rather than Thursday to Friday, my trip was now Friday to Friday. One day less, but, still had a hour and a half layover in Newark, which would be efficient.

24 hours later after rescheduling, I was sent the same text again from United saying that the first leg of my trip was cancelled. Thanks again to the faulty craftsmanship of this new Boeing aircraft. I hopped back on the phone looking to reschedule. I couldn’t afford to waste another day and bump the itinerary back, as Spain is six hours ahead of Eastern time and my flight across the Atlantic is a red eye. So, leaving EWR at 7:15 P.M. flying roughly seven hours across the ocean, and landing in Barcelona at 9 AM, it wasn’t practical to only have five days in the country if I were to bump it back a day again. Therefore, I had to bite the bullet and endure a 7+ hour layover at the Newark airport. I initially thought about throwing this trip in the garbage, but knew that if I did, I would regret not experiencing a new country just because I didn’t want to deal with a seven hour layover. I am very thankful that I chose to deal with it.

After brainstorming different possibilities on what to do sitting around for seven hours, I looked the possibility of heading to New York City (NYC). To my surprise, there is actually a train that can take you from EWR to Penn Station in NYC. This seven hour layover had the potential to be turned from a negative, into a positive. As I have never been to the nation’s largest city.

Before I knew it, Friday morning came and I took a 9:10 A.M. flight from TPA to EWR. After roughly 2.5 hours I landed in Newark. I took the EWR Airtrain to a different train station, where I bought a ticket with the NJ transit to Penn Station. 

In a perfect world I had three goals for my few hours in NYC: See Times Square, 9/11 Memorial, and see an aerial view of Central Park and the skyline.

Luckily, Penn Station is within walking distance of Times Square, so I popped open Apple Maps and started trekking there.

Times Square was pretty cool. Definitely one of those touristy things, but I’m glad I saw it. I took a few photos and wandered for a bit. Eventually passing Radio City Music Hall which was cool to see, as it used to be the site for the NFL draft.

After that I walked to the Rockefeller Center hoping to take part in the “Top of the Rock” exhibit where you can see an aerial view of the city. I walked inside to the ticket both and was told “the visibility is zero” and was told not to buy a ticket. Which I very much appreciated them telling me. No worries, as this gave me more time to do other activities.

I called a Lyft (Not Uber ;) and headed to the 9/11 Memorial. It took me around half an hour (I think more) to get there. I got to see the Brooklyn bridge on the way there, which is an iconic bridge in NYC.

I finally arrived to the 9/11 memorial and the first thing I saw was the New World Trade Center. Unfortunately it was foggy and I couldn’t see the whole building even when standing right under it, but it is definitely an impressive looking building.

I then walked over to the actual memorial and could feel a certain vibe in the air. Having been born after the events on September 11th, I didn’t experience it first-hand. After seeing the magnitude of each building at the memorial, I can’t imagine what people went through on that day.

The Memorial is very pretty, and does a great job honoring those who lost their lives. I took the time to sit there for a while and try to comprehend/reflect on what happened that day. This is a site that all Americans need to visit at least one in their lives. A huge event in American history and a place to honor the Americans who passed on that day.

Following my time there, I took a short stroll to the financial district and got to walk on Wall Street, which was cool getting to see the street sign. Then headed over to the New York Stock Exchange (pictured below).

I pulled up maps and to my surprise, saw “statute of liberty viewing point” as a very close location. The Statue of Liberty is something I wanted to see, but did not think I would have the time to do it. I took the short walk over and was able to see it.

As you can see, it was from quite the distance (zoomed in photo) but I saw it and happy that I did.

I was beginning to get hungry and wanted to try an authentic NY slice. I looked up pizza places and “Joe’s Pizza” came up. I set the directions and headed there. I walked in and without knowing, saw a bunch of celebrities with their pictures at the restaurant on the wall. So I must’ve went to the right spot. As much as I hate giving anything relating to the northeast credit, the pizza was very good. A lot better than the NY pizza place I go to in Tampa. Thumbs up from me.

The NYC layover was going nearly perfect, but reality hit when I stepped in a huge, dirty, muddy, smelly New York puddle and it went all over my pants. Not wanting to sit on a plane for seven hours smelling like a New York rat, I looked up the closest Nike store and made the hike there to get some new black joggers. Did not expect to get rinsed for over $100 on pants, but it ended up being a positive as these pants had a zipper pocket unlike my old ones. Which proved to be very useful heading to the pickpocket capital of the world: Barcelona.