Vacation in New York City!

This past week I’ve been superbusy enjoying New York City with my parents who came to visit me. Doesn’t sound too bad huh?We strolled around, ate LOTS of good food (made them try vegan food of course hehe), went to beautiful gardens and parks, went by boat to see The statue of Liberty and watched a Broadway show. There are sooo much to do here so a week is defenitely not enough time to see everything but you get a good picture of the city for sure.When you come to a new big city like this it’s hard to know where to go at first. so I picked out some of the goodies from this week for you! TO DODon’t worry about being inactive or bored when you go to NYC, there is always something to do or see here!BroadwayA classic thing to do as a tourist in NYC is to go and see a Broadway show. I’ve now seen 2 shows, the classic The Lion King (twice) and the award winning show The Color Purple.Me and my parents went to see The Color Purple after hearing a lot of good things about it. And it was no dissapointment. WOW these actors are incredible, I’ve never seen or heard anything better than this. I, who am a fan of the TV series ”Orange Is The New Black” got extra excited to see Danielle Brooks aka Taystee play a role in the show!Some tickets to the different broadway shows are expensive, but trust me this is worth it!Botanical garden in BrooklynIf you like gardens and flowers you will defenitely enjoy the Botanical garden. There is a big botanical garden up in the Bronx, but it takes at least an hour to get there from the center of manhattan. We decided to explore Brooklyn and went to the garden in Prospect park, if the trains are working it only takes about 30 minutes to get there from union square, but allow extra time on weekends.If you get to the Botanical Garden before noon on saturdays the entrance is free, or else 12 dollars per adult.The garden is so beautiful and well organized. During spring in april and may you can also enjoy big fields and long alleys of Japanese cherry blossom there.  Central ParkThis park is huge! So if I don’t have the whole day to explore the park I usually choose a specifik area when I go here. One of my favorite places in the park is by the Bethesda Fountain. There is always many street musicians and entertainment there going on and it’s a nice spot for people watching. You can rent a boat to go and paddle in the lake and to get close to all the turtles there!Me and my parents brought picnic and sat down by the fountain. Then we walked up further in the park and climbed up in the Belvedere Castle where you have an incredible view over central park! Sailing with North River Fish barOne of the highlights of the week was when we took the boat ”Fish bar” from pier 81 one night. The sunset with a view over Manhattan and to get close to the Statue of Liberty was amazing. Not many people know about this boat yet, there is a lot of boats around Hudson River where you can get guided tours but they are usually crowded and quite expensive.North River Fish bar has tours every day at 6.30 pm except Mondays, but extra tours in the weekends. The tour lasts for about 2 hours and go all the way down to The Statue of Liberty and back.It’s free to enter the boat, but strongly recommended to buy a drink or something to eat there. If you want you can enjoy great food in the restaurant downstairs or sit on the upper floor in one of the couches. Or you do as we did when it’s getting a bit chilly outside, order a glass of wine and sit at the last floor downstairs to enjoy the view. Union Square GreenmarketEvery Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays Union Square Park fills up with farm exhibitors from different parts of New York. You can buy everything from flowers, vegetables, fruits, bread, pastries, yarn, wool, honey, fish, meat, eggs and cheese. Everything fresh from the farms in New York. I love to stroll around in these markets to look, smell and try things. More things to do…-I also always recommend to visit Chelsea Market and walk the Highline which starts outside of the market.-Ground zero is of course worth a visit and to spend a few minutes in silence next to the North and South pools.-If you want to take a day trip and get pretty close to The Statue Of Liberty, you can take the Staten Island ferry for free. Simply hop onboard the ferry from south ferry station in Manhattan, enjoy the view of the statue, and change ferry in Staten Island to go back to Manhattan again.- If you don’t feel like paying 30 dollars to get up in Empire state building or Rockefeller center, you can just visit any of many rooftop bars in NYC and still get a magical view over the city.- And don’t forget to visit some of the many museums in New York. A few of the most popular ones are American Museum of Natural History, Museum of Modern Art (MoMa) and Metropolitan Museum of Art.   Good things to know...-       Staying for more than 1 week? Buy a 7-day unlimited metro card. I always recommend people to walk as much as possible to get the most out of the city, but to save energy and time it’s worth it to buy a metrocard with unlimited rides.-       If you’re coming from or going to Newark airport, skip the cab which will be expensive because of the customs. It’s easy and much cheaper to take the train and bus to the city.-       Renting a room at a hotel in New York can be very overpriced. Check the possibility to rent a room or an apartment through for example airbnb.-       Be aware of traffic problems during the weekends. There is always constructions going on which can cause delayes and changes.-       And never forget to tip! Not only at restaurants and cafes, it includes also hair/nailsalons, cabs.. Any service! I would say 10% of the total amount including tax =ok, 15% = good, 20 % = very good and  25% =great. This was just a few of the things you can do here in NYC. But of course you can’t always run around and do fun stuff all the time, sometimes you also have to sit down, rest and EAT. A list of some of my favorites places to eat will be in my next blog post so stay tuuuned! ;)