“It’s the city that never sleeps,” and boy was that true for my adventure to the big apple.

In 2013, the band and choir members from my high school held many fundraising events in order to fund a trip every other year. Lucky for me, the trip we planned was to New York City- a dream of mine. After a 24 hour bus trip (will never do that again) I arrived to the city right at dawn. Being from a small town with no stop and go lights, New York truly took my breath away. My neck eventually got sore from looking towards to top of the buildings. Because I was only there for five days, a lot of scheduled events were planned on the itinerary, which left little time to sleep, but that’s why they consider it the city that never sleeps, right? Throughout the course of the five days, I saw two Broadway shows, “Mama Mia” and “Wicked,” which were like a show I’ve never seen before. I got to tour the NBC news studio, seriously incredible, and I volunteered to be the news anchor for a few minutes. I still have the video I bought that showed off my skills at the time. A couple tours were planned that included: a bus ride around the city, a tour of the 9/11 memorial (which was being built at the time), Grand Central Station, Niagara Falls, Times Square-my favorite part of NYC, a ferry around the Statue of Liberty, and an adventure to the top of a skyscraper to look at the once-in-a-lifetime views.

Throughout the five days that I spent in New York, I tried a variety of foods, shopped at places so big the mall near my home looked small, and took many pictures with my friends. Fun fact…because I fundraised the most money in my high school, I was able to pay for someone else’s entire trip. I decided to take my Grandma because I am very close with her, she has always wanted to see New York, and she deserved a trip to just explore. One of her favorite parts of the trip was going to the Cake Boss bakery. Awhile ago, Cake Boss was “the show to watch” on TV, therefore it was a big deal when we went into the bakery and bought Cake Boss goodies.

Two words-Times Square. If you ever have the opportunity to travel to New York, the one thing I insist you must see is Times Square. The thousands of people speed-walking down all the sidewalks, the lights on all the billboards, all of the talented people just doing their thing for others to watch, and all of the stores! I love shopping, therefore Times Square is every shopaholics dream. On the day the bus dropped my group off at Central Park it was raining, so what did we do instead of stroll around a park- walked all the way to Times Square again. Yes, Central Park is probably really interesting for some people, however my town in Wisconsin is literally called the “town of parks”, therefore Times Square outnumbered my interests for a couple of hours.

Lastly, take a look at one of my favorite pictures one of the chaperones took of my friends and I trying to catch a taxi in Times Square (no luck).

Photos by Chelsea Bauman, ©2017 Chelsea Bauman. All Rights Reserved.