Everywhere you look you see cars honking like there’s no tomorrow and pedestrians yelling “I’m walkin’ here!” to drivers. The air is filled with a mixture of the smell of hot dogs and cigarette smoke. Buildings tower around you and have tens of giant screens attached to them. You must constantly walk with the crowd, for if you stop, you’ll be stampeded over. Yup, you guessed it. It is the city that never sleeps–the big apple–New York City.

New York Style Pizza

For starters, New York City, specifically Manhattan is world renown for its food. The most unique one to NYC is New York Pizza. After craving it for years, we finally got to try it, and it is unexplainable how satisfying it was. Biting into the slice for the first time gave my taste buds a feeling they had never felt before. The fresh tomato sauce was rich and was complimented perfectly by the grease from the melty, stringy cheese. The crust had the perfect amount of crispiness so that it had a crunch but could still be folded in half without snapping.

Scrumptious French Sweets

After binging on our pizza, we all got a sweet tooth and decided to get dessert. The place we agreed on is called “Paris Baguette.” They had a wide variety of French sweets including different flavors of croissants, tarts, and bread as well as hot beverages. The combo I chose was a strawberry-filled croissant and hot chocolate to warm up from the cold weather. The croissant was nice and crispy on the outside and soft inside. The crust crumbled as I bit into it. When I got the middle, the creamy strawberry filling dissolved in my mouth and mingled with the croissant itself. I started to sip the hot chocolate and it was a perfect compliment to the aftertaste of the croissant. It tasted like real chocolate and enshrouded me in warmth as I kept sipping.

Times Square and Rockefeller Center

The next thing we had on our list was to walk through Times Square and see Christmas lights at the Rockefeller Center. Having satisfied our sweet tooths, we headed to Times Square. As we walked into the square, we began to be surrounded by walls full of screens showing ads for big companies. Since this was two days before new years, the Jumbotron which stood tall at the end of Times Square had the ornament which read “2019” for the ball drop.

After taking a few pictures, we headed off some blocks down to the Rockefeller Center. At the center were trees everywhere covered in both golden and colored lights. In the middle of all of that was a tall Christmas tree which looked around 30 feet tall. It was decked out in colorful ornaments of green, red, silver, and gold. There were lights of the same colors as the ornaments wrapped around the tree and at the top sat a big, shiny star.

Looking back, I’d say touring New York was a great experience, for I experienced many new things. Overall, I recommend everyone to go take a tour, mainly for the pizza!