This weekend began with my best friend and I planning on touring a college that one of us was potentially going to transfer to, and ended with us being in New York. Being able to travel is an amazing experience. Whether it's across the country or across the globe, you get to experience a different upbringing and culture of the people that share this world with us. The plane tickets were free, which was a little disastrous, but adventurous nonetheless.

From Milwaukee to Laguardia

Our flight was set to leave Milwaukee at 6:20am on March 11. Our flight got delayed about 3.5 hours, and we ended up departing at the time we were set to land in New York. So already, we are exhausted, hungry, agitated, yet excited to finally get where we were going.

Landing in Laguardia

Laguardia isn't the major airport in New York, so it wasn't this awesome landing when we were finally at our destination. We took a shuttle to our hotel, checked in, charged our phones, contacted an Uber, and were on our way to Times Square.

Times Square

Times Square is one of those places you expect to visit while in New York. In reality, it's not much of anything depending on what you're into (food and shopping wise). We got dropped off on the edge of Times Square and began walking around in search of food. We ate at the most disgusting restaurant. New York is not at all as dirty as people make it out to be, so when I say disgusting, I'm really only talking about the food. Everyone told us to try New York pizza because "nothing is like it," and they were right. It's really hard to screw up pizza, but man, New York screwed it up. Big time.

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Ground Zero

Ground Zero is breathtaking. I am so interested in learning about everything that happened leading up to 9/11, during 9/11, and the aftermath, so to be right where it happened was an amazing experience. Props to the architecture design team to have solidified the contract of the memorial because "wow" is all I could say the entire time. We paid $18 to get into the museum and walked around to soak up all the information we could take in. Victims of the attacks have their voicemail messages played, items close to them donated, and their stories told. In one part, every single one of the victims have their picture up on a wall with their name underneath. Being able to see all their faces makes the impact the much harder. There are pieces of police cars, fire engines, and ambulances that caught on fire that are in place at the museum, and to see how deformed they are is scary. To see pieces of one of the plane was heartbreaking. "Jet fuel doesn't melt steel beams," may be a joke to many Americans, but to see the twists, the breakages, and the deformity of the steel is unbelievable. The museum has a "survivor's staircase," and pieces of the original structure as part of the new one. Ground Zero is a lot more than just the 9/11 Memorial and museum, but without a doubt it was my favorite part of the entire trip.

Hotel Chaos

My best friend and I are very personable people, without a doubt. We joke with anyone and everyone and have no problem starting up a conversation. One of the doormen at our hotel called us his "daughters" and ended up looking out for us anytime we were in the hotel. We ended up getting free WiFi, which was really sweet of the hotel because we didn't want to pay $16 to do our homework while on this trip. On our second night, 15 NYPD showed up at our hotel because six guys in a room down the hall from us had gotten a couple complaints and were doing things they shouldn't have been. We were on our way down to the lobby to get menus because we were starving, and ran into this chaos.

The Food

I already talked about the horrible pizza we had in Times Square, but I think that was the worst of my worries. We ordered sushi late night on day one, and I'm so thankful that my California Rolls didn't make me sick because they seemed pretty bad. Our late night dinner order on night two was from a Mexican/Italian restaurant. They screwed up and gave me garlic rolls instead of flan, which to people who know what flan is, that's pretty far off. I ordered carne asada which is a pretty good go-to food for Mexican restaurants. It was served on WHITE rice, which is really a change because it's usually served with Mexican rice. The steak usually sits in a spicy salsa and you usually eat it with tortillas. I wasn't given tortillas, and the salsa was basically liquefied ketchup. At the end of the day, I think the best thing I ate while out and about was Potbelly's. I give my solid approval of Potbelly's.

Leaving New York

When flying in, my friend's name was misspelled and no one said anything. So while departing and going through security, I was pulled from the line to go back and work things out with her at the entrance of the airport. After an argument or two, we got it fixed and were waved back to security. We went through security and were sitting at our gate for our 2pm flight back to Milwaukee. We came to find out that the plane was overbooked and since we were on standby to begin with, there was no way we'd be on the flight. There was a flight to Midway in Chicago at 4pm that was overbooked and delayed. Another flight to Milwaukee at 7pm, overbooked and delayed. We were struggling to find a solution to find a way home until I went online and tried booking a ticket. I found that the airport in Long Island was flying to Orlando and then to Milwaukee, and we'd be home at 12:40am, so my friend and I wouldn't miss our plans for anything on Monday. We took an hour Uber ride to the airport, printed a ticket, went through security, and were at our gate within 20 minutes.

What Happened Next?

I'm currently sitting in ISP without a clue as to if we'll even make it to Orlando, FL and ultimately back to Milwaukee, but our chances are high. It's been an adventurous weekend and I sincerely doubt the adventure ends in New York.

Overall

A weekend in New York is far too little time to do nearly anything. Being from Milwaukee, the city of New York to me is just like Chicago. I feel like I've only been a two hour drive from home, when in reality I'm 14 hours away. The people I have met: hotel staff, Uber drivers, workers, natives, and tourists have all been pleasantly nice. Maybe I'll pack my own food next time, or expect to eat at extravagant places, but overall it was nice. I would NEVER recommend anyone to fly into or out of Laguardia (LGA), just because of their rudeness and lack of organization. Southwest Airlines is not to blame for the overbooking by any means. To other airports, if a plane is said to have 19 open seats they're going to sell seats. LGA never updated any of the info so that other airports could actually see that the planes were overbooked. If anything, I have heard amazing things about JFK while being here, but ultimately cannot give my own personal opinion. But ISP is one amazing airport, and New York is absolutely lucky to have an airport as amazing as ISP. If you're able to take a trip for the weekend, do it.