Picture this: You just drove 14 hours from your home town to the Big Apple. You spent the previous day out on the town making the most of your trip in the so called “greatest city in the world.” You’re already tired and your feet are killing you, but you’ve got big dreams and a bucket list that’s a mile long, and you're determined to check off the biggest item yet. That item? New Year's Eve watching the Ball Drop in Times Square.
That person you're picturing is real, and it happens to be two people, both my best friend and myself. We spent this past New Year's Eve huddled together for warmth in the streets of Times Square, standing out in what is now being called the coldest New Year's Eve in New York City in a hundred years, all for the sake of our big dreams and never-ending bucket list, and if you're interested in just what exactly happened, here's just a small snippet of everything that went down (including the temperature).
We arrived in Times Square at around 10:30 a.m., and found our way to the line about 30 minutes later. After waiting for a bit as each person was checked by a police officer for safety precautions, we eventually made our way into what my friend likes to call our own personal "pig pen," or the gated-off area where a certain group of people were closed into for the rest of the day. After enough people filled each pen, the police would gate off the area, move back a little ways more, and fill up another. Getting there as early as we did ensured us a perfect view of the ball drop from our area, though we were a good ways away from the New Year's Rockin' Eve stage with many of the performers. We were, however, directly behind Steve Harvey and the Fox News stage, as well as the Planet Fitness Stage, which sponsored the entire event. Either way, we came to see the ball drop, and our location allowed us to perfectly do just that.
The festivities didn't begin until 6 o'clock that night, and so for the first seven hours that we were there, we mainly attempted to stay warm and convince each other that our toes were not in fact numb and that we definitely didn't have frostbite (though some anxiety-filled phone calls were made early on).
Once things got started, and free hats, scarves and balloons were passed out, we tried to forget just a bit about how cold we really were. Somehow not even the three sweatshirts, huge jacket, three pairs of pants, two pairs of socks, neck warmer, blanket scarf, boots and gloves we each had on were enough to keep us warm. The cheese sticks we brought–and the water bottles we forgot to bring–were gone by the time dinner rolled around, so we tried to forget about the hunger and need to use the restroom we felt, too.
Each hour, on the hour, a host specifically for the Times Square event–not televised–came out to talk to the audience, and confetti was released as a mini countdown took place growing closer and closer to midnight. Music was played in between the hours and we were able to hear each performer that night perform twice–once for practice and then again for their actual televised performance. It was things like this that kept us going, as well as a few looks at each other to say that even with our red noses and numb hands and feet, we made it too far to back out. We also got to meet and befriend people from all over the world, including places ranging from Venezuela to Columbia to France and Japan.
So things weren't perfect, and when Ryan Secret came out to say that it felt like -7 degrees with the windchill, we knew we had probably made the craziest decision of our lives, but it was definitely the best one. Even though neither my friend nor myself really remember the last hour of the event because our feet hurt so bad, and even though we had to sit on the ground and shove hand warmers down each others shoes at one point, it was still the most exhilarating thing I've ever done.
Being surround my people from all over the world and watching the ball drop in the "greatest city in the world" was inspiring. It was cold, it was painful and tiring, but when the clock struck midnight and the confetti fell I knew it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever done, and I'd do it again in a heartbeat (but not really, we actually both vowed on the bus ride back to the hotel to never let each other step foot on Times Square for New Year's Eve again–the cold was real).
