"New York is like DC on Steroids"

This weekend I jumped on the bus and saw my friend Ashley in NYC. Ashley lived across the hall from me freshman year in the dorms, and she is one of my most favorite people ever. It's crazy to think it was almost 7 years ago that we started our lives at BYU, and it's fun to live "close" to her again. She lives right on Wall Street in Manhattan (these are all things I just learned, so I still think it's cool to say them). The NYSE and the church from National Treasure are on the same block as her building.

I told her I wanted to take it easy for the weekend and didn't want her to feel pressured to do too much tourist-y stuff. So on Saturday (after Ashley made me breakfast,) we took the Staten Island ferry and saw the Statue of Liberty on the way. Then we took the subway to Rockefeller Center. We also walked around 5th Avenue, Central Park, and Times Square.

That night we went out to dinner with her friend Brenda and managed to watch a Romantic Comedy, a scary movie, and a documentary on North Korea. Yes, we were movie connoisseurs on Saturday. On Sunday we took the subway to church. Sacrament meeting was on the 4th floor; very cool! When we got home, some friends came over, and we made chocolate chip/wheat pancakes and blueberry/white pancakes. And when I say "we," I mean Brenda made the batter and Ashley cooked them and I helped eat them. YUM! Then we all sat around and talked for about 3 1/2 hours until it was time for birthday cake and ice cream at another apartment in the building. Ashley and I watched another movie and stayed up talking some more. It was sooooo nice to catch up and have someone to talk to! It's also neat to see where our lives have taken us. No longer are the days of vending machine binges, jumping the fence to run laps around BYU's track at 3am, and sleeping through afternoon classes. Today we slept in, then went to look at Ground Zero (also a very short walk from Ashley's).

After lunch and packing up, Ashley went with me to Chinatown so I could find my bus. And now I'm home; back to reality. It was fun while it lasted.

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Other NYC photos here

Oh, and the title of the post came from Joe. This trip marked my first "bus trip," and each happened to take off from a Chinatown. Today I texted Joe "DC's Chinatown aint got nothin on New York's." And his reply became the title for my post.