It’s been so long since we’ve seen each other—you have to come visit me in New York! It’d be super fun. You can finally see my place, and we can do all the touristy things I pretend I’m too cool to do now that I’ve lived here for seven months.
There are tons of amazing places to explore. But not the Empire State Building—it’s so overrated. The Statue of Liberty is also very overrated. Same with Central Park. Rockefeller Center is mediocre at best. And a lot of people love the High Line, but I am honestly not a fan. Magnolia Bakery, however, is worth the hype. Feel free to head there on your own to buy me a thank-you gift for hosting you if we don’t get the chance to go together.
You’ll have so much fun staying in my apartment. My roommates seem annoying at first but are actually pretty cool once you really get to know them. It’s a shame that you won’t really get to know them. One of them lives on the couch, because he’s technically not on the lease, but we can put you on a yoga mat on top of the dining-room table. You could sleep under the table, but my cousin did that during his visit and ended up slamming his head against the glass when our cats woke him up with their constant fighting. So it’s probably safer to sleep on top, assuming you don’t roll in your sleep. And you should bring some breathable clothes since it gets really muggy at night and also throughout the entire day.
Don’t even get me started on how amazing the food is here. We can probably afford to go out to a restaurant for a nice dinner once, maybe twice if you pay for one as your thank-you gift because you couldn’t find the time to slip off to Magnolia Bakery. For breakfast, we can go to what I consider to be the best bagel place in the entire city, which just so happens to be immediately below my apartment. Seriously, we have to go there, and that has nothing to do with its convenient location, the fact that there’s never a line, or that they have Vitamin Water Zeros for only $1.99. And I can take you to your first bodega! Bodegas are unlike anything you’ve ever experienced—totally unique to New York. They have sandwiches, chips, and drinks. It’s awesome.
There’s really so much to do, you should try to make a week of it if you can. I wouldn’t be able to take any time off work to hang out with you, but you could spend entire days wandering around my neighborhood—there’s so much to do within walking distance, which is nice because the subway probably won’t be running anyway.
My place is super easy to get to from the airport. Once you land, you should buy a MetroCard, though be warned: sometimes the machines won’t accept credit or debit cards, or cash. Don’t worry if there are no employees in the kiosk; they’re usually back within a couple of hours. If you decide to jump the turnstile, check for cops and make sure to slide your suitcase through first. Then hop on the subway for six stops if it’s an express or seventeen stops if it’s a local, and ride the free shuttle bus for either five or forty-five minutes, depending on the traffic, except it usually isn’t there, so keep your MetroCard handy in case you have to swipe back into the subway. Then you’re just a quick twenty-minute hike from our sixth-floor walkup! Hopefully someone will be home to buzz you in.
Remember that you’re welcome to visit me anytime, and that my palate leans more vanilla/funfetti than chocolate/red velvet, though I haven’t had the German chocolate cupcake before and it looks really good on the Web site. But it’s probably best if you try to come in the next couple of months, because I might move to Thailand to teach English, or Boston if I decide to go to law school, or back with my parents, because I’m broke. We’re going to have such a great time! Oh, I almost forgot—if you get back on the subway instead of the free shuttle bus, you actually need to go past my stop and then switch to the local train going the opposite direction, because the station is under construction and uptown trains never stop there on weekends or after 8 P.M. on weekdays.
