Klarity

A few months ago, in the early months of summer, my college roommates and I decided to make the trek to New York City for a weekend. None of us had been in a while and we were looking for someplace new to explore. We booked our tickets, picked a hotel, made dinner reservations, and counted down the days until our train was set to depart. As it turns out, it never would. That morning, a few hours before we were set to leave, Amtrak was kind enough to text us: your train is cancelled.  

A few stressful hours later, we found ourselves sitting scattered around a Greyhound bus departing from South Station. Moments before, we had been sprinting through the front doors, tripping up the escalator, and arriving at our bus precisely two minutes before it was supposed to leave. Now just had to make it to our dinner reservation (the most important one of the trip). Of course, we did not expect the bus to take almost 7 hours compared to the 4 and a half we were promised. Thankfully, after the most grueling bus ride of my life, we stepped onto the damp cement outside Penn Station, hailed a bright yellow taxi and arrived at Pranakhon with minutes to spare.  

Stepping into the restaurant, we were immediately surrounded by the glorious scent of Thai food, my favorite. The interior was beautiful, with shades of blue and gold covering the walls. We were led up a flight of stairs and onto the second floor overlooking the entire restaurant. The best seats in the house. We sat, we conversed, filled each other in on every little detail. We ordered one of the best meals I’ve ever had. Spectacularly nutty Pad Thai, rich massaman curry with short rib, sweet pad see ew, and finally, mango sticky rice to share. Each bite was filled with so much flavor, enough for me to forget that we nearly didn’t make it here.  

After licking our dishes clean, we set out for our first night in New York City…to the hotel. We were tired and that bus ride really had taken a toll our energy, I just about fell asleep on our taxi ride home.  

The next morning we woke up early(ish) and set off for our day of exploration. This started with a fluffy french toast bagel, slathered in blueberry cream cheese and followed up by a raspberry chocolate iced coffee. I had been thinking about this for weeks. We carried these New York delicacies with us all the way to Central Park, where we settled in on a rock overlooking a grassy expanse and a group of foul-smelling horses. We ate our bagels together, enjoying each other’s company, and then headed to Times Square. For me, this was all a blur. We bumped into a friend from high school (crazy), got caught in a dusty wind storm, and became trapped in a horde of tourists staring up into the sky. The only reprieve from the overwhelming crowd was a street market set up a few blocks away with white tents and smoking grills lining the curb.  

After escaping Times Square, we were ready for something a little slower: shopping in SoHo. Of course, everyone else in the city had the same idea and had formed lines at each and every shop that interested us. And of course, we waited. I needed a shirt for dinner anyway. After a few hours, and a few purchases, we had used up all our energy from our coffees, meaning it was time for more food. We walked for a few minutes down the streets filled with crowds and intricately crafted buildings of different shapes and colors, until we reached a little pizza place on a corner. It was black with large glass windows, granting us a view of what was inside: no line. It was perfect. As soon as we stepped foot inside, I knew it was going to be delicious. It was warm and smelled of baking bread, seasoned tomatoes, and fresh basil. I ordered a singular slice of cheese pizza and lemonade, which claimed to have been made right over in Brooklyn and found a spot outside for my friends and I to eat. It was quite movie-esque. The three of us were sitting on a cement bench on the corner, drinking cold lemonade and snacking on huge slices of pizza. It tasted absolutely amazing as well, the sweetness from the tomato sauce, the hint of basil from the leaves tossed on, and a little bit of char from the leoparding on the crust. It was exactly what we needed to continue our journey.  

We walked, shopped, and walked some more until it was time for us to finally return to the hotel to freshen up (and nap) before heading to dinner. We had a reservation at Paesano in Little Italy. When we arrived that evening, we were welcomed being hollered at by waiters, begging us to choose their restaurant for dinner. When we were finally seated at our tables, I looked up and the ceiling was covered in warm yellow string lights, mixed in with dark green vines. It was beautiful, and mixed with the stone walls of the building, made the environment very comfy. The true reason we were there for, though, was the pasta sampler we had seen online. It came with fettuccine alfredo, pesto gnocchi, and rigatoni alla vodka, all on one plate. There were four of us at dinner, but we would have been just fine with one, maybe two. We ordered four and are still full to this day. The portions were huge and It all tasted so delicious. Comforting and warm, exactly what you would want in a pasta dinner. But the heartburn and stomach ache that came along with it the next morning might not have been worth it. Especially with what we had planned.  

Waking up around 4am, which I am still proud we were able to do, we were out the door by 5am. We walked the short 15 minutes, which felt much worse in the state we were in, to the Brooklyn Bridge to watch the sunrise. The path we took was dark and winding, somewhere we had never been. Then all of a sudden, we reached a set of stairs that that were dimly lit. Climbing up the cement steps, we were face to face with the bridge. This was by far my favorite moment of the entire trip. There were close no people out at this hour, leaving the usually bustling bridge vacant just for us. Walking down the center of the wooden planks on the footpath, it felt like we were the only people in the entire city.  

We set up on the ledge just around the middle, took a million pictures (of course) and watched the sunrise reflect off of the glass buildings and paint the sky beautiful shades of pink. It was the perfect start to our final day in the city.  

We spent the rest of our day as any tourist leaving New York would: eating warm bagels, drinking iced coffees, trying the famous banana pudding (amazing!) and staring up at the skyscrapers towering over us. It was the perfect weekend, much needed after endless weeks of sameness in Boston. It reminded me that these small moments with friends are always worth the inconveniences along the way, such as our Amtrak catching on fire as it was set to retrieve us.  

We returned home via train thankfully, already reminiscing by looking through the 2,000 photos we had taken with each other. As we stepped onto the platform in Back Bay, we were welcomed home to Boston by a man on the Orange Line screaming at us, the city’s way of telling us it missed us all weekend.