It's Smaller on the Inside

Day 1: Columbia to New York

8:00am Leave for Charlotte

11:45am Flight leaves for New York

2:00pm Arrive in New York City      

          ~~~Explore~~~

I read somewhere unreliable on the internet that Einstein believed in time travel. Ultimately time travel is the ability to get from one point in space to another point in space in little or no time at all. According to this fallible source, Einstein believed a bicycle was a time machine as it decreased the amount of time it takes to get from point A to point B. Thus you have a time machine. Granted it only goes in the forward direction--it doesn't go backwards in time--but it is a contraption that allows for really long distance travel in an unrealistic amount of time. 

On Sunday, April the 13th of 2014 I woke up in my own commodious, yet disheveled bedroom. 14 hours later, I was asleep in the tiniest, though impressively clean, hotel room in the most obscure corner of New York City. I swear this is time travel. If you're still doubtful, consider this. The hotel room didn't have free Wi-Fi. Time travel. 

The point is that I am amazed at the freedom with which we are able to travel such distances so quickly. I mean to wake up in some small town in South Carolina and to fall asleep 900 meters from the Empire State building? That's hard to get my brain around. Okay nerdy tangent over. Into the details. 

I'll spare you description of the traveling itself as it was relatively uneventful--as traveling is hoped to be. Uneventful, but still exhausting so when we found our hotel we got in the tiniest elevator I've ever seen and collapsed into bed. 

Photo evidence of tiniest elevator (look in the overhead mirror in the top rightish of the photo):

After our brief repose we talked ourselves into getting out to see the city because you know, it's New York. So we went out and got some lunch/dinner. We made a promise to not eat at any chain restaurant, only local places and we ended up at a walk in, walk out sort of Chipotle style Thai food place that was amazingly delicious. After fueling up we walked to Penn Station which, you sports fans will enjoy, also happens to be Madison Square Garden. (Who am I kidding? None of my friends care about that.) Anyways. We found Penn Station and figured out how to catch a train so we were prepared for the next morning. After that we just walked around looking for a convenience store so we could buy some basic things that weren't allowed on the airplane and also for some good walking shoes. 

After we found all that business (which took FOREVER) we realized we were super close to the Empire State Building, so we went to go see it. It's not as impressive up close. Mostly because you can't see the top, so it just looks as tall as the other buildings. Still we figured it'd be cool to go up to the top so we went and asked about tickets, saw the price, laughed, and left. We did get this picture, though. 

After that we got some New York Pizza, Flan, and went to bed because yikes what a day. 

I think the biggest thing I noticed about New York was how small it is. Because everything is so incredibly huge on a macro-scale, when it comes down to the function of everyday life, everything has to be small in order to fit everything. Well except for the pizza slices. From the hotel room, to the elevator, to the restaurants, everything is so compressed that you constantly feel claustrophobic. At least I did. Logically, it makes sense, because density and stuff but on some basic level, it's almost counterintuitive--in such a big city life is compressed to be oh so small.