Personal Narrative Essay: My Trip To New York

Have you ever planned something big that ended very poorly? Well that was exactly how it was for me during my trip to New York. Despite being heavily excited for the trip, I was met with a lot of challenges along the way. It has also taught me the wonders of getting out of your comfort zone and exploring new areas with different food, cultures, and opportunities. I am writing about this experience as a trip down memory lane, it may not have been the best of experiences but was definitely a trip to remember. Without further introduction, here is the story of my not so good trip to New York

It was a Monday morning, the birds were chirping, the stress of summer school had dissipated, and a train passing through the neighborhood had jolted me awake. I look at the clock and realize that I need to get dressed! I was rewarded with a well-deserved trip to New York after months of anticipation. We finally got on the road after I got dressed and put on my shoes. To get to the hotel in Newark, New Jersey, we would have had to drive for over eight hours.  However, the hotel we stayed at was about an hour away from New York, which likely meant we needed to stay the night in New Jersey. In addition, the hotel received a lot of negative feedback, with many people claiming that it was filthy and in a dangerous area. However, on the road journey, this was not our primary worry. Everything looked to be going smoothly when we crossed the border into the United States, but as we drove towards New Jersey, everything began to go wrong. 

As we were driving down the highway, listening to peaceful music, suddenly, I heard a huge pop! Our tire blew out! My father lost control of the wheel, but we were able to take back control of the steering after letting go of the gas pedal. We were able to rest at the side of the road. Fortunately, it was late at night on an empty highway, so our car was not damaged. In addition, we had spare tires in our large Toyota minivan and were able to get back on the road quickly. We were all fatigued after the previous event, so we decided to have some breakfast at Krispy Kreme. We enjoyed a fantastic brunch, complete with doughnuts and coffee. As we got back on the road I realized, I had forgotten my phone at the restaurant! As we were going straight back to the restaurant, I found my phone in my bag. It was there the entire time. To put it mildly, no one was pleased with me. Following that, the rest of the travel proceeded as planned.

We finally made it to the entrance of the hotel during the afternoon. However, the service at the hotel was subpar. It took us an hour of wait time in order to get our rooms. As exhausted as we were, we decided to spend the night at the hotel and go to the city in the morning. We were able to get past the fact that the rooms were particularly very dirty, and simply spent the night at the hotel. One issue that arose later was time. Our trip started at the beginning of September, a few days before school started. Meaning we had to do everything we could with the time we had. It was tough enough with the limited time we had. 

Finally, the next morning we got back on the road to drive to New York. The ride towards New York City was okay overall, until we were plagued by downtown New York’s terrible traffic. We had reserved parking spots for our car, however, when we got there the street was blocked off due to the influx of traffic. We were searching for a place to park for several hours until we finally found one. 

The trip itself was amazing. We attended a wax museum and saw many wax figures of celebrities , athletes, etc. We went to the Nike store and bought new shoes. However, as we were on our way back to our car after our excursion, several guys who were seemingly intoxicated were walking past us, one of them seemed very sick. He eventually threw up on the floor which got on my shoes. The people around him were seemingly apologetic, It did, however, make an already awful trip even worse.. We ended the week by staying around Times Square and had lunch from a pizzeria called Joe’s Pizza, which was in fact featured in the Spider-Man 2 (2004) movie. After, we went straight back to the hotel, repackaged all of our belongings, and went straight home.

In conclusion, the trip came to a close with many ups and downs due to the numerous disruptions that happened along the journey. Although it may not have been the finest of experiences, it provided us with the chance to not only travel to other destinations across the world but also to learn how to better organize our excursions and make the most of the time we had. It was a principle we treasured and took into account during all of our subsequent trips, resulting in them being far more pleasurable and successful. Despite the fact that the trip was primarily unsatisfactory, it provided me with the opportunity to see a city I had never been before and to allow me to step outside of my comfort zone and broaden my horizons.