by Cristy Hebert

Created on: April 26, 2008   Last Updated: December 05, 2008

If you are answering that you don't need to see New York before you die, it is because you have never been there! If you have gone to New York once in your life, you just want to repeat the experience over and over again. I rarely met people that did not care for New York. It is probably one of the more exhilarating places on earth. New York to me is like an addicting lover...you just have to get more from him!

The moment I stepped foot in New York I was hooked! I took the overnight bus from Montreal and arrived around 7 o'clock in the morning. I had hardly slept, trying to sleep on a Greyhound bus is an experience all by itself, and arrived at Port Authority. I went outside to grab a cab. From the second I stepped foot on 8th avenue, I knew that I would love this town. I was going to a friend's apartment from Port Authority, he was living just beside Bellevue Hospital, and I was mesmerized by the city while I was in the cab. I arrived at my friend's place and he asked me if I wanted to take a nap and immediately I wanted to go out and walk around. I could not fathom being inside and not outside discovering this beautiful city.

New York may not be the city where you find the greatest museums or restaurants, other towns like Paris or London fit the bill more perfectly, but you find an energy in New York that you don't find anywhere else on earth. I never feel tired when I am there. I always feel invigorated! I sometimes get up in the morning in my hotel room and feel tired but at the instant I step foot on the street, I only want to see everything there is to see. My routine when I am in town is that I get out for breakfast around the hotel, come back to the room to freshen up afterward and head out for the day. Even when I am dead tired, I find myself walking everywhere and never coming back to my hotel before 4 in the afternoon. I take a shower and dress a bit better and go out for a drink. I then decide where I want to have dinner. I don't go to New York to go out clubbing, I come back pretty early after dinner...drop in my bed so I can start again the next day.

I wish I could recommend an exact restaurant or a precise location but everything in New York is fun. I went 14 times and plan on going back as soon as possible. Even if you don't go up the Empire state building, visit the Statue of liberty or go to the MOMA, just breathing in the atmosphere is enough for me. I traveled to a couple of places in the world but nothing comes close to New York for me!

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