My Favorite Places - The Northeast

In December 2016 - January 2017, I took a ten day trip with my boyfriend, Yat Fan, and his mom, Winnie. We drove up to New York City and then on to Boston before heading home. The drive up was actually pretty grey and boring, but once we hit Pennsylvania. it got pretty fun. We ate lunch overlooking Pittsburgh, and later in the day, before exiting the state, the weather cleared and we drove on the Lincoln highway for some pretty incredible scenery. Driving through New Jersey into New York was an interesting experience. I'd never been up to that part of the country and didn't understood the layout of NYC. It's basically isolated and surrounded by water (well, I felt isolated, anyway), and I never knew. :'-D Since we stayed in Queens, we had to take the subway, and it was my first experience riding one. Not very fun and not very clean. At all. We bought a City Pass for NYC, and I'll go into more detail about all those things later in this post. After New York, we drove to Boston. It. Was. Amazing. Way better than NYC, in my opinion. Yat Fan was super excited about visiting MIT, and I felt the same about Harvard. Harvard was easily one of the most beautiful places I have ever been, and it felt like walking through a little town in England (although I've never been, so it's just a guess, lol). We stayed at a little inn south of Boston that was super cute and almost on the shore. Since it was January, it was freezing, but I loved it! And, obviously, there is a butt ton of seafood in the northeast, if that's your thing. (A butt ton is an actual unit of measurement, just so you know.)

We are in Pittsburgh in this picture. We're elevated here, and across from us to the right is downtown.     (We're kinda cute :'-D). We didn't stay here long; just passed through for lunch.

(Personal image, Pittsburgh)

Now to NYC! This is a great picture of the skyline taken by Yat Fan. This was our first night in New York, and probably the best weather we experienced on the trip. It was mostly freezing, cloudy, and rainy.

(Personal image taken by Yat Fan, NYC)

I believe this was taken after we visited the Statue of Liberty. We walked so many places, it's hard to keep everything in order in my mind!

(Personal image, NYC)

The Statue of Liberty! This was a great day. We visited Ellis Island. You can walk inside and learn about the journey and the sacrifices that many made in order to enter the United States. We didn't physically walk onto Liberty Island, but the ferry around it was good enough for us. Apparently if you book months in advance, you can actually go up into her crown.
We got the ferry to Ellis Island with the NYC City Pass. I highly recommend it to save you money. We also got into the Empire State Building, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Top of the Rock Observatory, and the Natural History Museum. However, these are the selections we made. You can choose differently!

(Personal image taken by Yat Fan, Liberty Island)

This picture is obviously the Imagine circle for John Lennon! I'm a huge Beatles fan (and I know Imagine isn't by the Beatles, lol), and was super excited to be there. Apparently everyone else was, too, because we stood there forever to get this picture. You push your way to the rim of the circle and jump in when you get the chance. Everyone else is trying to do the same thing. I didn't even get to fix my crazy hair. :'-D

(Personal image taken by Winnie, NYC)

Times Square was pretty busy. I really didn't take many photos the entire trip, but Yat Fan got this picture at the M&M store!

(Personal image by Yat Fan. Times Square)

So, we did lots in New York, but I'll move onto Boston. Boston was so much more interesting than NYC to me. The architecture was really original, the accents were amazing to listen to (a server thought I was from Kentucky :'( so sad), and next to the shore was a great place to stay. We visited a market, walked through downtown ripe with U.S. History, and visited some of the most prestigious universities in the world. Yat Fan was excited like a little boy in MIT, his dream school.

(Personal image. MIT)

I was excited about Harvard, which was easily one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. The old buildings have so much character that you don't see in buildings built today. The campus had a serious feeling to it, which makes sense since the average student enters Harvard with a GPA above 4.0! I can't lie. I was, and still am, completely jealous. The experience made me want to get into a time machine so I could redo high school and be an amazing, serious applicant to get into the university. If only! Does this not look like it should be in England?

Harvard University Yard
Image by Ingfbruno, Source: Wikimedia

Aaand, those are the highlights of my trip earlier this year. Feel free to comment whether you've been to these places or would like to go in the future!