New York City, September 2017.

Four days really did fly by. Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday gone in an instant. But the things that I will remember, will last a lifetime.

My brother lives in New York. He’s lived there for more than a decade now, far from the streets of Santa Ana, CA where we grew up. This trip is only the second time we’ve ever visited him, which seems odd to type out. But in fact, most of the time he was visiting us here in California, since between school, work and financial reasons, it had always been easier for him to travel solo and visit us “back home” than it was for the 4 of us siblings to travel and visit him in NYC.

Things have definitely changed in the last couple of years. With all of us settling in with our careers and others having a more concrete school schedule, it was inevitable that we would venture out to the East and pay our older brother a proper visit. I mentioned that this was the second time we visited, however, this trip was a little different in that is was a “boys trip”. Our sister did not travel with us this time, as she had just returned from her own trip to NYC and Philly a few weeks earlier. She had the privilege of reporting back to work and school while we launched the Final Trip of the Summer, as we happily dubbed it.

With all that being said, I’ll jump right into it.

Day 1 – September 9th.

At Sacramento International Airport. Our flight was delayed 45-minutes.

It was a red-eye flight. We departed Sacramento at 12:30am and landed at JFK at about 8:15am. Weary from the flight, we grabbed our bags and made our way to the exits. We caught an Uber, put our headphones on, sat back and waited to relax on the 90-min car ride.

We arrive at my brother’s apartment, in Chelsea, just before 10am. We drop our bags off, freshen up a bit and immediate head out to start the day. Our first stop? The bodega on W 16th St, as we had to stock up on groceries for the trip.

The Bodega

So with milk, eggs, bagels, and waffles in hand we head back to the apartment. We quickly gear up, grab our day bags and head out. It was time to adventure: