Two Italian Teens Experience the New York Summer

We have been in New York for a month and since unfortunately our experience here is going to finish this week, we decided to write this article as a guide for all the teenagers who are going to visit New York for a long period. Many people, especially our peers, thought that our departure was a little hasty for our age, because living in a flat in New York is not so easy.

Living in an apartment implies lots of things that you can’t even image when you stay in your home with your parents, because housework is not of your concern. It was not easy to look for ourselves and be so indipendent all of the sudden but we did learn a lot from this experience. Housework, however, was just a small part of our vacation, because we spent the whole rest of the time enjoying ourselves.

We decided to recount you can enjoy the city h24, and we will do so by diving the day into four different moments: morning, afternoon, evening and night.

The morning is the cultural part of the day,  as it is known that NY is the world’s capital for everything new in the culture and art fields and hosts every kind of musuems,  from modern art one to the museum of sex or sport. We visited them not only to learn but also to have fun, given that we met there many young people from all over the world who were participating to summer exchange programs

From this point of view the most interesting  museum was the MoMA, which offers not only a wide range of art exhibits but is also fashinating for its interior design and the numerous attractions he offers to the public, including interactive games, which constitute a great opportunity to meet new people.

The cultural part does not only include museums: visiting Manhattan makes you feel like touring an open-air museaum, with its breath-taking skyline, Central Park and Soho, the neighborhood that maybe hostes the largest number of art galleries in the city.

Lunchtime is often just a quick break for those newyorkers who spend their weekday at the office. On Sunday morning most of them, however, try to wake up at a "decent" hour after the crazy Saturday night, to enjoy a good Brunch, the traditional weekend meal that combines breakfast and lunch.

Most of the restaurants in the city have a Brunch menu, so you have several options to choose from, and pick a place in the Upper East Side or in the Village, at last Meatpacking District or in Chelsea. We have been to Pastis, in the Meatpacking District, and we had a great experience having a meal that in Italy we could never get. 

Afternoons offer lots of things to do just as well. During the week you can go shopping in Midtown, or on Fifth Ave, an area where you can find several boutique of the most exclusive labels and big malls like Bloomingdale’s. Another area where you can go is SoHo, which is less known by tourists and where you can find great deals and the most attractive shopwindows in town.

During the weekend it is nice to visit Central Park in the afternoon because it's quite and relaxing. You just need a ball or a frisbie to enjoy a few hours of complete relax in New York's largest green spot. Central Park also offers many romantic spots that have become famous thanks to Hollywood movies, where couples can go walking holding hands while enjoying the rare beauty of the numerous lakes of the park.
Besides being the most well-know restaurant located in the Park, the Loeb Boathouse rents out boats to those who want to sail the lakes. 

Before dinner we advice you to have a happy hour or  in one of the thousands of bar the city offers you. Depending on the zone it’s possible to find the best for you, choosing from Midtown, the area that attracts more tourists of all,  or the Greenwich Village with its many beautiful bars crowded with musicians and artists or the Meatpacking District, which in the last few years has been attracting more and more young New Yorkers

Being New York an international city, you have a wide choice of where to go. There are restaurants for any kind of food and you only have to choose the best  and try a different cuisine every night. The classic American dinner is, of course, the hamburger that you can find of any size and with any side. We tried the Jackson Hole burger, which has been the best one ate in NY for us. We have been also to the River Café, a trendy and elegant place to choose for a special occasion and where to enjoy an amazing view of the NY skyline.

After dinner it’s time for nightlife... we experienced why New York is called “the city that never sleeps”. The city lights accompany you till the sunrise, supermarkets are open 24/7, people are around at every hour and the city seems to never stop.

If you want to have a drink with friends you should go to the East Village, where you can find at every corner a crowded pub where to play billiard or just chat. If you like live music the Greenwich Village is your place. Here there are plenty o live jazz and blues bars where to enjoy the night listening to fantastic music. The west side of Manhattan is the clubs and discos area, crowded with trendy bars and amazing rooftops. The area is called the Meatpacking District, a crowded place where people are always moving and looking for the coolest club.

Obviously it’s not easy to get into the clubs if you are not 21, but sometimes the bouncers don’t ask you for your I.D.. The times that they actually ask you for it, you better have an expedient...

Our recount of our staying in Manhattan ends here with the hope that this article has been helpful for other young people who want to spend a long time on their own in the big city of New York...