On a warm, sunny day in the summer of 2017, when I was 14 years old and just months away from my first year of high school, my family and I tried to decide where we wanted to go for our family vacation. I knew where I wanted to go, but I knew that they would never actually agree to go. Still, I declared to them, “I want to go to New York.” Surprisingly, they considered my request. I felt even more surprised when they explained to my brothers and me that we were, in fact,  going to New York City. I felt ecstatic. I felt like I was dreaming, yet I did not wake up. This was actually happening to me. I was going to go to the place I’d wanted to see for so long. I could not believe that I was finally, finally going to see New York and experience everything it had to offer.

It took several weeks of planning and packing, but then one early morning in mid-July, we woke up, grabbed our velvety suitcases, and drove off to the airport. The car ride and plane ride took most of the day; therefore, we didn’t arrive in New York until the golden sun had just begun to set at about 4 pm. We rode in a big jet black limousine from the airport to our hotel in Times Square. Cheerfully, I gleamed with happiness. Hundreds of people, tall grey buildings that touched the cloudy sky, blindingly bright and colorful lights, and a variety of cars and trucks danced in every direction I looked. It was a kingdom and I felt like a princess. We dropped our bags off in our hotel room. It was a big room with plenty of open space, a huge view of the city, a bathroom, a television, a soft king size bed, and a couch that could be turned into a second bed.

After dropping off our bags, we rushed back out to the city to explore, and I was in love with the city. It seemed difficult to even cross the smokey, broken street. People rushed all around us and I felt fearful that I would become separated from my parents. Excitedly, we walked to a candy store that sold giant candy bars, and by giant I mean that they looked probably 20 times the size of a regular candy bar. We also went to a store to buy a purse for my mom and me because we had both forgotten to bring one by mistake.

After, we decided to eat at Dave & Busters for dinner. As we roamed down the busy street, we came across a group of people dressed as Minnie and Mickey Mouse, Hello Kitty, and Mario. I tried to walk around them, but they grabbed me and pulled me away from my family, and they asked me, “Want a picture?” which I didn’t want, but they weren’t going to let me go until I agreed to it. On the outside, I looked happy, but on the inside I was screaming. My mom took the picture on her phone, and then the characters made my dad pay for the picture, even though we didn’t ask for it. Needless to say, I completely avoided anyone wearing a costume for the rest of the trip.

Most of the trip was sightseeing. We strolled to Trinity Church, which has been there for about 300 years. It seemed as quiet as a funeral home, but it looked huge and there lay a cemetary on each side of it. People in history like Alexander and Elizabeth Hamilton, Robert Fulton, and Hercules Mulligan are buried there. We also went to Madame Tussauds wax museum, where there stood wax figures of all kinds of people. There stood figures of Bruce Willis, Dorothy, and even a famous youtuber, Jenna Marbles. They also had a Ghostbusters exhibit where we played a VR game. We were given the opportunity to be ghostbusters and go into a haunted house to kill the grim, green ghosts.

Carefully, I put on the large VR goggles and the gun to shoot the ghosts, and then I went inside the colorful living room with my father and older brother. The guns that they gave us felt heavy and it was hard to lift them up enough to shoot all the ghosts. Once we finished with the first room, we scrambled into a dimly lit elevator where a fat, green ghost flew right through us causing a vibration throughout the elevator. Then, a blue ghost girl appeared; she wore a white dress and she had long unkempt hair that partially covered her terrifying face. She whispered something that we could not hear. In that moment, I had to remind myself that it was just a game. Afterwards, we walked onto a shaky rope bridge that led to the top of a skyscraper and I could feel the soft, cool breeze through my hair as we fought off more ghosts and The Marshmallow Man from the movie. Finally, the game ended with Marshmallow Man exploding into a pile of burning marshmallow cream, and I could smell the sweet scent of roasted marshmallows. Once we finished the game, we exited and took off our goggles. Overall, we had a blast and it didn’t scare me quite as much as I thought it would.

We met several people in the Ghostbusters exhibit. The man who took our tickets for the game had fun with us. Before we raced in, he played a game with us that he called “Scream offs” and whoever had the loudest scream won. I ended up winning because my brothers and my parents hardly even tried. We also met a fellow player named Steven, who came from Argentina. He seemed tall and looked to be in his early 30s or late 20s. He had an accent when he talked, and I still remember his voice. “I will try to be the best ghostbuster that I can be!” he exclaimed. He turned out to be one of the kindest people we met while in New York.

On the third day of our trip, Mom and I went to see Wicked on Broadway, while my dad and brothers went to a baseball game. I had never seen a Broadway show, and of course, I felt excited. Quickly, we bought drinks and some yellow, buttery popcorn and then we sat down in our cushioned seats. We sat almost in the middle of our row so we could see the stage perfectly. The singers sounded like angels. The songs remained stuck in my head for days, but it turned out to be an amazing show, and it is one of my favorites.

On our last full day there, we went on a tour of the cold Rockefeller theatre. I had my picture taken with a Rockette. We also went to NBC studios and we acted out our very own talk show. I played as the guest and a young blonde woman acted as the host. I had some trouble coming up with something to say, but I still had fun.

I feel that our trip to New York made our family bond stronger. We still talk about the memories today and most of us want to go back. It gave us time to relax and spend quality time together, which we don’t get to do often.