I Went to NYC... AGAIN!

Well, here we are again. Another trip to NYC under my belt. This time I did more, and I stayed longer. For the first time in my life, I feel like I've had my fill of NYC for a while.

I never thought I would say that honestly, but I now realize that the city is not a great place for someone like me. Someone that is a Fat Chick (and doesn't work out!). Here are a few things I did...


Hung out in Times Square (Twice!)
Went to the Statue of Liberty
Climbed to the Crown of the Statue of Liberty
Went to the MOMA (Museum of Modern Art)
Went to an Irish Pub
Went to a Book Convention (#BookCon)

Went up to the 86th Floor of the Empire State Building.
Tried a local coffee shop
Went to Central Park
Went to the Central Park Zoo
Rode the subway (a lot!)
Fell down the Subway stairs
Walked an average of 6 miles per day
Saw one of my favorite authors randomly while walking down the street
Saw a DWTS pro dancer at the airport.

Yes, I did a lot!

And I am EXHAUSTED!

But, Stay tuned because pictures and more stories are to come from this trip. For now, I'm going to take a nap.

Back on the "Diet" Train

I am just a contradiction to myself.

I am back on the diet train.

Only I'm not technically dieting this time. Here is the deal I've made with myself. Just be better.

That's it. Just be better. Make better choices. I do not want to say I'm on a diet. That has obviously not worked for me in the past. So this time, I'm going a little easier on myself. I have finally found a love for myself that I think I've never had before. I will no longer use the word hate when I am talking about myself. This tends to change the way we see ourselves drastically.

Before: God I hate my double chin

Now: I am beautiful, but I'm not completely happy with how my face looks.

So when I say it this way, I am making the change to enhance myself. I am beautiful no matter what size I am. I no longer care what other people think about me. I want to be nice to myself, and I want to simply feel better.

So I am not on a diet, I am just making better decisions about what I eat and drink. Here are some of the changes I have made in the last 4 days.

1. Stopped Drinking Sodas (they give me crazy heartburn anyway)
2. Cut down on my portions
3. Started to incorporate more fruits and veggies into my diet.

That's it.

But, I will say that when you cut down on portions, you are extremely hungry for the first week until your stomach gets used to the new amount of food you are putting into it, and so far that has been the hardest part.

I would have assumed going in that my #1 change would be the hardest. I love sodas, and I have been addicted to them for so long. I've given them up before of course, but this time feels different. I haven't even had a headache or craving for one in the 4 days. I have, however, quite enjoyed not having constant heartburn, so there is that.

Anyway, I am not counting calories per say. I have been, but only to get used to the amount of food I should be eating. After a few weeks, I will stop counting and just live.

We shall see what happens.

But I also wanted to add... 6 days to NYC!!!! (I'm a little excited, lol)

New York Adventure - Part 7

We have finally made it to the last part. In honesty, I probably could have combined some of these and just written longer posts. Well, I will take that into consideration going forward, but for now the final installment of a trip I took 3 years ago!

Cue crowd cheering.

I am excited to have gotten this trip onto the page and out of my head. I love New York, and I love that I have something written on the interwebs that I can look back on in years to come and remember my first time in the City. I hope to continue my writing journey and journal all of the trips I take. I may even go back and journal a couple of other ones that have happened since I took this trip.

We shall see, but no promises made.

Let's get back to business, shall we?

I am a nerd, and I can admit that without any regret. I love nerdy things, and one of the nerdy things I love is live theater. I have gone to a few shows here in Dallas when I get the chance, but you can imagine how much I wanted to see something "On Broadway."

Now, I had a wholly wrong misconception of what Broadway actually was. In my head, I pictured a street covered in the red carpet where you had row after row of marquees showing the name of a huge play. Basically, I thought Broadway (since it is a street name in NYC) was the street that ALL of the theaters were on.

Wow, I was wrong.


In reality, Broadway is more than a street. It's a movement. A theater can be on Broadway, or it can be on 51st street, as was the theater we were headed named the Gershwin Theater. There was no red carpet outside, but there was a large marquee.

The theater itself was grand and beautiful, and being on a budget, we had to journey all the way to the third floor to get to our seats. (We were nowhere near the furthest back either, the theater was HUGE). We sat back and we enjoyed watching Wicked.

Now, here is what other people won't really tell you.

1. Though "On Broadway" is something that sounds glamorous and just the thought of it puts stars in a theater geeks eyes, it doesn't really feel much different than going to see it here in Dallas. I know it sounds blasphemous, and I will 100% go see another Broadway show but it doesn't hold the same place of honor it used it.

2. The seats are TINY. They are not a fat chicks friend let me tell you that. Nor are they a tall person's friend. I am not tall, I am only about 5'4", but my brother hit the combo. He is both a big guy and a tall guy (About 6'1") and even I had very little leg room and NO tummy room. I swear I am not exaggerating when I say I was scared my ass was gonna spill over and I was a little uncomfortable.

So, if you are larger than a victoria secret's model, you might not feel the most comfortable in those seats.

After the show let out, it was full night in NYC, well it was 10 p.m. but I remembered that I had not picked up any of the souvenirs I had promised to all my friends and family before we left, so we headed over to Times Square once again, which oddly was even more hopping than it was in the middle of the afternoon when we went back on Day 1. The weather was a perfect seventy degrees and it was lit up and finally, I found it beautiful.

We quickly grabbed some keychains and headed back towards our hotel. Remember when I told you we were two Texans, afraid of the city? Yeah we were even more afraid at night.

This concludes the New York Adventure of 2015. The next morning we flew back to Dallas where I laid in bed for two full days and snuggled my puppy dog.

Until next time NYC.

Inside of the Theater, just before Wicked Started

New York Adventure - Part 6

Part 6.

Or Part 2 of Day 4. This is just getting way too complicated lol.

So after we left the ferry, we decided to get back on the train and head to the Natural History Museum, which is located on the Upper West Side. I was excited because I hadn't actually been to this part of the city yet and it was the one I was most curious about. Why? I don't know, it just seems rich to me.

Anyway, we hopped back onto the train and took it for nearly an hour all the way through Manhattan. It was a long trip, but not horrible. It was actually kind of fun just watching people get on and off going about their day.

We made it to our stop and we knew that we were going to have to walk about a half mile through a neighborhood to make it into the museum. The museum itself does have a subway station inside of it, but we were on the wrong train for that, besides in hindsight I am so happy we did have to walk.

When I came out of the subway grate and onto the street, I felt like I had been beamed into an entirely different city. The streets were quiet, except for a lady walking her very expensive looking white poodle. Trees lined the street in front of the most beautiful brownstones I had ever seen. Even the air smelled different. I felt like I had walked onto the set of Sex and the City (and I very well could have lol)

We walked through a small little park, making sure to mess with the pigeons a little while we were there, and then into the Natural History Museum.

Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures available for the trip to the museum. I did take a ton, but they were stored on a thumb drive that I somehow managed to lose in the three years since. Sorry about that, but I will say that I loved it. The dinosaurs were much, much larger than I had thought they were. I mean you know they are big, but until you see them in person, you have no idea.

We watched a cool video about space while in a planetarium. It was narrated by Whoopi Goldberg and I highly recommend it if you are in the museum.

We spent a few hours touring the museum and then caught the train back to our hotel to rest up before the show. Stay tuned for the final part of this adventure where I tell you about what it was like going to see Broadway for the first time, and a little trip to times square, this time at night.

New York Adventure - Part 5

Part Five...

Day Four...

Also known as the final day in NYC.

Cue super funny crying GIF.

Day Four was a top contender as my favorite day in NYC. Why? Well, I got to see this beauty...

...among other things. But let's go back and start from the beginning.

The day started out slowly. We had absolutely no idea what to do that day. We had one thing planned. We had tickets to see Wicked on Broadway, but the show didn't start until 8 p.m. We actually contemplated hanging out in the hotel room all day. We really did.

That is until we got hungry and had to venture out for food. You might be wondering if you have been keeping up, why I never really mentioned any cool restaurants or bars that we visited in NYC. The answer is simple, we didn't go to any.

My brother and I were two Texans, afraid in the big city. Also, my brother was only 19, so bars were out anyway. We basically ate a lot of Mcdonalds and Chipotle during the trip. We did find our love for street vendor hot dogs, but there were two things I was not going to leave the city without having.

Pizza and Cheesecake. So we ventured out and I got both.

They were great. I enjoyed every bite, but now that we were out, we didn't want to go back in. The weather was beautiful that day, and not nearly as hot as it was before (why did we decide to go at the end of July I'll never know).

We decided that since we were unable to get tickets to tour the Statue of Liberty (Word of advice, buy tickets to that WAY in advance. Like months, or you won't get in.) we decided to do the next best thing. Take the Staten Island Ferry. It's free and goes right next to the statue, so at least you are decently close.

By this time, we were masters of the subway, and jumped on the train going downtown and headed to the ferry. I LOVED being on the ferry. Something about being on the water and the wind was nice and cool off of the New York Harbor just made me feel like I was home.

The of NYC from the Ferry

Our Ferry has arrived!

She was just so awe-inspiring 

I loved the water so much.

Now don't worry, there is more to come. This day was too good to fit into 1 part. There are two more parts to this day...

New York Adventure - Part 4

I know, it just keeps being confusing. Though this is Part 4, it is really journaling Day 3.

Now I know what you are thinking, if you are paying attention you will have noticed that the first three parts were written almost three years ago. Well, I decided to go ahead and finish the adventure, you couldn't call me a quitter (though I have quit every diet I've ever started, but I digress)

Day 3 was easily the most relaxing day of the New York trip. After a realizing how long it took to get anywhere or do anything on Day 2 (I had so much more planned than what actually happened), we decided to do a Hop-On Hop-Off bus tour of the city. We bought tickets for two buses, one going uptown, one going downtown (cue the "we're going downtown" song by Majical Cloudz that will be stuck in your head all day. You are welcome.)

We hung out at Bryant Park for a while as we waited for our bus and this was where we got the first taste of a New York City street vendor hot dog.

Needless to say, we fell in love.

Waiting for the bus we met a lot of people from all over the world. Oddly, they all seemed to know right away that we were from Texas.

We met this couple from Australia that was doing a backpacking tour around the world, and this was their first stop in the United States. They had been away from home traveling for about six months at the time. I remember thinking that it was crazy, and I would never want to be away from my bed for that long. A week is long enough for me!

Once we were on the bus, not much happened. We listened to the audio tour and took pictures of buildings it told us were famous, but that we had never heard of, and we got sunburned. The best part of the bus tour was actually when we went up to the Upper East Side and drove right along Central Park. I wanted so much to hop off and explore the park, but I was sore and tired from all of the walking the day before and the sunburn was starting to really drain my energy.

That is really all that happened on Day 3. It was really low-key and honestly, it was exactly what I needed in the middle of the trip. Day 4 was much more exciting, so stay tuned!

We managed to see a real-life Banksy by the Hi-Five!

The Hi-Five. Where they turned old train tracks into a park. 

Seeing Trump Towers from the Bus. If I only knew then what was to come.

I took this picture because it looked like a pile of Silver Poop. Yes, I'm that person.

I'm going to New York City... again

It's pretty easy to see that I have let this blog go by the wayside. The problem is, I am still a fat chick. But a few things have changed since I first started this blog...

1: I have started traveling more. I have now flown to NYC, Orlando, and Philly. I don't feel afraid to fly anymore, and that my friends, is priceless.

2. I have started to be a little easier on myself. Maybe I'm not a skinny chick just hiding inside of a body that is too big.

3. I've learned so much more self-love and I have surrounded myself with other people that lift me up instead of trying to break me down.

In short, my life is better. I don't quite hate myself now in my mid-thirties like I did in my twenties. I have decided that I want to use this blog, going forward to journal my life traveling and living a full life as a fat chick. I am done killing myself trying out one diet after the next. I will do my best to eat as healthy as I can, and I will go to the gym and get my blood pumping.

But... I have thrown away my scale. I no longer care what that number says, it does not define me. It never will again.

For now, I'd like to leave you with a few pictures from my various vacations I listed above. I enjoyed every single one of them and I cannot wait for my next trip to NYC. I leave in 23 days.

If you want to check out more pictures than the ones below, you can check out my photography page, where I try and post as many vacation photos as I can. http://amberlashell.weebly.com/ 

I flew to Orlando where I spend the day in Harry Potter World

and drank a ton of Butterbeer

I took a trip down to Galveston where I pretended to steal a pirate ship

I headed to Philly and spent time with a friend. We took the train to NYC and went to the top of the rock.

The NYC Public Library

and Ate tons of Macarons

I also went to a book signing where I met some of my favorite authors.

Here is to the next phase in life, living as a Fat Chick proudly.