By Katie Donovan

New York City: The city that never sleeps; the city where dreams are born, bred, and branded. While many people may grow up dreaming of moving away or chasing their dreams, they don’t always act on it. The impulse to flee and seek the unknown is scary and intimidating, yet desirable and intriguing.

New Year’s Eve is one of the busiest, most chaotic days of the year in New York City. As 2014 was coming to a close, and happened to be a terrible year for me, I decided to pack my things with my best friend and head for the Big Apple – a fresh start was on the horizon. While many people thought we were crazy for doing this, it only fueled the fire that we chose New Year’s Eve as our move date. We landed at JFK around three o’clock in the afternoon that day, grabbed our luggage, and braved the cold while waiting for a cab. Two girls from Florida, completely unaware of just how cold the exit from the airport doors would be.

We arrived at our new apartment just in time to change our clothes and head out to explore and celebrate the beginning of a new year – a new journey. This night was filled with countless cab rides, subway experiences, long lines, and most of all, pure excitement. Everything was new to us, and we gazed around at the beauty of our new home and our new life as we got lost and found, all at once.

We laughed at ourselves as we took wrong turns and paid too much for cabs and clubs. We finally made it to an end-of-the-night destination just before the ball dropped only miles away in Time Square. We were just two girls celebrating the countdown, standing on a sidewalk out of a bar. We cheered and hugged strangers on the street. These unknown souls standing among us were also braving the cold while waiting in line to enter the bar. Although we may have envisioned the night to pan out quite differently, it was the perfect end to a terrible year and we smiled as we finally made our way to the front of the line.

New York City has so much to offer and the journey of exploration as well as lessons learned has only just begun.