"She walked along the streets of the city, excited, at home, soaking in all the million tides of New York without fear, with constant wonder." - Irwin Shaw, "The Eighty-Yard Run"
When I first interviewed for a job at The Huffington Post, I had no idea its headquarters were in New York.
I had been living in San Francisco since college, and I never intended to leave. I just assumed, when shooting my resume off into cyberspace, that editors worked their magic from mysterious remote locations all over the world (or out of Arianna's house in LA, as the legend went).
So when one of the hiring managers mentioned "our beautiful office in SoHo" around interview three or four, I was shocked. And a few days later, I was getting on a plane.
I arrived in the Big Apple on the cusp of Snowpocalypse 2010, a brutal winter the city only recently fully thawed from. "Just wait until summertime," my friends coaxed whenever I whined about California's permanent 60-degree weather. "Summer makes it all worth it."
Now, after a string of hot city days that have melted into warm city nights, I've decided my friends were right. But just in time to experience why so many loyalists deem New York the greatest place on the planet, HuffPost is sending me back across the country -- for good. Which gives me only a couple weeks to create and fulfill the Most Amazing New York City Bucket List Ever.
Statue of Liberty trips and Times Square pizza joints need not apply (who do you think I am, Sarah Palin?), though I still made some room for the classics. Behold my must-do's below. Here's hoping the weather cooperates.
HuffPost readers: We want to hear from you! If you only had a week or two to spend in New York City, what would you absolutely not miss? Leave your bucket list items in the comments below.
