Have you ever flown over New York City? Personally, I think it is one of the coolest, most amazing sights I have ever seen. There is this massive metropolis that not only energizes the streets of this great city, but illuminates and brightens the air surrounding the plane, inciting the most immense pleasure. The city of New York, from Brooklyn to the Bronx, is one of the most dazzling and magical cities that I have ever been to.

Yes, New York City (particularly Manhattan) is a hotspot for tourist attractions. Thousands of people from across the United States and the world flock to this city to experience all of the wonders and craziness of this city. Especially during the holiday season, there is an endless crowd of people who can be seen attempting to walk down Fifth Avenue or Broadway. All of these people have come to experience the thrilling city of New York at its best. They come to see the tree at Rockefeller Center, Macy’s Department Store, ice skating rinks and all of the festivities that happen around this time of year.

The only problem with traveling to New York at this time of the year is the colossal crowds that flood every tourist location. I’m a very personable person and I like to be around people, but when I was in New York I became overwhelmed with the sheer amount of people I was forced to be around. It was so busy that I felt like I was in a vacuum-packaged container and that the container was getting gradually smaller. The one time as I was attempting to walk around Times Square, and I was at the perfect position where I was higher than the people around me. From this vantage point, I saw a truly puzzling sight. All I could see were heads—heads that seemed to stretch for blocks on end; heads that were struggling to get to their destination while attempting to maintain a sense of humanity.

The interesting thing about New York is that people, especially tourists, seem to be highly concentrated in one area. Midtown attracts these huge crowds with its Fifth Avenue stores, Time Square theaters, Central Park, upscale hotels and a broad variety of restaurants. This part of New York is so iconic; it’s what you see in the movies, the books, it is the Manhattan that everyone knows. This part of New York is thrilling; it has such a dynamic atmosphere and all of the designer stores mixed with the closeness to the city give it a charismatic feeling. It isn’t this part of New York that I have fallen in love with though. Yes, I love this area, but there is a whole other world that exists beyond the typical tourist area of this city, and that is the place that I have grown to love.

I have visited New York City multiple times, and every time I find something different about the city that I begin to love. This time, the trip was a completely different experience than any of the other times I had been to New York. We strayed almost completely off the typical tourist path for a full day, and what I came to find was a city that, unlike what the world would say, was tranquil and had a feeling of utmost connectivity.

Having never experienced this city this way, I found myself in a stupor of amazement. It was like opening presents on Christmas morning—that feeling of joy overcame me as I was mingling among real-life New Yorkers. These people weren’t just faces that were blocks away, they were sitting in the booth next to me; they were buying Christmas trees at the local market; they were unattended tweens walking down an avenue alone—they were real people. Although our realities may be starkly different, they weren’t tourists there to just have a good time, they were living their real lives right out in front of me and they had no idea that I was an outside observer seeing the beauty of it all. It was a feeling that I had never gotten in this massive city; it was a sense of harmony, not chaos or crowding, and it overwhelmed my soul. My soul gladly soaked it up, letting it drip into the recess of my heart and overcome my inner being.

Granted, this is just one opinion of this part of this city, the area around Columbia University, on the upper west side near Harlem; some people find this part of the city crude and alarming, but I have never felt such a security in New York City as I felt in this area. It is a melting pot of culture and encourages the outsider to look farther than looks, but makes them look into the true identity of the city to find a new sense of what this city is.

New York City has such an array of spectacles; it ranges from the very tip-top of spenders on Fifth Avenue to the vagabonds in Central Park, but finding beauty in this city is not difficult. Whether you want a shopping spree in some of the top boutiques in the world, or want to cuddle in a cubby in a used bookstore, New York has it all. Finding the beauty requires the individual to look deep into their soul and decipher the hidden meanings behind all of the popular culture propaganda that invades our society. Find what you think is beautiful and stick with it. Don’t let anyone tell you that your idea of beauty is wrong; be your own individual.