FEBRUARY IN NEW YORK CITY
It’s been a little over a week since I came back from the winter break I took, six days in New York City. Since returning, I’ve been replaying the trip in my mind. Not just the places, but the feelings. The expectations and the contrast between what I thought it would be and what it actually was.
This trip had been planned since September. By the time February finally arrived, I couldn’t have been more excited. I had imagined it so many times that it already felt familiar before it even happened. And that’s what I keep thinking about now, how dangerous familiarity can be when it’s built entirely from references.
Because nowadays, we don’t just visit cities. We consume them first and New York has always been one of the most consumed cities in the world.
NYC is deeply romanticized by society, and it always has been (at least for a very long time). It has been sold to us for decades as the city of ambition, art, power, fashion, and possibility. Cinema built it into a character of its own. From all different industries, New York is rarely presented as ordinary. Because of that, we don’t just see the city, we inherit a narrative about it.
In a world where everything is immediate and where you can see, feel, and experience places through screens, you start to believe you already know them. And as someone who loves fashion and film, New York has always lived in my imagination. Through movies and stories, the city became part of my visual vocabulary long before I stepped into it as an adult.
It was technically my second time there, but the first time I visited I was twelve, on a family trip. Everything has changed since then. So this felt like a first time.
I went with my boyfriend, and we had planned everything carefully. We wanted to experience the city fully, but also leave space to simply be.
Two weeks before our trip, there had been a snowstorm. By the time we arrived, the snow was still there, but transformed into ice, lining the sidewalks. We landed late at night. The air was cold but manageable, and we walked a little, just enough to feel the thrill of finally being there. The buildings felt familiar, but familiarity can be misleading.
The next morning, the temperature dropped to -27°C with strong winds. The kind of cold that doesn’t just touch your skin but goes through you. Suddenly, the romanticized version of “winter in New York” collided with reality. And yet, it was still beautiful.
The wind forced us into spontaneous decisions: stepping into random coffee shops just to warm up, lingering longer than planned inside stores, choosing the subway instead of walking around all day. And that’s when I started realizing something.
When you think you already know a place, you arrive with expectations instead of curiosity. And expectations can be heavy, they filter what you see. They compare reality to a version that never truly existed, just a collage of references. Media doesn’t just show you New York. It teaches you how you’re supposed to feel about it.
But being there; freezing, slightly uncomfortable, adjusting plans – gave me something different. It gave me friction. And friction creates presence.
I realized that overconnection can trick you into believing you’ve experienced something before you actually have. We scroll through cities the same way we scroll through outfits or lives. We save them and categorize them. By the time we arrive, we’re not discovering, we’re confirming.
Would I recommend New York in February? Honestly, not if your goal is comfort or effortless joy. There are so many activities that are harder to enjoy in extreme winter. But there’s something honest about seeing a city in its harshest version.
Not the New York of films and fashion campaigns. But the New York that exists in the cold, in the rush, in the discomfort. And maybe that’s what this trip gave me. Not the city I had imagined, but the one that challenged that imagination.
