Stylist.co.uk provides a forum for readers to share their unique views and talents. This week our reader columnist is Emma Bisset. She lives in Edinburgh and has recently graduated from Edinburgh University with a Business Studies degree

New York is known as the place of dreams, where budding actresses, screenwriters and models alike swarm to, all hoping to make it big and see their dreams come to life in the big lights and mayhem that is New York City. But that’s not why we went. We had graduated from university and wanted to do something that said, “Hey, look at us, we’re awesome!” So we decided a trip to the other side of the world would do.

We booked with a respected airline as one of the girls was a nervous flier and didn’t trust the cheaper airlines to “make it over the pond”. Despite getting up at 6am we were buzzing that there was more than three films showing on the plane and “YAY!” there was free brownies and we weren’t even first class!

Upon landing we got into the fastest moving taxi New York could provide and after a white knuckle ride through a rain-drenched NYC we reached our apartment. Tired and achey, we arrived at the best room ever. Sure it looked out onto an industrial site but we could see the Empire State if we went on our tippy toes! Giddy, we ran up to our rooftop to look at the view our six months of student part-time wages had bought us and squealed as we breathed in New York at her best. Muggy, noisy and unapologetic, the city was ours for the taking.

On our first night, our eyes stinging from jet lag, we drifted round in a daze, so obviously tourists we may as well have had t-shirts saying “mug us” on, gasping at every little light in Times Square. After a couple of days shopping like the UK had no concept of retail, we decided it was time to embrace our Sex And The City addiction and head to Greenwich Village.

Reader’s column: I heart New York