The Big Apple

After Boston, we took a 4 hour train ride down the coast of Rhode Island and Connecticut to New York City. What a BEAUTIFUL ride! Although most of the trees were still green, some had started to change colors already giving us a beautiful show of yellows, oranges and reds. Fabulous! Once in NYC, we took a cab from the train station to our hotel. HOLY CRAP! Taxi drivers do not care how fast they drive, whether or not people are crossing the street, whether or not a car is coming at them as they want to turn, or anything! They get you where you need to go as fast as possible not matter the cost! SCARY! I decided that hoofin' it would be our primary mode of transportation. We stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn in Times Square. It was a really nice hotel.

The first day there, we went to the Empire State building. It was so much higher than I ever imagined it was. we went to the 86th floor and took pictures of this pigeon who was just kickin' it there on tallest building in NY and he posed for us.

That night, we went to a place called Carnigie Deli for a pastrami sandwich. Jake and both ordered one and quickly changed our order to just one sandwich to share after we saw them bring other people their dinner. The picture shows why. Anyway, it was the most delicious pastrami sandwich I have ever had and the pickles were delish!

The next day was 9/11. We took a ferry to Ellis Island and Liberty Island. That was really fun. The Statue of Liberty is much larger than I thought it would be. Ellis Island has hundreds of pictures of immigrants that I really enjoyed looking at. It was a pretty place. That night, we went to go see "Legally Blonde" on Broadway. What an AMAZING show. It was so good and hillarious at that! Highly recommended. After the show, we went to ground zero. We went late at night thinking it would be a little quieter, and it was. I have to say, there isn't much there. There is a huge hole in the ground with a chain link fence around it that is lined so you can't see inside. There is no memorial or anything yet even after 7 years. There was a fire truck out on the street with people talking about where they were the day of and all of that. It was very emotional hearing how these people could see it out their window and I was all the way in Fresno, CA when it happened. It shed a new light on it.

The next day, we woke up to rain. We went to the Metropolition Museum of Natural History which was great and HUGE. We also walked through Central Park which is much bigger and much more beautiful than I ever thought and then we went shopping on 5th Ave. I'm going to use the excuse that I didn't like anything I saw as a reason I didn't buy anything... it had nothing to do with the prices of course! We also had a Yankee game planned. Jake hates the Yankees (he's a Boston Red Sox fan) but we wanted to see the stadium before they tear it down. So we heard that we had to get "the best pizza in the world" at a place called Nick's in the Bronx. First we got on the wrong train, then another wrong one. Then we walked around in a little place called Harlem for about an hour trying to find the subway station that had the correct train. Talk about standing out in a crowd! Now keep in mind it is still raining. We decided to skip Nick's and just go to the game. Well, we finally found a cab willing to pick us up and he took us to the right subway station. We caught that, with about a kabillion other people going to Yankee stadium, and finally got there. We found a line and they proceed to announce that no backpacks are allowed, which of course we had because we had been out all day long. So we had to walk down and across the street to a bowling alley which would check our backpack. We finally get into the stadium to find the field flooded. Well, we hung out for a bit and took some pictures. When game time can and went, we left without seeing a game and about $155 in the whole for 2 $15 face value tickets. Oh well, the price you pay for one of the last games in that stadium EVER. Anyway, we went back to Times Square and ate at Bubba Gumps. Delicious and way fun!

Overall, it was a wonderful trip. We got back safe after 19 hours of travelling which included a subway trip from Times Square to Grand Central Station, then a train on the Long Island Rail Road to Islip, NY then a plane to Baltimore where we sat for 3 hours. Then a plane to San Antonio, TX and then to Phoenix. Then we ate at The Old Spaghetti Factory and drove 2 hours back home. What a long day!