We took a Lyft to the hotel, where we discovered we had a gorgeous room on the 56th floor with a Times Square view! We went for a walk and found a pizza place and had quite tasty New York style pizza. We walked down to Rockefeller Plaza and then Times Square, which was not as interesting as I would have thought. I mean, it was a cool place but it does seem like it's a bit over rated. The atmosphere is really fun, I will give it that! Our hotel was right next to the Late Show studio, sadly they were not filming while we were there. Still cool to be so close to it!
Thursday morning we dragged ourselves out of bed at 9 (give us a break, it was 6am our time!) and went down to have breakfast at the hotel. We took the subway down to Battery Park and after some hmming and hawing, decided to take the boat trip over to the Statue of Liberty. It was a bit of a wait, but we were not sorry we did it. It's a unique experience to be so close to something that has so much history and so much meaning to the country.
After the boat trip, we walked over to the Charging Bull on Wall Street for the obligatory tourist picture. There were lines at the front AND the back of the bull for pictures lol! We did not wait for photos at the back, but got some of the front - the back will have to wait until next time;-). We walked around the financial district, saw the Stock Exchange, had a hot dog from a street cart (just a very New York thing to do so we had to do it!). We saw the 9/11 Memorial, which we both thought was very well done. We didn't do the museum, there was a wait and it was a bit pricey, but walked around the grounds a bit. Very somber experience to be right there where such a horrible thing happened all those years ago. We also walked over to the court house where they filmed so many Law and Order episodes, had to be done haha!
After the courthouse, we walked over to the Brooklyn Bridge and decided to walk all the way across it into Brooklyn. We hit up a Shake Shack where I had frozen custard for the first time (not bad!) and then walked over to the Brooklyn Bridge park for a different view of the bridge. We then had to find a subway station so we could get back to Times Square, that took a bit of trial and error but we made it! We went to the last minute ticket booth and decided to get tickets for The Rose Tattoo for that night. We relaxed at the hotel for a bit and then walked over to see the show. Marissa Tomei starred in it, which is what drew us to see it, and she did a really great job. It was entertaining, although not the best storyline ever. We enjoyed it, and thankfully we didn't pay that much to see it!
We had not eaten dinner before the show, and it was 10:45pm when the show was over. Thankfully in NYC restaurants are open really late so we knew we would be able to find SOMETHING to eat! We walked up towards our hotel and walked past this place called Stardust Diner that had a small line of people outside (at 11pm??). I looked it up and this is a diner where the wait staff sings to you while you eat, and many of them are so talented they go on to be on Broadway! We decided to give it a go just for the experience. The food was mediocre but it was a cool experience for sure! Fun end to a great day!
Friday we got up at 9 again (slightly easier than the day before!) and had breakfast, then headed down to the Empire State Building. Surprisingly, it was not as easy to find as we would have thought! Google of course told us where it was, but because of how many tall buildings there are around it, it doesn't stand out when you're close to it, and there weren't a billion signs directing us to it either! Once we found where we were supposed to walk in, it was all very straight forward:-). We went up to the observation deck where we had fantastic views of the city. After the Empire State Building, we got some sushi and walked over to the New York Public Library and ate our lunch outside the Library. We briefly went into the Library just because it is such a beautiful building, and I wanted to see an old school library. Our next stop was Grand Central Station, which is also an incredible building. So many of them in New York! We took a train up north to Central Park and walked around the reservoir, making our way gradually over to The Metropolitan Museum. Brian and I are both not big art buffs, but when you're in New York you have to go to at least one museum! We wandered around, found some art from some famous artists which was neat, saw some Egyptian artifacts. You could spend several days there if you heard all the stories behind every sculpture and piece of art, but that wasn't on our agenda!
I hadn't made the best shoe choice (after wearing sandals all summer, I forgot that my grey flats take some getting used to every Fall!) so by the time we were done at the Met I could hardly even walk. The train station unfortunately was a bit of a walk through Central Park, so at one point I actually took my shoes off and walked in my socks. It's New York, who was gonna care! We took the train back to our hotel and relaxed a bit before our only really nice dinner that we did on this trip. We went to The Lamb's Club, and had a delicious meal! I had duck and Brian had a steak, so good. After dinner we went to the show we had bought tickets for months ago, Dear Evan Hansen. It was absolutely fantastic! What a great show! I was so glad we saw that one after the Rose Tattoo, because the Rose Tattoo would have been quite a letdown after this one:-S. Such a great story, great songs, great acting, the highlight of the trip for both of us!
We walked back to the room through Times Square again, so much action there in the evenings! It definitely feels alive, I can't imagine how busy it is in the summer! Another great day!
Saturday morning we got up a bit earlier so we had more time to enjoy the city before making our way over to the airport in afternoon. We had breakfast and walked over to Central Park to do a walk/run (more walking than running, but we did run a bit! I broke a sweat:-D). There was a Terry Fox Run going on in the park which was pretty fun to run into! We walked past the Central Park Zoo, but there wasn't much to see unless you bought tickets which we were not going to bother with. It really is a beautiful park, and the sheer size of it in a city like New York! We got back to the room, had a shower and checked out, leaving our bags with the hotel so we could explore the street market that had set up all down Broadway. We wandered through the market, found some trinkets for the kids, some macarons for the Daveys (which Jasper later destroyed as mentioned in the previous blog post, grrrr). We got our bags just before 2pm thinking we had plenty of time to get to the airport, and followed Google's advice on how to take transit. We took the subway down to Penn Station and then had to make a transfer over to New Jersey transit. We did not realize how infrequently the trains to New Jersey ran, and by the time we figured out where the train was, we had missed the one that would get us there at a reasonable time! We aborted mission and got out to the street to take an overpriced Lyft instead. The cool thing about this option is that we saw the outside of Madison Square Garden, where the Oilers were actually playing the Rangers right at the same time as we were standing outside it! Sadly we hadn't timed our flight so we could go to the game (probably for the best, we would have gotten home much later which wouldn't have been ideal!). We got to the airport in plenty of time and all was well, but it was a bit stressful for a short time!
The flight home was very smooth, and we actually arrived home an hour earlier than scheduled! It was great to be home and everything was well in hand when we got there. Andy (and Kristy) had done a fantastic job with the kids and we were (still are!) so grateful to them! Such a great trip!
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