New York!

Me and Brooke took a fabulous girls-only trip to New York City over spring break. It was a ton of fun. I missed Michael a lot, but I'm really glad that I got to go. We left reeeeeeaallly early on Saturday morning, and came back late Wednesday. We flew in and out of Newark, New Jersey, and took the train into and out of the city. That was the cheaper route, but not the best. The airport in New Jersey is terrible, confusing, overcrowded, and under construction. They also mixed up our luggage on the way home and delayed our flight by an hour and a half because of air traffic control issues. Needless to say, next time we go to New York, we will not be using the New Jersey airport. Ok, here's a re-cap of the trip with a few (out of hundreds) of our pictures.

Day 1: We left at 6am, and got to Jersey about 1130. It was about 2 by the time we checked into our hotel, and ventured out into times square. Our hotel was smack in the middle of times square and basically a perfect location. We ate lunch and walked around taking in the sights. We found some street performers that did crazy tricks which was fun to watch. Turns out that New York has tons of street performers everywhere. Almost every subway station had someone playing an instrument.

That night, we walked to the Rockefeller center and went up to the top of the rock for fun views of the city at night. We also saw Tom Hanks walking into NBC studios. It took us a few minutes to realize who it was that was being escorted from their car, and by the time we recognized him, there was no time to grab the camera. Oh well.  We made our first (of several) trips to a diner called Ellen's Stardust diner where the waiters and waitresses are all aspiring actors and singers who walk around performing broadway hits. We loved it.

Day 2: We slept late because we were pretty worn out from the time change plus daylight savings. Double whammy. We rode the subway up to Central Park and walked almost all of it. It was a gorgeous day and there were a lot of runners out and about. We ate hot dogs from vendors, saw several random performers, ate delicious belgian waffles and ice skated. :) 

After Central park, we rode the subway down to the Brooklyn Bridge. We managed to only take 2 taxis our entire trip. We bought a 7 day unlimited ride subway pass for $29, and rode the subway/walked everywhere. It was a great way to save money and get around the city. Everything is very well marked and they also have great maps. The Brooklyn Bridge  has a pedestrian walkway above where the cars drive and there are gorgeous views, so we walked all the way across. We got a little lost after getting off the bridge and were pretty worn out and hungry, so opted for a cab back to the hotel. Dinner that night was at Serendipity's where we met up with a couple of Brooke's friends who were also there for a few days.

Day 3: We woke up early and went to get tickets for the 9/11 memorial. They give away free tickets starting at 9am, but once they are out, that's it for the day. You get the tickets from a "9/11 preview" site which is several blocks away where they have a little mini-museum with a video and gift shop, then at the scheduled time on your ticket, you walk down to the actual memorial. There is a lot of construction going on down there still because they are rebuilding the entire block around where the towers stood. The actual memorial is really cool, its a large grassy area with trees, and then at the spot of the 2 towers, there are huge waterfall fountains with railing that has the names of all the people who died that day. Around that, they are building a huge tower as tall as the original 2, and a museum and a few other buildings. It was a pretty neat thing. 

After the memorial, we walked through the financial district to get in line for the statue of liberty ferry. The statue is still closed so we couldn't go up into it, but we got some good pictures. We did get off at the stop at Ellis Island and walked through the museum there. It was a really cool museum and I wish we would have had more time to look around and read everything. 

After making a pit stop for burgers and shakes, we went to the hotel for a nap. That night, we went to the Empire State building before the sun went down, and did more walking around and a little shopping since our hotel was only about 5 blocks away. 

Day 4: Chinatown and show day! We started the day in chinatown to do some shopping-both legal and illegal :). We of course couldn't pass up the opportunity to be led down the street and into a secret room at the back of a shop to purchase prada bags. Or to pick out a coach bag off of a picture, then walk down the street to find it hiding in a black trash bag inside a phone booth. True stories! Looking back, we realize that those may or may not have been the safest/smartest transactions. However, we both have super cute designer bags now :). We bought some good souvenirs and ate lunch at an authentic Dim Sum place that was recommended to us. That place was legit. No forks in sight. It was really really yummy and probably the cheapest but most filling meal we had the entire trip. 

After chinatown, we headed north to the Museum of Natural History. Its a very cool museum and we of course didn't have time to see everything since there were three floors with tons of exhibits. We did watch an imax video about stars and planets (that was not quite in line with my beliefs about creation, but there was neat video footage anyways). We also walked through the chelsea district, waved to the library, sat in Bryant park for a bit, and stopped in to see grand central station. 

 Our tickets for Phantom of the Opera were that night and it was AMAZING. I loved loved loved it. I could seriously go to a broadway show every night and never get tired of it. The actors were so great, and the way they made everything so realistic was just phenomenal. They even let you take pictures with one of the main guys after the show! We went to little Italy for a late dinner and one of the security guards (he said his job was to keep the streets clear from in front of the restaurant) had a crush on Brooke and kept us entertained the whole time :).

Day 5: Sadly, all good things must come to an end. We went to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) our last morning, and it made us realize that neither one of us has an eye for art. I can definitely appreciate that there are very talented people out there, but some of the stuff I just didn't understand. They did have one of the coolest gift shops of any place we had been though. We felt it was necessary for one more dose of Ellen's diner for lunch before packing up to go home. 

That's it! If you made it to this point, you should probably get an award, because that was a lot of stuff all crammed into one post. But it is nice to have it all down to remember :). Brooke decided that she loved the city enough to apply for a job when we got back, so maybe the next trip will be soon!