For so long, Ben and I have always dreamed of going to New York and with a little push from Jen and Matt we all just decided to do it! With all our little ones left in care by Matt's sister Marlene, Julie, and Ampa, we knew that they were in good hands...so were off for 7 days (Sept. 2-8)!!! We loved New York so much that we were talking about moving there...ha, ha, we totally are not, but it was so fun to think about for a minute:) The energy in the city is like no where else! Time Square gave us a Vegas vibe, but other than that, it was like no other place we have ever been to before.
We arrived around 6pm New York time and got our first cab experience (all that is said about cab drivers is true...they drive like maniacs! One cabbie told us that he only hit two people last year, like that was a good thing!)took us straight to our hotel, The Marriot Marquis at Time Square. It was a beautiful hotel and that rooms were very nice...much nicer than we thought they would be. After walking around Time Square (so amazing...all of the lights, billboards, people...it was crazy), we ate at Virgil's BBQ, which was ok. Then, it was cupcake time (Jen is a cupcake addict) so we went to Crumbs, which was pretty good, but I am not a big cupcake person.
So my first two food experiences in NY were kinda disappointing, but everything else that we ate was fabulous!!! I love going out to eat...it is my favorite thing to do, so NY felt like heaven to me with all of the amazing restaurants to choose from!!! The next day, we ate lunch at Shake Shack, which puts all other frozen custard places that I have tried to shame. We got a chocolate concrete shake with chocolate chunks, pretzels, carmel, and marshmellow cream all mixed in...it was chunky and precisely my kind of treat! The burger and fries were very yummy too and it was a cheap lunch...about $8 a person, not bad. Then we went to Rockefeller Center and shopped around. Next, we hit up up Magnolia Bakery, which was much better than Crumbs.
Then we went to the hotel and got dressed up and ate at The Palm Restaurant (a very famous steak house...it has caricatures all over the walls...very delicious) and went to see Chicago after, which was a lot of fun!
The next day, we got bus tour tickets and took to the uptown tour.
We toured around Central Park, up to Harlem, then back around to Time Square. We saw many amazing sites and it was a great way to determine what places we would like to go back to and spend more time at. Unfortunately, this was the only Statue of Liberty that we saw up close and personal.We fully intended on going to see Lady Liberty, but we just didn't have time to do everything...next time for sure. We did see it in the distance on our downtown tour and when we flew in so we felt like we got our fix, at least for this trip.
Next, we hoped on the Subway and headed to Yankee Stadium to see if we could catch a game. Luckily, we able to get some tickets and experience a Yankee's game for ourselves. It was a lot of fun and NOTHING was better than Nathan's cheese fries!!! They tasted like heaven to me...YUM!!!
The next day, we took the downtown tour which started out with The Empire State building. We went at a bad time because the lines were pretty long, but the view up top was pretty cool and WINDY!
Next, we stop at Ground Zero and visited the 911 Memorial Museum first. Immediately as I walked through those doors, I welled up with tears. The memorial had pictures all around the walls of the museum that described the events of 911 as they happened. It was an amazing tribute to an event that changed America forever...I am so happy that I got to see it.
After the museum, we walked over to Ground Zero which is now a big construction zone where they are building another tower, which will be the tallest building in NY (1776 feet tall...which is symbolic of the year that America was founded). They also are building a tribute pond and other memorial buildings to remember the victims of the tragic event.
After our delicious dinner we went and saw Rock of Ages starring American Idol's Constantine! It was such a fun show and we actually got a pic with Constantine after the show, which I will have to post later after I get the pic form Jen...I was star struck! I know I am lame:)
After the show, Ben and Matt got a craving for a good authentic NY hotdog from nowhere else than Gray's Papaya!
After walking countless blocks in the middle of the night we finally reached our location and Ben would say that it was worth every minute of it...me, Jen, and Matt would say otherwise:)
The next morning, Jen and Matt went to the US Open, but Ben and I weren't really interested in going...so instead, we went and toured Central Park.
That night we met up with my Aunt Char and Uncle Sam who are Manhattan locals. We ate at Tao, which had amazing scenery and was a fun place to eat. After dinner, we went to The Plaza Hotel and Uncle Sam ordered us oysters...yuck! Ben really liked them and it was fun to try something new:) We had so much fun with Aunt Char and Uncle Sam...we can't wait to come and visit them again!
The next morning, we went to Serendipity!!! Of course, we had the famous Frozen Hot Chocolate and it totally lived up to all of the hype...soooo good!!!
We saw works from Picasso, Monet, Manet, Cezanne, Seurat, Renoir, and Degas to name a few...it was pretty amazing...at least I thought so:)
That about wraps up our trip. We seriously had so much fun and CANNOT WAIT to go back!!! Thanks again to my dad, Julie, and Marlene for watching our kids! We know that it was quite the undertaking and we really appreciate and love you!
