An affair to remember
New York- the city that never sleeps. I soon found that to be very true. There were just as many people on the streets at 11 pm as there were at 8 am or 3 pm. It was crazy!
To make it easier I'll go day by day telling what happened. (or showing!)
Monday: Our flight left Huntsville about 2:45 pm, and we had to first go to Atlanta, then to La Guradia. Because we entered the eastern time zone, we had to set our watches back an hour, and by the time we flew into New York it was dark. Man, the first sight of the city was spectactular~! There were bright lights stretching for miles and miles, it was one of the coolest sights I've ever seen. We took a shuttle from the airport to our hotel which was directly in the middle of Times Square. Because it was Halloween there was a parade going on and there were THOUSANDS of people filing up the streets. It literally took us an hour and half to get to our hotel. By then it was about 10 pm and Dad suggested we go out walking to see the sights. Times Square at night is very cool. First there are HUGE building EVERYWHERE with giant TV screens on them. They have advertistments, and posters and stuff on them and there is so much to look at. It's also bright and crowded. Its so bright you can read a newspaper at 3 am without any other light. Walking around for the first time was a little scary, just because there were so many people there. We stopped at a little cafe and Dad ordered a shrimp pizza. My first taste of New York food did not disapoint! Man, it is just good. The ingredients, the crust, sauce and cheese are just so much better quality than anything else here. Then we walked back to the hotel and got there around 11 or so. There were still just as many people on the streets, and it was perfectly normal to go sit down in a restaurant at that time of night! Woo hoo for my first day in New York!
Tuesday: We got up about 8:30 and Dad had to get off to his business show. He's a chemical engineer and there was a big Chem Show going on adverstising alot of products and stuff. So Mom and I walked around and did some shopping, getting a lot of little touristy things :-) Then we walked back to the hotel and got a map of what was close. The concierge told us the Empire State Building was close so we decided to do that. It was actually about a 30 min walk, but it was a gorgeous day, so we didn't care. We stopped and got a hot dog on the way, and it was delicious! If you've seen the movie Fools Rush In, I got a Papaya hot dog. Yes, it was very special.
So then we did the Empire State building. What surprised me was how long it actually took to get up there. I don't mean the elevators because they went fast (80 floors in 45 seconds.) But all the security and lines! There weren't too many people there, but enough that we had to wait for everything. I guess you have to go at like midnight like Meg Ryan did in Sleepless in Seattle when there's no one else there. But once we got to the top it was great. I got tons of good pictures of New York and we had an audio tour that we listened to that explained exactly what we were looking at. I coulnd't actually look over the edge though so I didn't really get a sense of how high up I was, but the view and wind were enough. Oh yeah, and I got a squished penny at the gift shop on the top :-)
Then we had to hurry back to the hotel because we were meeting Dad at 2:30 to go on a bus tour at 3. We walked to that too, and got there right at 3. One of the things that I regret most of all on this trip was I FORGOT THE CAMERA on the bus tour!! I had it when we were at the Empire State Building and Mom asked me to go put all of our shopping bags in the hotel room so we wouldn't have to carry it around on the bus tour and I set the camera down with all of them. Rr!! Despite that fact though, it was a fabulous bus tour.
The tour guide was great, he pointed out where alot of famous lived or had lived, and where a ton of movie and TV shows had been shot. It was cool! I saw where parts of Home Alone, Spiderman, Men In Black, Sleepless in Seattle, Breakfast at Tiffanys, were all shot. We also saw the place were John Lennon was shot (actually). We saw a couple places from Seinfeld, including the actual Soup Nazi place and the RESTAURANT. It was great! On the tour we rode the Staten Island Ferry and passed the Statue of Liberty. It was at night and it was cold and windy and fabulous! My Mom got too cold so for awhile it was just my Dad and I standing on the side of the boat with the Statue right there, and the New York skyline behind us. Then we passed, Ground Zero, St Patrick's Catherdal, the Rockafellar Center, the Federal Reserve Bank (where the gold is kept and there were security guards with machine guns!) and the New York Stock Exchange. We also passed Madison and 5th Avenue where all the shopping and restaurants are.
When the tour was over (about 8:30) we went to eat at Bubba Gump's shrimp restaurant. It was way cool! There was some memoribila from the movie including Forest's running shoes and dress that Jenny wore. All over the walls were quotes from the movie and the waitress asked us some Forest Gump triva. The drinks and dessert menu was a ping-pong paddle! It was great!
Wednesday: We took a tour of the New York Public Library- one of my Mom's favorite parts. It was very very well done. I couldn't believe it was actually a library; it was built more like a catherdal. They were having a special display of ancient reneasanice manuscripts that dated back to like 99 AD. There was even a Gutenberg Bible and a Wycliffe Bible...way cool.
We had reservations at a steak house called, "Frankie and Johnnies" which was close to the Broadway play that we were going to and rated one of the best restaurants in NYC. It was fantastic. The food was beyond description; melt in your mouth and make your taste buds dance for joy GOODNESS!
Just like the food, the play was incredible. It was only a short walk from our hotel and there was this awning surronding the theater that said, "Fiddler on the Roof," just like all the other Broadway plays that we passed. We had fourth row seats and the view was stunning. The dancing, the songs, the lights, the backdrops, the props, the actors, EVERYTHING, was SO well done. Sarah said it was better than watching a movie because you're actually right there! It was so neat- definitly one of the best experiences of my life.
To make it easier I'll go day by day telling what happened. (or showing!)
Monday: Our flight left Huntsville about 2:45 pm, and we had to first go to Atlanta, then to La Guradia. Because we entered the eastern time zone, we had to set our watches back an hour, and by the time we flew into New York it was dark. Man, the first sight of the city was spectactular~! There were bright lights stretching for miles and miles, it was one of the coolest sights I've ever seen. We took a shuttle from the airport to our hotel which was directly in the middle of Times Square. Because it was Halloween there was a parade going on and there were THOUSANDS of people filing up the streets. It literally took us an hour and half to get to our hotel. By then it was about 10 pm and Dad suggested we go out walking to see the sights. Times Square at night is very cool. First there are HUGE building EVERYWHERE with giant TV screens on them. They have advertistments, and posters and stuff on them and there is so much to look at. It's also bright and crowded. Its so bright you can read a newspaper at 3 am without any other light. Walking around for the first time was a little scary, just because there were so many people there. We stopped at a little cafe and Dad ordered a shrimp pizza. My first taste of New York food did not disapoint! Man, it is just good. The ingredients, the crust, sauce and cheese are just so much better quality than anything else here. Then we walked back to the hotel and got there around 11 or so. There were still just as many people on the streets, and it was perfectly normal to go sit down in a restaurant at that time of night! Woo hoo for my first day in New York!
Tuesday: We got up about 8:30 and Dad had to get off to his business show. He's a chemical engineer and there was a big Chem Show going on adverstising alot of products and stuff. So Mom and I walked around and did some shopping, getting a lot of little touristy things :-) Then we walked back to the hotel and got a map of what was close. The concierge told us the Empire State Building was close so we decided to do that. It was actually about a 30 min walk, but it was a gorgeous day, so we didn't care. We stopped and got a hot dog on the way, and it was delicious! If you've seen the movie Fools Rush In, I got a Papaya hot dog. Yes, it was very special.
So then we did the Empire State building. What surprised me was how long it actually took to get up there. I don't mean the elevators because they went fast (80 floors in 45 seconds.) But all the security and lines! There weren't too many people there, but enough that we had to wait for everything. I guess you have to go at like midnight like Meg Ryan did in Sleepless in Seattle when there's no one else there. But once we got to the top it was great. I got tons of good pictures of New York and we had an audio tour that we listened to that explained exactly what we were looking at. I coulnd't actually look over the edge though so I didn't really get a sense of how high up I was, but the view and wind were enough. Oh yeah, and I got a squished penny at the gift shop on the top :-)
Then we had to hurry back to the hotel because we were meeting Dad at 2:30 to go on a bus tour at 3. We walked to that too, and got there right at 3. One of the things that I regret most of all on this trip was I FORGOT THE CAMERA on the bus tour!! I had it when we were at the Empire State Building and Mom asked me to go put all of our shopping bags in the hotel room so we wouldn't have to carry it around on the bus tour and I set the camera down with all of them. Rr!! Despite that fact though, it was a fabulous bus tour.
The tour guide was great, he pointed out where alot of famous lived or had lived, and where a ton of movie and TV shows had been shot. It was cool! I saw where parts of Home Alone, Spiderman, Men In Black, Sleepless in Seattle, Breakfast at Tiffanys, were all shot. We also saw the place were John Lennon was shot (actually). We saw a couple places from Seinfeld, including the actual Soup Nazi place and the RESTAURANT. It was great! On the tour we rode the Staten Island Ferry and passed the Statue of Liberty. It was at night and it was cold and windy and fabulous! My Mom got too cold so for awhile it was just my Dad and I standing on the side of the boat with the Statue right there, and the New York skyline behind us. Then we passed, Ground Zero, St Patrick's Catherdal, the Rockafellar Center, the Federal Reserve Bank (where the gold is kept and there were security guards with machine guns!) and the New York Stock Exchange. We also passed Madison and 5th Avenue where all the shopping and restaurants are.
When the tour was over (about 8:30) we went to eat at Bubba Gump's shrimp restaurant. It was way cool! There was some memoribila from the movie including Forest's running shoes and dress that Jenny wore. All over the walls were quotes from the movie and the waitress asked us some Forest Gump triva. The drinks and dessert menu was a ping-pong paddle! It was great!
Wednesday: We took a tour of the New York Public Library- one of my Mom's favorite parts. It was very very well done. I couldn't believe it was actually a library; it was built more like a catherdal. They were having a special display of ancient reneasanice manuscripts that dated back to like 99 AD. There was even a Gutenberg Bible and a Wycliffe Bible...way cool.
We had reservations at a steak house called, "Frankie and Johnnies" which was close to the Broadway play that we were going to and rated one of the best restaurants in NYC. It was fantastic. The food was beyond description; melt in your mouth and make your taste buds dance for joy GOODNESS!
Just like the food, the play was incredible. It was only a short walk from our hotel and there was this awning surronding the theater that said, "Fiddler on the Roof," just like all the other Broadway plays that we passed. We had fourth row seats and the view was stunning. The dancing, the songs, the lights, the backdrops, the props, the actors, EVERYTHING, was SO well done. Sarah said it was better than watching a movie because you're actually right there! It was so neat- definitly one of the best experiences of my life.
Thursday: Our last morning in New York we spent packing up our bags and leaving them at the hotel desk. Dad had to go to the Chem show again so Mom and I had a few hours to wonder around. We just started walking and ended up seeing the place where the Oprah show and the David Letterman show are filmed, the Rockafeller center( you know, with the ice skating rink and the flags,) the NBC experience store, (we didn't buy anything, but there was this one shirt that said, "How YOU doin?" that I was tempted with) and the CBS studios. It was great! Very New Yorky! The last thing we did in New York was go to the Muesem of Television and Radio. It's a muesem that spealizes in perserving old episodes of everything from Ed Sullivan, to Friends, to the world series and Super Bowl Games. So they have these huge archives, and like five different screening rooms, and every day they have a schedule of what they'll be showing when. Since we only had like an hour we knew we could only see like one thing, so we choose to see an I Love Lucy episode. The room was set up just like a stadium seating theater and it was so way cool to see Lucy on the big screen!! A great way to end the New York experince!!
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11:17 AM
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