I have a lot to catch my blog up on! We didn’t have internet while in Manhattan, so I have to cover all of that ground in one blog post! They days have been jam packed since getting back from vacation, so there is a lot to type about!
Manhattan
We had such a good time in NYC. I was not nearly as familiar with NYC as DC, but all of our travel plans went off without a hitch. When we got there we spent some time walking around Times Square and were able to get a feel for how many people were out. We spent some time unpacking in the Milf (Milford) and then crashed early. We didn’t get much sleep because the bed was nice and small, and the Green Day Broadway musical fans were screaming most of the night.
On Sunday we had our grand tour. We left early to find some place to grab a coffee and ended up at Fluffy’s café which was cute. We ventured down to get to the tour and turns out the tour started at 10AM and not 10:30 as they originally said, WHAT?! Thank goodness we were early! The tour was great, it gives such a broad overview of the city in general and takes you to all of the photo opportunity sites in one day without a bunch of metro or walking. We saw Wall Street, Central Park, Dakota Building, Twin Tower construction site, Chinatown, and the list continues! We stopped for lunch and a NYC Water Taxi ride down by Southside Seaport. The water taxi was a fun addition to the tour. Last time I went with Kelli, we didn’t go out onto the boat. We had “Lee the MC” at the microphone rapping all of the tourist facts and commentary. He was a great addition to the trip and everyone loved him. We took a ton of pictures with the statue of liberty, Brooklyn bridge, and the NYC skyline/waterfront. It was awesome. Then some Brazilian guys on the pursuit wanted their pictures taken with Lyssa and I, haha! They probably haven’t seen blonde hair before and were amazed by our antics for some reason. Little do they know that we’re from northern Wisconsin, nothing too crazy about that. We had a good laugh with the guy from Turkey who was translating for them and then got a bite to eat. The day was excellent! The best part was the ending however, Junior’s Cheesecake! Mmmmhmm, soo good. They gave us a painfully big portion, but it was worth every bite. We headed back to the Milf to watch the Zenith before heading to bed.
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| On Wall Street! |
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| Rockefeller Plaza during the tour! |
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| Empire State (of mind) Building! |
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| Madison Square Park... |
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| "Lee the MC and the Statue of Lib-er-ty..." (rapped) |
Monday we took a day to walk down 5th avenue and do some shopping. I was on a mission to find a hat for the day and found one in a small shop on 5th Ave. We went into the Trump building and the Nike Store. We took pictures outside of Tiffany’s and other expensive stores. It was a pretty good day. The Indian food place that Paul had found for us closed at 3:00PM to prepare for dinner meals, and we got there at 3:05. DANG! So we walked home and stopped at Macy’s on the way back. That store is absolutely massive. It’s slightly ridiculous. We both were at the point now that we knew we couldn’t buy anything because nothing more would fit into our carry-on luggage, so we decided to kick it old school and try on prom dresses! Haha, this was a brilliant idea, and resulted in great pictures. I tried on a white one to scare Paul and make myself look extra pasty! Lyssa had a bootylicious red one which was a wild and tight fitting masterpiece. After that, we went up to the top level (or close to it) and ate some soup at Au Bon Pain. Every time I see that restaurant chain I think of Kelli, because we shared so many lunch dates there while at NIH. It’s such good food, and the best part is that they have one in Pittsburgh, another perk for Pitt! We made it through 5th Ave alive and without maxing out our credit cards, so it was a very successful day!
Monday night however was a different story, hah! It can be summed up by saying “Broadway Comedy Club”. We went to the comedy club and sat down. We ordered one of the best drinks for the cost, which happened to be a Long Island. With a two drink minimum, we ordered Mai Tais for the second one to bring us back to Hawaii. The comedy was all very good, and the nerd stole the show I’m pretty sure. We finished the night in terrible style with “ask the comic”, which I interpreted to be “stump the comic”. It’s probably because it sounded so much like stump the Karnack, which we all know to be our favorite seventh grade daily news game. So, feeling the Long Islands, we went back into the room to record a podcast with the comedians. I asked them what a cheese curd was… idiot. Haha, they thought I was a complete moron and obliviously a little slow. Poor Lyssa had to watch the whole thing go down before her eyes… it was brutal. Anyway, after desperately trying to be funny and epically failing, we walked home to get McDonalds chicken nuggets, 20 piece. Then proceeded to demolish the cheese-its and the chocolate we had left in the Milf. It would be sickening to watch… I had a massive stomach ache while awaking, and an even guiltier food conscience.
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| NYC Bridges, Manhattan and Brooklyn! |
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| In the freakishly large and overwhelming M&M store... |
Tuesday was our last full day in NYC. We decided to take our time getting up and head to Rockefeller Plaza to go ice skating. It was awesome! The day started out pretty chilly, but once we strapped those skates on, things really started warming up! The lunch hour skating was nice and cheap. We took a lot of pictures and some videos. Basically, we skated the whole time admiring the business men who came down to skate in suits during the lunch hour and screaming “These are RENTALS!” It was such a good time, I enjoyed it to the max. After we grabbed a bite to eat at Europa and decided to walk on down to Canal Street to do some good old fashioned bartering. I didn’t want to use the subway because I wasn’t exactly sure where it would stop, however the walk was a lengthy one. Lyssa’s feet (dogs) were pretty much bleeding, so we took a look around and hopped on the subway to head for home. This was our last night in NYC, so we had to do what we set out to do, and that was buy food from street vendors. Lyssa got a hotdog, and I got a pretzel. We sat in Times Square soaking in the moment and enjoying our vendor treats. After that, we went to get ice cream and headed back to the Milf to indulge while watching the Zenith. It was Teen Mom night, enough said.
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| We woke up to large art pieces on Times Square! |
Wednesday we woke up for a morning stroll in quest to find a bagel. We ended up going to 6th Ave and eating in the Metro café. They had great food. The next quest was to purchase some liberty glasses, that also went flawlessly. It was packing and taking the super shuttle to LGA next. We ended up getting there super early and our flight was delayed. Luckily, AirTran moved us up to the earlier flight so we left at 2PM instead of 5PM and had an exit row all to ourselves. It was amazing! We were ready to head home at this point after a long week of hotel sleeping and site-seeing. Lyssa was rejoicing over the site of the Milwaukee Brewer’s stadium as we flew in, hah!
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| I love New York City!! |
I seriously couldn’t have asked for a better trip. The pace of the trip was perfect. The price was pretty affordable, considering we were in two notoriously expensive cities, and the sites were awesome. We were able to see so many things in DC and NYC. I really enjoyed visiting both locations. This vacation did teach me however that I don’t think I’d be able to live in NYC… I think I would miss having access to a grocery store, reasonably priced apartment, and other things we truly take for granted. Having lived in DC, I think I would be able to live there again. It’s more moderately priced and you can have a car if you want to, which allows you to grab groceries and other essentials. We'll see where life takes me, but I love visiting!
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