New York

Waaaaaaay back in July, Matt and I decided to take a last minute trip to NYC. Matt's sister Maria lives in Manhattan and just found out that she got accepted to BYU law school and therefore was moving within the month. So since it was our anniversary month and she was leaving, we thought it was a good time to hurry and go.

We took a red eye flight, got there early on a Friday morning, got our luggage, took a cab to the city, met Maria at her apartment, ate breakfast at a deli, and then headed off for the start of a VERY long and tiring week of sight seeing.

Our first stop was the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. That was really cool! (Okay, everything we saw was really cool...I guess this was just the start of the coolness!) It was awesome to walk through the Statue of Liberty Museum and learn all the history that is behind it and then get the chance to actually go inside it. (Matt tried to sneak his way up to the crown but got denied. It was a 3 MONTH wait to get tickets up into the crown!!! Whaaa????)

Ellis Island was also super awesome. I probably liked it a little more than the Statue of Liberty. It was a humbling experience to stand where all the immigrants stood as they made their way to the U.S. To hear about some of the stories and the history behind that place it gave me the chills.

Later that night we went to see Spiderman on Broadway. This was a good/bad show. Good because the special effects and scenery was way awesome! We had really good seats that allowed us to get a really good view of Spidey flying through the air. Our seats were called "The Fly Zone" and that's where Spiderman and/or Green Goblin would get ready and land. We got some really up close views of all the action when Spidey and Green Goblin would fly and fight. On the other hand, the acting and the music wasn't all that great. Compared to other Broadway shows I've seen, this one was a little lacking.

Busy, busy Time Square!

The Stinky Subway!!

On Day 2 (actually all the days are a blur now and I have no idea what day we did what, so I'll just put a little narration with each picture instead) we ate brunch at a cute cafe type place. That was one of the good things about having Maria there with us... she knew all the good places to eat!

Maria also knew a lot of history about the place and all the popular places to get your picture taken. She was like having our own personal tour guide. I can't imagine going there with out her!! Here we are in front of the famous Fire Department that you see in a lot of shows (I was really big on stuff like that. If it was in a movie or t.v. show I was all over that!)

This is the cemetery that's right next to the very first church on the island. (I really wish I could retain information... I have no idea what the name of the church was called now). Alexander Hamilton was buried here.

We went to St. Patrick's Cathedral and was able to witness a live wedding. It was so bizarre that these two people were getting married with hundreds of sight seers mozying in and out of their wedding. It was a beautiful church though. Matt has some pictures on his camera that I need to post. There's one of me being totally sac-religious praying in one of the pews. (It was totally funny at the time).
This is the view of Ground Zero from the top of Maria's apartment building. I'm sad that we missed the unveiling of the waterfalls that they now have there. All we got to see were construction walls. It was however mind blowing of just how catastrophic that event was. Those buildings were HUGE, and to have them come tumbling down....?? I'm speechless.

We went to the Hershey's store and the second I saw this giant Hershey bar I thought of my Lukey Lou back home. He loves Hershey's and even more than that, he loves novelty items. That night after seeing it I called him and told him all about it. Over and over and over he kept bringing up how much he wished he could have it. So I broke down, went back the next day and bought it for him. :)

One of the weirdest and most random things about NYC were all the people dressed up asking for $ to get your picture taken with them. It seemed like every corner had random people in random costumes. We saw Spongebob, a guy with a cat on his head, Spiderman, Elmo, and a really jacked up Mickey Mouse. I told Matt that we'd make a killing if we dressed up in our centaur costumes and stood on the corner of Times Square.

This is one of the very few pictures of Maria that I got. Her and Matt are standing in front of the Rockefeller Plaza.

For the most part I enjoyed NYC. I did however have one HUGE disappointment. The Carnegie Deli. I'd seen it on the David Letterman show many, many times and thought it looked pretty good. Matt was pretty insistent on going (against Maria's better judgment) so we went. What a rip off!! For $15 bucks you got two pieces of bread with a ginormous slab of deli meat between the two of them. And that's it. No mustard, mo mayo, no tomato, no lettuce, no side dish of chips or fries, nothing! I had to slice up the giant pickle that came as the "free" appetizer to give my sandwich a little flavor. To say the least, this place was a big let down. It's nothing but a bunch of hype!

One of my most favorite places was Central Park. Amongst all the hustle and bustle and city life there is this huge park that takes you away from it all. Matt and I were only able to cover about 1/4 of it! Before we ventured into the park I asked a park ranger what the best route to take is and he mapped out all the famous sites that are in movies and such (he said the magic word). So we leisurely strolled through the park for a couple of hours, taking breaks here and there when we felt like it. It was really nice. (We did have one minor altercation though. Matt had to use the restroom, so I told him I would sit on the bench a couple yards away and wait. Well, for reasons unbeknownst to me, when Matt was done using the bathroom he went in the opposite direction and kept walking to the fountain below. Meanwhile, I'm still waiting for him on the bench that I told him I'd be waiting at. 20 minutes later, I'm still waiting and at this point getting a little worried. Visions of him getting mugged in the bathroom are going through my head. So I texted him only to find out he was waiting at the fountain for me! I was not a happy camper!!!)

Matt and I were able to get tickets to see the Late Show with David Letterman. It was really cool to see all the behind scenes stuff that goes on. I kind of like it in my little naive home viewer world though. The whole taping of a show seemed a lot more exciting than it really was. The studio was super small. It looks so big on t.v.! The actual stage area was 10 times as small as it looks. The distance from Dave's desk to Paul Shaffer and his band was just only just a few steps away. The seating area for the audience was very compact and small also. They must use a lot of camera tricks. The actual show was good though. It went by super fast! Harrison Ford was the guest and he was pretty funny. Unfortunately, we had just barely missed the show when U2 was the guest. They had a taping just before ours.

We went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and this time Matt was the one that was a little disappointed. The whole trip I kept saying how things weren't quite how I expected it to be (meaning, it wasn't like it is in the movies) and after this little excursion the rolls were reversed. Half way through the museum and looking at all the art Matt asked, "where are all the dinosaurs?" I told him I didn't know and maybe they were on a different level. Well, a little more into it I realized that Matt thought we were at the Museum of Natural History (as seen on Night at the Museum.... see I'm not the only one comparing everything to what I see on the movies). Poor guy. That's the museum he originally wanted to go to. And I don't really care for museums all that much (seeing as I don't retain information, everything I see or read about sticks for just a moment). So the second we realized this we bailed.
This is Matt standing in front of part of a real Pyramid.

One cool thing about the museum though is they have special exhibits that only last for maybe a few months at a time. While we were there we got to see the Alexander McQueen exhibit. We weren't suppose to take pictures in there, but I snuck this one in. He had some of the most bizarre and interesting clothing designs I have ever seen! It was definitely worth seeing.

We went to two more musicals while we were there. We saw Jersey Boys which was really good. It was the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. I LOVED all the music! However, I could have done without all the swearing. The other one we went to was Memphis. That also was really good. It was the story of the birth of Rock' n Roll. The music was amazing and the acting was amazing. Both Matt and I really enjoyed this one.

For dinner one night I really wanted to go to this pizza place that I heard was really good that was on the other side of the Brooklyn Bridge. So we took the opportunity to walk across the bridge. This was a little more than I bargained for. The weather was really hot and really muggy. We hadn't even gotten to the "bridge" part of the bridge and we were all sweating. It was also a lot longer of a walk than I anticipated. The views from the bridge were amazing though. I guess walking across the Brooklyn Bridge is just one of those things in life that you can say you did. Too bad for us, once we got across the bridge that stupid pizza place had a line coming out the door and all the way to the end of the block. So we opted for the pizza place just one block down that in my opinion was just as tasty as pizza can get.

On the last day there we tried to squeeze in all the little things that were on my check off list. The last thing left was go to the top of either the Empire State Building or the Rockefeller Center. We took the good advise from Maria and chose the Rockefeller Center because the Empire State Building was always really crowded. Well, to go to the top of the Rockefeller Center we found a package deal that made it cheaper than just buying a ticket to the top. The package included a tour of the NBC Studios. That was a fun little tour. We got to see several news studios and the SNL studios. I love seeing all the behind the scenes stuff. They use so many camera tricks and special effects for filming shows.

The view from the top of the Rockefeller Center was AMAZING! We had a perfect view of all of Central Park on one side and then all of the high sky scrapers in the city on the other side. Very cool!

Other things we did that aren't pictured (I really need to download all the pictures from Matt's camera), but are worth mentioning:
-The Shake Shack... To everyone and their dog, minus yours truly, say this is the best burger EVER! It was alright if you ask me.
- Grand Central Station... This was super cool. It was just like I thought it would look like. I felt like a flash mob should be busting out in dance at any minute while I was there. It also really brought me back in time; back to the good old days when people traveled by train.
- FAO Schwarz... What a fun toy store! I could have spent a lot of time in there if it weren't for my two hustle and bustle shopping partners. You name a toy, they've got it. I really loved looking at all the vintage candy they had. I felt really nostalgic looking at it all. (My mouth is watering as we speak thinking about the frog gummies).
- All the places we went to eat... Max Brenner (super yummy turkey crepes), Four Carrots in Bloomingdales (super yummy chicken salad sandwich, tuna salad sandwich, and egg salad sandwich, all on a different type of roll, Mmmmm my mouth is watering again), Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill (my dish was just ok, Matt's was good- it was worth going though just to say I ate at a Bobby Flay restaurant).
- The Farmers Market... It was so nice to see a little country in the city. This farmers market was near Bobby Flays restaurant and it stretched a few blocks down one street. I loved seeing booth upon booth full of fresh fruits and vegetables. Matt and I bought some jam for gifts and then we bought some cookies for dessert. One of the best gingersnap cookies I've ever had!

Overall I'd say the trip was a good one. It wasn't the perfect trip though. My complaints are as follows:
- The city stinks! Literally. I felt like I couldn't breathe in a good breath of fresh air the whole time. If I did I would get a nice whiff of garbage or vomit.
- I guess to go along with my first point, the city was dirty. Garbage was just thrown onto the curbs at the end of the day. People didn't use garbage cans. The subways had filth and grime lacquered onto any touchable surface. It was really gross.
- The people there are way too busy. Matt's sister had to school us on the proper etiquette of being a New York tourist because of this. We weren't allowed to stop in the middle of the side walk for any reason whatsoever. You also couldn't walk at a leisure pace. If you broke this unspoken rule, then you would hear it from one of the NY natives. It was go, go, go, go, go, go and make sure you're out of my way. People there were in a H-U-R-R-Y. Why are they in such a hurry? I don't know. New Yorkers don't stroll into work until 10ish, so why not allow yourself enough time so you don't have to be in such a rush. This one baffled me.
- The weather there was very unpleasant. I'm use to dry Utah air, not humid, clothes stick to you the second you go out the door, air. I felt like I needed a shower the whole time we were there.
- An NYC vacation isn't a relaxing vacation. It's pure site seeing and going from one landmark to another. And to get to these different places A LOT of walking is involved. My feet ached so bad at the end of each day.

Okay, after all that complaining I did say that overall the vacation was a good one. Why...?
- It was really fun to finally get to see in person all the things that are talked about and shown in movies and t.v.
- There is so much history in New York! I loved being able to see for myself this city that helped found our country. At moments I found myself just being still and trying to really take in where I was.
- It was fun to see Maria in her element. She's grown to love NYC and become a New Yorker herself. I could just see the pride of the city whenever she'd talk about it. If ever I was complaining about the smell or the hustle and bustle, she would grin from ear to ear and proudly nod her head. (I was also very amazed at her ability to navigate around in the city. She knew those subways like the back of her hand!)
- I don't care where we were, it was just nice to go on a vacation with just me and Matt without the kids.