New York State of Mind

**You can see all the photos I took on my trip here.**


Friday, April 20, 2012
I woke up this morning at 3:30 AM. That's 45 minutes before I'm usually awake on a Friday. (And my cats were confused...) At 4:30, J dropped me off at the airport. At 5:30 I boarded a plane to Baltimore. By 6 I was in the air. Before my kids laid down for nap I had traveled 900+ miles. I made it!

Seriously, when I booked my flight in February I thought it was so far away. Then when I had to push it out 3 more weeks I thought it was even farther away. Luckily, the time went fast. Sadly, day 1 is under my belt.

I have a pedometer app on my phone and it says I walked 20000 steps today. That's twenty THOUSAND. Becca and I met up near her apt after her class and then went to lunch. We ate at a Mexican place a few blocks down from my friend's apartment. We each got a sandwich and then split and shared with each other.

Lunch! My pork sandwich was better than her chicken sandwich.

After that began 5 hours of non stop walking.  From lunch we went and saw the Seinfeld diner:

Then Columbia University, where she goes to school. Then a large part of southern Central Park (Strawberry Fields, the Bow Bridge, and the big fountain that's in Enchanted):

And finally, since the tip of Central Park is only a few blocks from it, Times Square:

 I've been on 2 subways and a cross-city bus. I'm exhausted. A good exhausted, but exhausted nonetheless.

My first subway ride!

Saturday, April 21, 2012

We woke up this morning and went for a "traditional" NYC breakfast of bagel and cream cheese. There's a little family owned shop down the street from my friend's apartment, so we went there. I got a cinnamon raisin bagel and apple cream cheese. It was actually really good, but there was a lot of cream cheese on it (and this comes from a girl who likes a lot of cream cheese on her bagel).

From there, we went to the Staten Island Ferry. This is a free and easy way to get a nice view of the Manhattan and Brooklyn skylines, as well as the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. I felt bad that we didn't have time to stay and see Staten Island, though. I'm betting a lot of people ride the boat over and then just turn right around and come back to Manhattan. Maybe next time...

I took a bus tour this afternoon I took a bus tour around Downtown Manhattan because my friend had to take a certification test to teach ESOL. It was a fun way to see more of the city, even though I didn't get off to see most of the things we saw (i.e. the Empire State Building, the huuuuuuuuuuge Macy's that's out there, etc.)

After that, we went over to Grand Central Station to take the subway to the Brooklyn Bridge. I thought we were only going to walk half, but we ended up doing the whole thing. Then we went back towards her apartment and got some pizza. And then later we went for ice cream.

I really lucked out today because the weather forecast said it was supposed to rain all day, but the rain stayed away until the middle of the night.

Sunday, April 22, 2012
The rain that was supposed to start yesterday came today in the middle of the night. Which meant that today was chilly. And wet. And... gross. But it was still fun.

We took the subway to Chelsea and walked a bit of the High Line, a park built up above the street along where there used to be some train tracks. Underneath is the Chelsea market and we walked through there, too.

Then we headed down to the 9/11 Memorial. There's a lot of security right now because they're building the two new towers but once those are finished, it's going to be an open courtyard for people to visit as they please. But let me tell you, if you go to New York, you have to do this. There is nothing more sobering than this site. The huge reflective pools, the names around the edges... I was sixteen when the towers went down -- old enough that I can remember when and where and how I heard about it. The images of the planes flying into the towers. The images of people desperately searching for their family. I can't forget. And now I can't forget the memorial. There will be a museum opening later this year in Building 8. They had a few artifacts in the visitor's center/gift shop. I ended up buying a t-shirt and a bracelet that say "United in Hope" and donating money to the museum and memorial.

We took the subway into Times Square with plans to enter some ticket lotteries, but when we got out of the subway station we were right at the New Amsterdam Theatre that shops Mary Poppins so we popped in (haha... see what I did there?) to see how much tickets were. For $32 we got "partial view" seats in a box with a better view of the stage than the "cheap" seats in the balcony. We couldn't see about 15% of the left side of the stage, but most of the "action" was in the center anyway, so we didn't miss much. This is definitely the way to go if you want to see a Broadway show but can't spent a whole lot of money for the better seats.

After that we went back to my friend's apartment and watched a movie. I know what you're thinking, "WHAT?! You opted to spend an evening in?" Yes, we did. It was cold and rainy and we had crammed in a whole lot of stuff over the last few days, plus my friend had to work the next day and I needed to pack because I was leaving the next day. So we just hung out for the rest of the evening.

It was an amazing, whirlwind trip, and I still have more to explore next time I go (hopefully with J)!