Ahh, New York City. Our most highly anticipated trip of the year was finally upon us! 6 fun-filled days were waiting for us on the other side of the country, and we were very anxious to get there. This trip was Robbie's first to the Big Apple, and my second, but we were excited to experience it together for the first time. I'll just warn you now that this post is quite long, so give yourself some extra time if you wish, to read it! Alright, here we go!
Our journey began on Saturday morning. We usually like to leave for destinations the night before so we optimize our time in the vacation city, but being we were flying across the country, we thought it best to get a full night's sleep in our bed rather than take a red-eye and ruin our schedules for the next few days. We had booked Southwest flights into Newark, NJ because Southwest allows 2 bags to fly free, per person, and flights into EWR had the best options, time-wise. We did, however, have about a 2 hour layover in St. Louis, which proved to be very helpful for me. About half way to St. Louis, my stomach started feeling queasy, and when we descended into STL, we circled around a few times, which didn't help. Sparing you the details, I spent most of our layover in the bathroom, feeling a little better just as our second flight was boarding. Not a good start to our vacation, but I made the decision to power through and not let it ruin anything for both of us while still being cautious. When we got to EWR, I felt much better, just fatigued, and my sides ached like something fierce. I have never had a reaction like that while in flight, and both flights were pretty smooth, too!
So, as we were leaving the airport, we had a few options to get into the city. Robbie did a little research before we left, and he was under the impression one of the airport trains goes right into the city, but when we got there, it turned out that that train just went around the airport. Rookie mistake. You'd think that one of the subway system lines would have a route to EWR, but it doesn't which surprised us both. Anyway, we asked what the best way into the city was, and we got a few options as answers. We decided to ride the local train, which switched over to the subway line, which would then take us to Penn Station. Not the brightest idea with all our luggage, and with it being a Saturday night in the 'burbs!! The first train was so cramped that Robbie and I were left standing in the aisle with all our luggage. The other option was an airport shuttle taking us to Port Authority, which was only a few blocks from our hotel. We can chalk that mistake up to plane brain and fatigue. ;) Once we got to Penn Station, we could have switched trains to take us closer to our hotel, but by then, we just wanted to be outside in the city. We walked out of Penn Station, and I looked to my right, and there was the Empire State Building, all lit up in its glory. I was in my happy place. However, we still had about a 10 block walk tour hotel. I'll have to admit, our first impressions of NYC were not very good. The sidewalks were crowded, and bags of trash were just piled in front of almost every store and establishment. I will also chalk that impression up to fatigue, and now hunger, as well.
We finally made it to our hotel, the Milford Plaza, just a few blocks away from Times Square. We chose it for its location to Times Square and easy transportation. By the time we made it up to our room, it was around 11pm. When we saw our room, we both almost cracked up in amazement. This room was TINY, and we had to unpack everything and put all our belongings in the drawers and closet in order to have any room to move around. I guess we should have expected the small rooms being in New York City. On the bright side, we were only going to be in there to sleep, and the bed was really comfortable! Our very first meal in NYC was McDonalds!!! WaaaHooo! I had to get some food in me after the events that transpired on the plane. After a whirlwind of a day, we were finally resting our heads in the city that never sleeps.
We really didn't have a set itinerary while visiting, so before we left each morning we loosely outlined each of our days. The first thing we decided to do was go see Times Square. Times Square is something both of us wanted to do right when we got in the night before, but it was just way too late to do anything. Times Square reminded us a lot of the Las Vegas Strip with all the advertisements, lights, and noise, except Times Square is so much more crowded!! We found a hot dog vendor, and had lunch in the heart of it all.
After Times Square, we just walked the city and kinda took it all in. While walking the city, we saw Rockefeller Center, Radio City Music Hall, Trump Tower, and Serendipity as seen in the movies. There was so much more that we saw while walking the city, but those are just things to note. The buildings were spectacular, and it really is the concrete jungle you hear everyone talking about.
We took a break a little later in Bryant Park, which is the largest grassy area in the city, behind Central Park! I hadn't known that! It was fun to just watch life happen around us!
After Robbie got inside his map, we headed towards the Empire State Building. We had pre-purchased tickets to the observation deck, and we thought this was as good a time as any to use them. We actually got the Express Pass which granted us access to the front of each line, making it much easier to get to the top. I would highly recommend the Express Pass to anyone who would like to maximize their sight-seeing time in NYC. We also purchased a device for narration at the top. We really liked this option because when we were looking out to the city, we knew exactly what we were looking at, plus it gave us a history on the city!
On Sunday night, our first full night in the city, we had tickets aboard the Sunset Sail, which took off from Chelsea Pier onto the Hudson River. From there, we were able to see the complete skyline, the new look of the Financial District, the Statue of Liberty, and the Brooklyn Bridge. This was one of Robbie's former coworkers suggestions, and it turned out to be one of the highlights of our trip! The Sail lasted for 2 hours, but we weren't able to sail all the way to the Brooklyn Bridge because the weather looked threatening and if by chance it did start to rain, we could make it back to shore in time. So, instead of sailing to the Brooklyn Bridge, we spent extra time at the Statue of Liberty. A cool thing about the Sunset Sail is that the sailboat was small, so it was a very intimate sail. We were lucky enough to get a seat right by the captain so we were able to ask her more questions than the facts that she was already supplying to the whole boat. It was a fun night!
Monday was our Financial District day, and our first stop was the Brooklyn Bridge. It was our plan to walk the length of the bridge, but the first few days of our trip were insanely hot, about mid 80's with 90% humidity, so we figured that keeping our physical activity to a minimum was our top priority. We did make it to the first "base" of the bridge for some pretty nice photo opportunities, though!
After the Brooklyn Bridge, we walked over to Wall Street. On our walk over, it started to rain, so we had some fun in the rain and picked up some stylish ponchos!! When we made it to Wall St., we found the New York Stock Exchange, and right across from that was the original capitol building where George Washington was inaugurated before they moved the capitol building to Washington D.C. Before we left Wall St., we went to find the NYSE Bull to have a little fun!!!
From Wall Street, we walked through Battery Park to the 9/11 Memorial site. The last time I was in NYC, Ground Zero was just a huge expanse of dirt. Now, the new Freedom Tower is near completion, and they just opened one of the other World Trade Center Buildings recently. The area around the Freedom Tower was humbling. The base of the 2 original twin towers are now reflecting pools with all the names of the deceased etched along the perimeter. Being there was quite something. However, the Freedom Tower offers a new and exciting anchor to Lower Manhattan.
After the 9/11 Memorial, we took the subway to Greenwich Village for an evening stroll. Our first stop in the Village was Washington Square Park where we finally had time to put up our feet and relax. Washington Square Park is practically on the campus of NYU, so the energy in the park felt really alive. A cool thing about this park is the chess area. In this area, there are several chess tables set up with players at the ready for a game. Robbie, being the chess enthusiast that he is, played a match with one of the guys there. It was a really fun experience for him!
Our next stop in the Village was to find the apartment where FRIENDS was set. This was probably the most excited I was all day long. We were walking down the street, and BAM, there it was, just like in the show! I had always figured the area to be a bit bigger as I have always seen on TV, though. But even still, it was more than what I expected. What a cool experience! I also took note of Rachel Green's places of employment (Bloomingdale's and Sak's 5th Ave.), NYU where Ross Gellar worked, and Chandler Bing's employment building! I'm such a nerd!
Tuesday was Central Park: Day 1. We started our park adventure at the Jackie Onassis Reservoir and made our way to the Great Lawn. We stayed here for the better part of our day, just in awe at the thought that this huuuuuge park was smack dab in the middle of the biggest city in the country!
We then made a stop at the Met, and took in a bunch of art ranging from paintings to sculptures to ancient artifacts.
Tuesday night was our big Broadway night!! Robbie and I put on our fanciest threads and treated ourselves to a nice dinner and drinks before going to see Wicked! For those that don't know, Wicked is the untold story of The Wizard of Oz largely through the eyes of the Wicked Witch. This Broadway production was beyond amazing, over 2 hours of pure enjoyment!! Whoever invented Broadway was a genius! We then took a stroll through Times Square so we could see it after dark when it came alive! It was a perfect ending to a perfect night!
The American Museum of Natural History was our first destination on Wednesday. Here, we saw dinosaurs, monkeys, elephants, and more! It was fun to see what this museum had to offer.
From the Natural History Museum, we set out for Central Park: Day 2. We spent our time here in the southern part of the park where we took a pedicab ride to Wollman Rink. It is here where a whole bunch of winter movies scenes are shot. During the summer months, they transform it into a carnival. There were some great photo opportunities at this area of the park!!
From here, we walked to the Southwest corner of the Park to Columbus Circle to chill out and watch the sunset. Then we walked to midtown tour hotel. It was a great night for a New York City walk!
Thursday was the first day that we ventured out of the city. We took the subway all the way to Flushing Meadows in the borough of Queens in pursuit of the 2013 U.S. Open, but I'll get to that later. Robbie and I are pretty big fans of the Amazing Race TV show, and we saw that the Season 1 finale ended at Corona Park in Flushing in front of the biggest globe in the world, called the Unisphere. So, being the geography buff that Robbie is, and the travel nerd that I am, we loved the idea of going to see this!! We spent a lot of time at this park just looking up in amazement at this gigantic globe.
After spending a lot of time at Corona Park, we wanted to get a closer look at Citi Field, where the New York Mets play. Unfortunately they were on a road trip the whole time that we were visiting, but being we were right across the way, we went to check out the grounds! It seemed pretty cool, and I'm excited for the opportunity to go to a game there some day!
Alright, the reason we ventured to Flushing in the first place, the 2013 U.S. Open!! I fell in love with tennis when I was in high school, and I like to follow each Grand Slam event. After we planned the dates of our trip, it dawned on us that the U.S. Open was in full swing while we were there, so we jumped on getting tickets!
I knew for sure that if I was attending a match, I wanted to witness one in Arthur Ashe Stadium. Luckily the week we went was the second week of play, so most matches were being held in Arthur Ashe.
We had tickets to the evening session of the Quarterfinals match, and we were one of the first through the gate. We got up to our level and looked out, and we could see the Unisphere from there, and that was pretty cool!
From there, we had to walk around the stadium to our seats, and when we got there, we found that we were 2 rows from the top. That worked out well actually because we had one of the best views of New York City that I could have ever asked for! One of the best things was that we got to watch the skyline turn from day to night, and watch all the lights of Manhattan come on! That was a pretty great experience! There is nothing like seeing Manhattan come to life!
From our northwest corner seats, looking at the court, we could see it all! When all the spectators started filing in, we found out that we were in the company of Sean Connery and Tiffany Amber Theison, among others! How cool is that?!
Before the real match started, they had a celebrity tennis match to pump the crowd up. Rainn Wilson and Jason Biggs played a round with 2 former female tennis stars while Al Roker officiated. It was pretty fun to watch!
As the anticipation in the stadium grew for the match to start, I myself was probably more excited than half the crowd to be there. The Quarterfinals match pitted No. 1 Novak Djokovic vs. No. 21 Mikhail Youzhny. Djokovic was the ultimate victor, but each set was filled with exciting volleys, with one in particular lasting for 54 hits!!! That was great to see! The U.S. Open was something I definitely crossed off my bucket list, and now we have sights on making it to the other 3 major Grand Slams in the world, including Wimbledon, the French Open, and the Australian Open. Stay tuned for that later down the road!
As we were leaving the tennis complex, we realized that we would be fighting for a spot on the subway with thousands of other people trying to get back into the city. So, we then had the brilliant idea to ride the train one stop further away from Flushing, and then come back and pick up the masses. It turned out that we had no one else on our train going in the opposite direction, and we had a seat the whole way back into the city instead of standing shoulder to shoulder with strangers. We cheated the system and outsmarted everyone, and it totally paid off!! :)
After our really fun day in Flushing, it dawned on us that Friday was our last full day in New York City. :( It was an easy decision to spend most of that day relaxing in Central Park. This time, we hung out north of the reservoir, and meandered into the Harlem area of the park. As we were wandering around, we came upon a wedding that had just taken place, and it made us both think what a beautiful setting Central Park would be to say I Do. Congrats to the couple!
On Friday night, we had tickets to the Yankees game in the Bronx. Eventually we made our way up there to see them take on the Boston Red Sox. For this game, Robbie went really old school and bought a Rizzuto shirt! The last time I was in New York, we went to a Yankees/Tigers game, but that game took place in old Yankee Stadium, so this was a first time in the new Yankee Stadium for both of us.
Our first stop in Yankee Stadium was to Monument Park, just on the other side of the outfield wall. It is here that they pay homage to all the Yankee greats like Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. It was nice to see them honored that way.
Our tickets were in the upper deck behind the plate so we were able to see the whole field. I even went to the top to look out, and I could see the New York skyline. That was pretty cool!
I don't know how we get so lucky in seeing good pitchers, but the Yankees starter for the night was Andy Pettitte. It was going to be our last time seeing him, as he retired after this season. It looked like the Yankees were going to run away with this game, as they cruised to an 8-3 lead, but after a Napoli grandslam, the Red Sox never looked back, scoring 9 unanswered runs and winning 12-8! Pardon my child-ness, but, IN YOUR FACE YANKEES!! :)
Neither of us wanted to say goodbye to New York, but all good things must come to an end. We did it right this time and took the bus back to the airport that we should've taken to get TO the city in the first place. Lesson learned! We had a pretty great sunset that I watched from the plane as we were making our descent into Vegas, and for me, it symbolized the sun setting on one of the best vacations I have ever been on! We will be back to NYC sometime in the future, and when we do go back, it'll be just as fun!!
"Let us cherish the hope that the day is not far distant when we will be in the midst of this next adventure." - Ernest Lawrence
