What a treat for me! (Yes, a weekend in NYC, but more immediately, blogger updated its site and now my blog posts are so much easier and faster to do. YAY! Anyway......) So, the big item on our wish-list before leaving the east coast (the 3-month count down is on....) was another weekend in NYC. We love, love, love NYC and will miss being within driving distance. For those of you not familiar with it, nothing about NY is cheap... a long weekend included. But what the heck, right? This weekend Sven and I celebrated our 12th anniversary! No, not a romantic getaway weekend for us.....another family weekend. Oh well. =) Unfortunately Mr. Nikolas caught a cold on the second day and complained his way around Manhattan, but we managed. Join me as I relive our wonderful weekend away in a place like no other on earth. =)
Here we (and a few hundred others) wait for the toll for the Holland Tunnel.
Penn Station..... how many times have we been there?! Penn Station is where the Long Island Railroad train arrives into the city (during the academy days, we took the train in from Great Neck). Penn Station facilitated many, many weekend day trips to the city.
Stuck in traffic?! No, not here!
The heroes of NY.....NYFD.
While waiting to check in to our hotel, we walked a few blocks over and stumbled across this street fair. "Street fair" completely minimizes how HUGE this thing was. It was equivalent to about a million Silverdale Farmer's Markets. =)
See the haze rising from the streets....those were the vendors with their assorted foods.
This was cool. When walking through Times Square that night, there was an ENORMOUS screen up on the side of a building. This is a photo of that screen and all the people standing in the street below trying to catch a glimpse of themselves. We know where we are standing...can you see us? =)
And it's Sunday, October 10 (2010!), Happy Anniversary, sweetie! We took a trip to the top of the Empire State Building. Nikolas had never been up there before and we thought it would be neat to see it again. (With a view like that, why not, right?). This first photo is looking out east in the direction of the academy (you can actually see it off in the distance).
Looking uptown. Isn't Central Park impressive?
Looking downtown. See the Statue of Liberty in the upper third corner?
Brooklyn off in the distance. I watch Law and Order too much....I just love the Brooklyn Bridge.
Look at this picture that Nikolas took of us (on our anniversary!). He did a great job...it's not his fault he's too short to get the cityscape in the background. =)
Our child, "I love, love, love NY!" =)
The presence of 9-11 is all around the city.
So the void in photos here between the 9-11 mural and another street fair spares you the 2 hour shopping spree I had in B&H Photo. My hubby is such a good sport (Nikolas, not so much). The original plan was to take a cab back to the hotel so we didn't have to carry my loot (and I do mean loot...I'd been saving for this....). Fifteen minutes in a cab and only 3 blocks farther, we ditched that idea and walked the rest of the way to the hotel. Wouldn't you know we came across the street fair again? This time it was over 2 blocks. No WONDER traffic was a mess! What a sight to see an entire street in Manhattan blocked off for as far as the eye can see and a sea of people.
Somehow time had escaped us. We had planned to spend the better part of the afternoon in Central Park. It's beautiful, relaxing and Nikolas' loves to "climb the rocks". But, as is often the case, we looked at our watches and it was already 4'. How did that happen? Anyway, we enjoyed Central Park, but in an abbreviated version. I WISH I had my Nikon with me vs. my point and shoot. I would have loved to have done this portrait opportunity justice! Oh well, I'm on vacation. =)
I finally got my wish.... a carriage ride through Central park on our anniversary. I know, I know, could we have done anything more touristy....(yes, in fact, we already did the Empire State Building, ha ha). But, a girl wants what a girl wants! After all those years living there and all the trips we visited, I had never had a carriage ride. Now I can cross that off my bucket list (thanks, Sweetie!). (By the way, you remember that episode of Seinfeld when Kramer was in the carriage? That scene wasn't far from our minds, but our noses were spared. =) ...)
I do believe that's 'sticker shock' on Sven's face. Really, honey, it was worth it!
Nikolas' eagle eyes spotted this nest in a stoplight. Good eyes!
In a previous visit, we had a very disappointing FAO moment....arriving 8 minutes after they locked the doors. We wanted to be sure Nikolas got to see it this trip. Unfortunately, we didn't do a whole lot better.....we only had 15 minutes until the store closed. But, we were there long enough to assess that their Star Wars selection was quite puny. Disappointed little boy....until the guy at FAO reminded us of the Toys R Us in Times Square. Oh thank you kind sir. HA! Guess I know where we're headed before we leave the city tomorrow!
Luck was on our side for dinner. We had wanted to return to a sushi restaurant we had eaten at on a prior trip. We couldn't remember the name and we couldn't quite remember where it was. Dumb luck, really....we found a sushi restaurant, sat down, and wouldn't you know it was the EXACT same place?!?! We had a FABULOUS dinner. Mysterious ways, right?! Then we took a nice, nighttime stroll through Times Square and for $5 I got a great print of the Brooklyn Bridge. Mama's happy!
Our last morning in NYC. We had a great breakfast at Burger Heaven. Then we were off to Toys R Us-- a deal's a deal. We were surprised that there was already ice in the rink at Rockefeller Center. Nikolas enjoyed watching the skaters.
Behind is us the Today Show. We opted not do that this time around. Good memories of it though!
The Jerry Springer show was being filmed out on Times Square. What a rowdy bunch.
The ball in Times Square.
A Toys R Us like no other....really....check out the ferris wheel INSIDE the store!
Can you guess where I took this shot?
Those Steelers fans are everywhere!
I don't know if I posted a similar picture from our April trip or if I hadn't been able to get my camera out in time. How FUNNY is that...."Don't Honk.... $350 penalty". Yeah, I'd have to say that's not enforced. Have you BEEN to NYC?! =)
S-I-G-H. And this concludes our last NYC weekend for this chapter in our lives. Who knows.....our class' 15th academy reunion is next fall. Maybe.......... =)
