NYC: Day One

WARNING:

-LOTS OF PICTURES-

Fifteen years ago my family took a family trip to NYC.  My mom and I have been talking for years about going back to visit my great uncle Bruce and his wife Diana so for my 30th birthday, Todd told me he would keep the kids when he had his next three day weekend so she and I could do it before we leave for Japan this summer.

We flew into Newark and were driven to and from the airport by a really nice man named Muhammad from Iran.  It was so nice to just walk outside and not have to worry about anything.  

This is my mom at Port Imperial Ferry which we rode over to NY.  We got in late that night and the next morning Bruce & Diana took us on a scenic drive along the Hudson River to catch the ferry.

Once in NY we walked through half of NY  (including the outskirts of Hells Kitchen) from the ferry with our luggage until we found our hotel.  We were able to do an early check in, ditch the suitcases, grab our camera and map so that we could do the whole tourist thing.  On the way to the hotel we saw some of the fashion district and took a little rest in Bryant Park.  Turns out our hotel was really close.  Bryant Park became my favorite place in the whole city by the end of the trip.  More pictures of that later.

We were kiddie corner to the Library.  That was a close first for my favorite location.  So beautiful...and big.

We weren't allowed to take pics inside so this will have to do.  If I lived in NY I would frequent this location a lot.

We ate lunch from a delicious little cafe outside at one of the tables in front of the library.  It was the first of many meals that all included desert and helped me gain a solid five pounds by the end of the trip. :)  I don't regret one bite of anything.

I loved the pigeons.  I was expecting them to start talking to me with their NY accents but that might be because I have watched Bolt one too many times with the boys.

 We had the most beautiful weather.  Mid 60's- low 70's up until the last day we were in Jersey.   Along with the weather were the most beautiful flowers.  The city was full of them everywhere.  We didn't make it to the sports stadiums but we sure took pictures of all the tulips. :)

We stayed at 5th and 40th so we centrally located to so many places.  Grand Central was only a few blocks away.

I loved the ceiling with the constellations.  

A lot of these pictures are not the best but I did not bring my camera and I could not figure out how to turn the flash off my moms.  Also, I lost my editing program so lightening a photo is a no go.  That is okay, though, because I wouldn't want to edit all these pictures anyway.

Rockefeller Center.

 The stores around this location were fun.  The boys would have loved the Lego store.

More flowers.

 NBC News/Today Show.

While we were waiting to go to the top of the Rockefeller Building AKA The Rock, we walked around the block and saw some more sights.

 Radio City.

We walked through the diamond district which was the scariest area we were in the whole trip.

The boys would have liked this bus.

My mom wanted to go into St. Patrick's Cathedral.  It was her mom's favorite.

We ending up going into a couple of them.  The Cathedrals were amazing.

 

The view from the Top of the Rock.

Statue of Liberty.

Empire State Building, World Trade Towers in construction and the Statue of Liberty off to the right.

Times Square ball.

Cheese!

Central Park.

After we stopped by Ben & Jerry's.

More pics of Rockefeller and St. Patrick's.

Later we strolled down Fifth Avenue and saw all the stores.

And more beautiful flowers.

 CBS.
(We saw all the news stations.  My mom's favorite was Fox News.)

The Apple Store is the glass box off to the right.  We did not realize this until later.  I have a picture for that too.

We were thinking about taking a ride in this carriage but changed our minds.  

 

Only to decide that we DID want to take a ride through Central park so we ended with a nice, flirtatious man from Rome.  We still liked the look of the purple one best.

We ventured a little further up Central Park (which has way too many people in my opinion) to go get pictures in front of the Zoo.  This time it is Madagascar that influenced my desire to do this.  The entrance to the zoo was so pretty.

We were able to watch the animals at the top spin around as bells chimed a song.  

We could not have asked for better weather.

Isn't she cute?

 We went by Harry Winston's and then stopped to browse the latest merchandise at Tiffany & Co.

And stopped by Trump Tower to see the latest in Gucci Kids.

We went in search of food and found ourselves in Times Square.  There were a lot of these creepy Statue of Liberty characters around.  We also saw Edward Scissor Hands, Elmo, Cookie Monster, Tigger and a few others.

We were really hungry by this time and started getting grumpy with all the people who kept knocking into us.  I am not a big fan of crowds so Times Square was probably my least favorite attraction...oh wait.  That would be the dirty subway (thank you for hand sanitizer!)  We found a place to stuff our faces and life was much better after that.  

It is rather impressive even if I don't like the crowds.

We saw a few of these guys hanging around.  Took me back to my high school days of TRL when the legit Naked Cowboy used to make his appearances.  

We returned to our room around 10:30 which out at us at over 10 hours of walking (with the occasional stop to eat. :)  That was the end of day one.