New York Trip

We arrived home from New York last Thursday afternoon. Eric was there for a week, and I spent the last 4 days with him for a romantic vacation with just the two of us. It was very fun to get away for even a short trip. We planned the trip around a radiology course that Eric had to take, so that always helps with the price of accomodations and food.

It rained in New York most of the time we were there, but then again, it rained in Tennessee while we were gone too.

Eric had a beautiful arrangements of mixed flowers waiting for me in the hotel when I arrived.

Our hotel was right in the center of Times Square, so this is the view we had when we walked outside our hotel. There is a lot of energy in New York, and things going on all the time. Times Square has lighted screens and billboards everywhere. It was interesting to see.

The first night, we had dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe. It was my first time there, and I must be getting old because the music was a little loud for me. :) It was fun to see all the different items from different musicians around the room though and dinner was yummy.

The sign outside

I'm in front of the wall of guitars at Hard Rock Cafe

Eric's Clapton's guitar

Ringo Starr's drum set

There were also outfits and etc from other rock musicians. It was a fun place to go.

Eric had class the first day I was there, so I explored alone on that day. I still had fun even though it was much MORE fun when he was with me. I went and spent some time shopping and went to the American Girl Store.

An American Girl store was just down the street from our hotel. Jesikah has an American Girl doll, and Tessa has a similar one. We've purchased everything online, so this was my first time being in one of their stores. The New York store is one of only 3 flagship stores in the US. It is pretty cool how they have a hair salon where you can get your doll's hair styled or ears pierced (Jesikah really wants her doll's ears pierced. If I had realized it ahead of time, I would have snuck her doll in my bag...oh well). I watched while they styled and fixed. They also had a cafe upstairs where you could dine with your doll. Not to mention, any furniture or clothing accessory that you could possibly want. I bought an outfit for each girl and stick-on earrings for Jesikah as a New York souvenir. They loved them .

All the styles of "Just Like Me" dolls

One of their displays where they have outfits for the girls to match their dolls

Across the street from the American Girl Store was a department store called Saks. Many of you have probably heard of it, though I hadn't. I was told it was a nice store, so I went in and looked around. I started looking at price tags, and found purses anywhere from $600-$2600. It's very hard for me to imagine paying that much for a purse. Their clothes were no different. I didn't even look at the prices of their jewelry. Finally after perusing for awhile, I found the "clearance" section. Even at clearance prices things cost $600 or $1000. That was certainly an eye opener for me. This store was definitely out of my league, so I left and moved on.

Next, I found the Rockefeller Center, and I went on a tour of NBC Studios. I got to see the place where Brian Williams does his Nightly News and several other interesting things. At the end of the tour, members of our group got to make their our news and weather shooting. It was entertaining.

Inside the NBC Store, this NBC logo was filled with all colors of M & M's.

Fun drawing of Meredith Viera and Matt Lauer along with the rest of the Today show and Rockefeller Center. This was inside NBC Studios.

A close-up

A cute little Greek Cafe where we ate lunch on the second day.

Eric outside Niko's

Our lunch...I had pastistio (Greek lasagna) and Eric had a leg of lamb with rice. The meat just fell off the bones. For dessert, we had flan which just melted in your mouth and key lime pie.

Having some pastistio

(Below) The following pictures we took while on a 3-hour Circle Line boat tour. This tour took us all the way around Manhattan island. It was very beautiful and interesting too. I didn't realized that New York City is spread over several islands and the mainland. Also, with all the high-rise buildings and lights of the city, I was surprised to find that the northern end of Manhattan island is all trees, rock, and hills. The word Manhattan came from a root word meaning "city of hills".

Aircraft carrier parked next to our boat...it's been made into a museum called the Intrepid. There was a Concord there also.

The beautiful statue of Liberty...one of the things I HAD to see while we were there. She is every bit as beautiful as I had imagined too.

Empire State Building...the tallest building in New York

I managed to add some blue skies to some of my photos when I edited them. :) I liked this one of the Empire State Building with the blue skies above even though it was actually quite gray.

Bridge with skyline...I think we passed under something like 20 bridges on our boat tour around the island. Unfortunately, I don't remember which one this was, but it is beautiful.

Eric and I with the skyline and bridge behind

Abandoned fort that was built during the War of 1812 that later was used as a jail on one of the other islands

Ellis Island: this is where all the early immigrants landed before entering the US

Another view of the Manhattan Island New York skyline

I found it interesting how many of the apartment building have trees and gardens on the top level.

The new Yankee Stadium, we saw the old one too.

You can't go to New York and not see a show, so we took advantage of our evenings there and went to something each of the three nights. Two of the shows that we saw while we were there were "Wicked" and "Phantom of the Opera". It was Eric's first time to see "Phantom of the Opera". I had seen it once before, but it is different at different theatres...the scenery and interpretations of different scenes were different than the original time I saw it. It was very good both times though.

However, we went to "Wicked" the next night and enjoyed it even more than Phantom. For those who haven't seen it, it is the story before the "Wizard of Oz" from the Wicked Witch of the West's perspective. It was very entertaining, and had some very fun music. We downloaded some of the songs from iTunes when we got home and Jesikah is already begging to go see it too. It was really a fun musical.

Our third day, we visited the World Trade Center Museum, which was another thing I really wanted to see. It was very touching. There was a wall of pictures of all the people who had died along with videos and stories from that day. I'll never forget that day.

This a picture of the projected buildings planned to replace the World Trade Towers. Construction is going on now.

This is a map of how the layout will be of the new towers.

For lunch that day we went to the historic Carnegie Deli. Eric and I shared a huge Reuben sandwich and a slice of cheesecake. It was delicious. They are known for their delicious sandwiches and cheesecake. Later on, we stopped by Canal Street and found some great deals on purses in Chinatown.

Our last night, we went and saw a ballet done by the New York Ballet Company, which was excellent. It was 3 short ballets, and they were very artistically done. They'll be performing Romeo and Juliet on PBS on May 21st.

Because of the rainy weather and all the walking, Eric and I both bought umbrellas while we were there. However, on the night of the ballet, we didn't take them because it hadn't rained that day. New Yorkers carry umbrellas everywhere. We learned that the hard way when we came out of the ballet in our nice clothes into the pouring rain with no umbrella. And everyone is anxious for a taxi when it's pouring rain like that, we couldn't even find a taxi. When we were frustrated and shivering in the wet and cold, we looked across the street and saw the temple which had a shelter over it, so we hurried across the street and were able to be sheltered from the rain until we finally found a taxi.

One thing we learned about New Yorkers is that many of them don't have cars. It is expensive to upkeep them and garage them, so they just use the bus, subway, and taxi for transportation which is plentiful. It was hard for me to imagine what it would be like to not have a car.

Although we thoroughly enjoyed our time in the big city, when we were driving home from Nashville I told Eric that I was happy to be able to see the trees and countryside. It is a fun place to visit, but I like my space and my own house. I couldn't live there. I wouldn't enjoy being crowded in a little apartment with buildings surrounding me. It's like you can't see the sky or the country. I missed that.