My mother-in-law is from New York and has many relatives still living there, so my husband has been to New York nearly every year since he was a child. It was less exciting than Silver Dollar City to him at this point. This left me with a very knowledgeable and less-than-enthusiastic tour guide for the big city. We arrived Friday morning for a wedding that evening in Long Island. I was told repeatedly how over the top New York weddings are, and this wedding did not disappoint. Between the violin during the ceremony and the filet mignon dinner, no money was spared to make this wedding the best day ever. I really appreciated the small details straight from Pinterest, such as the decorated wine bottle centerpieces and adorable guest bathroom baskets with hair clips and hairspray. The wedding consumed our entire Friday, so we went to bed late and didn't wake up until 8:30 the next morning.
The entire first day we stayed pretty close to the hotel. We went to the Top of the Rockefeller Building. I read multiple places that this was just as good as the Empire State Building, and it is cheaper with less wait time. We bought a ticket online. They didn't send us the email with our tickets; I started to worry once we got close to our time slot. I went into their ticket counter and they used my credit card to look up the ticket. It worked out perfect. Our wait wasn't much longer than it took to walk up the path to get there. There was a bathroom part of the way up (a public bathroom is a blessing in New York). And at the end of the line there was a video playing about building the Rockefeller Building and the Rockefeller Christmas tree to make the wait less boring. They then led us into the elevator around 12 at a time. The elevator is super fast and the top is glass so you can see the elevator going to the top. We were let out on the 67th floor, then there were access points to get to the 69th and 70th floor from there. Top of the Rock was definitely the highlight of our first day. We also went to St. Patrick's Cathedral, the Lego Store, the Nintendo Store, NBC Store, Central Park, Times Square, and the M&M store. On the way back from Times Square we stopped by Bryant Park, the New York Public Library, and the Chrysler Building to take some photos. Also on the way back, we got THE BEST pizza I have ever had in my life. It was at a small shop called Sofia's Pizza Shoppe. Before this pizza, I thought large amounts of cheese and fluffy crust made a pizza, but I was soo wrong. This place had barely any types of pizza and basically no toppings, but it didn't need any. We got the Classica Pizza and the meatball roll. The roll was okay, but the pizza was AMAZING. The crust to cheese to sauce ratio was perfect, the sauce and cheese were blended perfectly. It was the first thing I ever ate that I knew I would never be able to duplicate; something as amazing as that pizza is created through years of practice and generations of trial and error. It set my expectations for a New York slice. We set out to match or top it throughout the weekend, and we never even came close. On the second day, we spent the morning at the American Museum of Natural History, where we got to see see the real behind the characters featured in Night at the Museum and eat dino chicken nuggets. During out time there, Zach's uncle asked if wanted to take a tour of his work. Zach's uncle is a cameraman at CNN, so, of course, we said yes. We had planned to see the south side of the city that afternoon, but this was a limited time offer. We still had about an hour before we needed to meet his uncle, so we decided to quickly go see the One World Trade Center and 9/11 Memorial. This was near a bunch of stuff we ended up moving to the 3rd day. We met his uncle at the Columbus Statue near CNN. He told us that this statue is nearly the exact center-point of the city. If you use Google Maps to take you from Kansas City to New York City, the place in New York City it would use would be that statue. We got to stop by all their studios, from their smaller news studio that was basically an office in a room full of cubicles, to a studio room covered in brick that had several chairs/sofa/desks set up to have a variety of backgrounds depending on the mood they're going for, to a studio where they could change the background (when we went it was set up to look like a night time New York city. After the tour we stayed with his uncle for a few hours. We walked across the Queensboro Bridge, which was busy with cars, people walking, and people biking. There were two lanes, one for walkers and one for bikers. However, it really should have been four lanes: one for walkers going towards New York, one for walkers going towards Queensboro, and the same two with bikers. We got to walk through Queens and see the less glamorous side of New York City. We ate dinner at a cute new recreation area at Hunters Point in Long Island City. There was a playground, beach volleyball, several walking trails, an ice cream stand, and many picnic tables. It was a perfect place for families. We sat at one of the picnic tables and talked until after sunset. Being across the river from the city gave us the perfect view of the lights coming on in the buildings. The last thing we did on day two was went to Little Italy to get some dessert. Zach's uncle informed us that Little Italy is shrinking and Chinatown is growing. If a business in Little Italy goes out of business, it usually becomes a business of Chinatown. Our last day was spent in the south side of the city. We had heard to take the Staten Island ferry to see the Statue of Liberty instead of paying to go to it. The ferry was free and went right by the Statue of Liberty, but it didn't get as close as I thought it would. The ferries came every 30 minutes (15 minutes during rush hour), and the boat ride lasts about 30 minutes. We didn't even leave the terminal on Staten Island; as soon as we got off the boat, we got back in line for the next ferry back to Manhattan. After the ferry we walked about 10 minutes to wall street to see the Charging Bull and girl statues. We took a photo with the Stock Exchange building. Then we took a quick tour of Federal Hall, where the first Congress met and the Bill of Rights was passed; also, where George Washington was sworn in as first president and where he delivered the first inaugural speech. Since we had a flight at 3 at LAX, we decided to end our New York adventure there. We grabbed a slice and headed back to checkout of the hotel.
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AuthorHi! I'm Amber. I love spreadsheets and painting. This blog is where I post about my crafts and adventures. Archives
November 2018
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