Taking a Bite out of the Big Apple

Yesterday, for the first time in my life, I went to New York City. Its pretty amazing I've never been there before, seeing as we only live a little over 4 hours away from it, but, if you think about it, its really kind of an out-of-the-way place unless it is the destination in and of itself; which it was, in our case. My cousins from FL decided to go to NYC for their family vacation this year, and we thought it'd be fun to meet them there for a day. So we woke up at 4:30 AM, left at 5:00, and then, after a few coffee breaks, arrived in NYC at 10:00. It was a lot like I'd pictured it, just bigger and better.

We left our car in a garage, and then walked everywhere, which is really the only option unless you take a taxi, or the subway etc. After we reunited with our cousins for the first time in about 3 years, the day of tourism commenced. First off, we walked through the Plaza, which is famous for being the home of fictional storybook and movie character, Eloise. (Oh yeah, I hear it just happens to be a nice hotel too =). Then we split up for a few minutes because some people wanted to go to various stores. So some of us went to FAO Schwartz, some to the Apple store, and others to the Nike store. Its funny, but that half hour was actually the only time we spent shopping, the rest of the day was spent "seeing the sights".

So we walked through Central Park some, got some lunch, and then went to the Central Park Zoo. The coolest (no pun intended) animals were the polar bear and the penguins. Though the seals were neat too -- if you clapped for them, they'd come over to you and flip onto their backs. Several times I was tempted to jump in with them it was so hot out and the water looked so cold.

After the zoo, we meandered through the park. Its funny, but Central park is a lot like the beach. In the open sections everybody has beach towels spread out and are in bikinis and shorts. Then we went to the Metropolitian Museum of Art. We walked through there pretty quickly and went up to the open rooftop to see a view of the park, but I was sad because I didn't get to see Van Gogh's "Starry Night". However that was the only disappointment I had the whole day. So all well. I can still say I was in the same building as it......;-D

Then.....we walked through the park again (lol) to get to the subway to get to Times Square. Ugh. I hate subways, and metros and any sort of underground train. I mean, I love being ON them, because it fun, but getting to them is so stressful. You have to run your ticket through a machine before you can get through the gated area, and the machines always malfunction. And just getting a ticket is even harder (especially when you have to get tickets for 14 people). So yeah. And then the train we wanted wasn't running that weekend.....so we had to get on the A train instead of the C train like we wanted so we ended up have to walk several blocks to get to their hotel (which was in Times Square)....and it would have been faster just to walk there in the first place.

So anyway. Thirty dollars later, and having lost a year of life due to stress, we finally got to our cousins hotel. It felt so good to sit down. Our feet were killing us. After we had recuperated for a few minutes we decided to go get supper at a place called Virgle's bbq and I'm telling you that was the best bbq I've had in my life. It was terrific. After that I had the best cupcake I've ever eaten (but that was from the Magnolia Bakery, not Virgles). Just thinking about it makes my mouth water.

Then came the best part of the day. My awesome Uncle Eric took us all up to the Top of the Rock. It was so cool. We were 70 stories up when we made it to the very tippy top of the Rockefeller Center. The view was amazing. I had no idea NYC was so HUGE. The sun was setting by then, and all in all it was quite picturesque. We could even see the Statue of Liberty! I was very glad to see that because by then I had given up hope I ever would. What was really ironic is that you couldn't get cell coverage up there, even though we were just 6 feet from the cell-transmitter-things. lol

After that we had to go home....which I was glad to do. By then we were all so tired, and although NYC is really neat, and I think it'd be cool to go back sometime, it kind of wears on you after a while. It really is the city that never sleeps. For a while I thought I'd never get to sleep again too because it was impossible to get comfortable in the car.....and we didn't get home till 1 in the morning. But when we did get home, I crashed immediately. And didn't get up till ten the next morning. Which was weird. I basically never sleep past 8 or 9, so I felt two hours off the rest of the day......

But NYC was worth it.

And now our cousins are here for the week! Hopefully after this visit I won't have to wait another 3 years to see them again....