New York -Day 1

Okay... here goes the trip re-cap.  There will be a lot of pictures, very little with me in them and a surprisingly number of food.  I may not get super detailed, because I'm planning on a creating a book just for the trip, but I'm sure I'll get most of it in.

Technically the first day was Wednesday, May 16th.  However, it was spent dropping kids off, finishing packing, flying, lay over's and a taxi to the hotel in New Jersey.  So, we'll skip that day.

Justin was in charge of transportation and the general sight-seeing operation of the trip.  Jessica was put in charge of food.  Gordon and I had to smile in pictures and make sure we didn't spend too much money.  We all stuck to our assigned roles for the most part.  Gordon and I may have stopped smiling near the end, and we started suggesting Justin and Jessica pose for pictures, since they had a bit more energy and camera-ready smiles.

Thursday morning we started off bright and early (just like every day) and caught a bus into the city and bought our Metro cards.  Well-used metro cards by the end of the fourth day. The first stop was breakfast and since we had fresh feet and slightly misjudged the distance, we walked a little over a mile to get there from the bus terminal.  It was called The Cafeteria in midtown.  Our waiter teased Gordon just to the point of annoyance about it being his anniversary and he forgot to put my order in, but other than that it was a fun place to eat and the food was good.

 From there we went to Rockefeller Center.  This is where Justin and I realized we didn't bring our City Passes, which had the pre-paid tickets to the Top of the Rock and the Ferry ride to the Statue of Liberty.  Oops.  We adjusted the schedule a bit, took a few pictures and went on to the next attraction.  I think this is where we stopped in to St. Patrick's Cathedral, probably passed by Radio City Hall and Time's Square for the first of many times, and headed towards lunch.

Lunch was at Norma's, inside a hotel.  I think if I was voting... this was probably my best meal.  There were a couple of close seconds, but we were all pretty impressed with this place.  Kind of fancy, but we didn't feel out of place or anything.  I had the best steak fajita's I've ever had -and the best part was it didn't come out in a screaming hot, loud skillet.  Jessica had the best french toast I've ever seen and tasted and Gordon said he really liked his fish taco's.  Plus, they gave Jes individually sealed bottles of real organic maple syrup -and she only needed one so she took the other.  First souvenir of the trip!

From there we made our way towards Battery Park, stopping at FAO Schwarz and the giant piano.  We were all planning on going to the Statue of Liberty and stopping at Ellis Island, but these were also tickets that Justin and I had already paid for and left back at the hotel.  We were just going to buy new ones, but while standing in line we realized we really didn't need to see that all again and told Jes and Gordon to go on without us.  Good thing we did, because they ended up getting on the last ferry to go out there (there was no way we would have got through the line in time) so they were able to see the Statue of Liberty.  Justin and I made a 'quick' trip up to see a Naval Air Craft Carrier which currently has the Space Shuttle on board.  However, we were still orienting ourselves to getting around again, and we misjudged how for and how long it would take to get there, so we didn't go on the tour.

We had timed tickets to go to the 9/11 memorial at 7.  We started waiting in line/security at about 6:30 and probably got into the memorial right at 7.  It was incredible.  I'd seen pictures and even video of the two pools, but they were beyond anything I had thought they would look like.  Justin had printed off names for each of us (with our own first names) and we found each of them.  There was also the 'survivor' tree in the park, the only tree that survived the September 11th attacks, was nursed back to health in a city park, was uprooted again in a storm, and surivived again to be planted in the memorial. 

From there we walked to dinner.  This time at Bubby's, a BBQ place known for their pies.  We didn't get a pie, but we all enjoyed our meal.  By this time my feet were in pretty bad shape, I had bought a couple of new shoes for the trip -and I had even broken them in and thought they'd be great.  They were NOT.  My feet were raw and I was in a LOT of pain at this point.  In fact, in the basement of the place they had an old fashioned photo booth and I nearly killed Justin because he made me go down there and back up just for pictures.

Jessica did such a great job on the food agenda that she also included snacks.  We kept forgetting about the snacks and desserts (mostly because we were always so full after every meal) that we tried to get to one after dinner.  Justin kept telling me we could get a cab for the mile or so walk (or hobble, in my case) we were going to walk to SoHo, but I was determined to tough it out.  And I did.  We went to Rice to Riches, which is rice pudding but with all sorts of flavors, similar to an ice cream place.  It was delicious, and they served them in these cool little bowls that you got to keep, I was a fan.  Just about worth the limping a mile to get there!  They also had a ton of funny signage in the place too.

We finally made it back to the hotel and I iced my feet before bed.  We survived our first full day in New York and were excited for the next three.