Why not NY?

One day, back in January 2009, J and I were sitting in the car on the way to work, stuck in traffic. It was getting to that part of winter where the holidays were over and it was a looooong stretch until the Easter long weekend. We were talking about places we'd love to go and J mentioned that he always wanted to go back to New York City. J had gone there with his friends a few years ago and didn't quite get the sight-seeing experience one would expect.....maybe that was due to the attempt to hit every Irish bar in NYC?? Folks, just for the record, there are a lot of Irish bars in NYC.

After he mentioned going back to NYC, I instantly said "Why not! You have a long weekend in February," (family day....which I don't get) "Why don't I take a vacation day and we'll make a trip to New York?" That night, we were on the travel rewards website paying for plane tickets with our points. In three weeks we were going to New York. Over Valentine's Day weekend, nonetheless. We booked the cheapest hotel room on the ChoiceHotels.ca website (you get Aeroplan Points for staying at these hotels!), and found some tickets for the Liberty/Ellis ferry. We also booked tickets for a tour of NBC Studios.

Fast forward 3 weeks and we were touching down at La Guardia, catching our hotel shuttle, and arriving at the Econolodge in Times Square. It was about 1 block from Times Square, but it was clean, quaint......and small!

There was roughly a foot around the bed in the bedroom, and the bathroom had one of those half-bathtubs. It was very tiny, but we didn't care. We'd only be sleeping there anyways!

That night we went out to Times Square to see all the brightly lit billboards at night. We walked around a bit and then had some drinks at TGIFridays.

Perhaps we had 1 drink too many because were walking back to the hotel drunk.....with the intention of getting up at 7 am to get to the Empire State building as early as possible.

And we got up at 7 am!!! Yeah, so we had some mild headaches, but we were in NEW YORK CITY! All those times we had seen it in movies and we were actually here!! It was surreal. We made our way south towards the Empire State Building and were there so early that there were no lineups. We had figured that it would be super busy because of the Sleepless in Seattle effect (meeting at the top of the Empire State Building on Valentine's Day), but alas, we are the only romantics that get up at 7 am on a Saturday. We did, however, see the ropes that would have housed all the line-ups and would totally recommend to anyone thinking of going to get there early.

The view was amazing! You could see all of Manhattan.

After taking the highspeed elevator back down 86 floors (it's so high your ears pop), we made our way towards Rockerfellar Centre (RC). We made it to RC in time to see Cupid skating around the Rockerfellar skating rink. He had a bow and arrows and I kept expecting him to 'shoot' someone to make them fall in love, but it never happened.

We checked in for our tour of the NBC Studios. It was Saturday and we figured that we wouldn't get to see the Saturday Night Live studios because they'd be in use....but we were wrong! We got to see the news studio and the SNL Studio, we even saw Alex Baldwin because he was hosting that week. It was so amazing. The studio is actually really small, but since they use a telescopic lens it looks huge. J and I made an agreement to stay up to watch SNL since we could say "We were there!!!"

After the awesome studio tour, we made our way to Central Park. On the way there, we passed by 5th avenue. Lots of stores that we were scared to go into, like Louis Vuitton and Prada. There were more security guards than shoppers....but I guess that's ok since they get $20000 for a purse.

We had a lunch of street-meat. We each got a hotdog and a pretzel and sat on a bench outside of Central Park. Yum! After our satisfying lunch we strolled around the park, seeing the carousel, the skating rink, and the park that had all the chessboards. Central Park is huge! I think we may have seen about 1/10 of it and we were there for a few hours. I wish we could have seen the John Lennon memorial, but it was in the middle to northern part of the park, so out of our reach.

After Central park, we made our way back towards the hotel to take some pictures of Times Square during the day, and then get changed for dinner. We had no reservations, and didn't feel like being in some stuffy restaurant where they serve grey poupon. So we started walking away from Times Square down 9th avenue, and found a nice little diner called the Galaxy Diner. Simple food, like burgers and salads, but they were playing all the best love songs from the 70s, 80s and 90s!!! It was so cheesy, but so comfortable and relaxed! We even sang to each other when Your Song by Elton John came on. We didn't sing loud though....we didn't want to get kicked out!

Later that night, with the TV tuned to the show before SNL, we managed to stay awake until Alex Baldwin gave his opening monologue. Then we fell asleep. Almost 8 hours of walking....we needed the rest.

Sunday morning came and we started off our day by buying tickets to Mary Poppins. Then we figured out the subway system and got to Battery Park. There is a great tourist information centre in Times Square (look for the big 'i'). They were very helpful and gave us detailed directions. Props to them.

After we got to battery park (the park featured in the movie Cloverfield, by the way), we found the ferry station. We went through a round of security and got on the boat. Less than an hour later, we were on Liberty Island. Another 2 rounds of security and we were in the pedestal of Lady Liberty. Can you believe there was more security to see the Statue of Liberty than to fly to New York?

We caught the ferry back to the mainland and wove our way through the financial district, seeing the Wall Street Bull, and where the Twin Towers used to stand. Chilling to think about what happened and what it must have been like, but the photo of what they are planning on building looks amazing. We are both looking forward to going back to see how it turns out.

We walked north. And walked....and walked....and made it to the Brooklyn Bridge! We were starstruck to see the bridge that we've heard so much about.

We attempted to walk all the way across...but after almost 2 full days of walking, we turned around at the half way point and decided to make it back to our hotel. We picked up some NY style pizza and chowed down in our hotel before taking a small nap to ensure our alertness during that night's performance of Mary Poppins.

The show was fabulous! The theatre was so old looking, it had so much character. It's amazing to think of how many shows that go on every night in NY. I wish we could have seen them all! We'll just have to go back.

It was a quick trip (just like Toronto!), but we felt like we got a good feel for the city. At certain points, walking along with the crowd in Times Square, I had to pull J to the side because I needed a breather. It really pulls you along. We both loved the energy of the city and hope to come back sometime soon....to "New York...concrete jungle where dreams are made from..."