NYC... the 2nd go 'round

Alright… the long awaited report on my trip to New York City.

Let me first start out by saying that this trip was a million times better then the last! The weather couldn't have been more perfect… Friday was a little windy, but a perfect temp. to balance it out.

Now, now Ang… don't get ahead of yourself, let's start with Thursday. So I work on Thursday… until 2:30, and drive my butt to the airport… flight was on time (even left a few minutes early)… things were looking great! I land in Newark, NJ, walk off my plane and was greeted promptly by the man of my dreams. I love him.

So we grab my bag, jump on the airport train to the NJ Transit station (to catch another train). As we are waiting for the train, which we have no idea how to take because he didn't tell me to research it, and like 4 trains fly right by us!! What the hell, right? No, not really… once I finally figured out what we were doing, the train came, stopped and picked us up… just like I had figured out 30 seconds before it came! What a funny series of events that turned out to be. So once again, I find myself getting off a train in New York's Penn Station (which is right in the middle of Madison Square Gardens), and again finding myself in the middle of the mad rush of New Yorkers! Not quite as busy this time, but not that much less.. as the Big East was being held there over the weekend.

Alright.. on to the next step. We were going to cab it to our hotel which was 10 blocks away because we had our bags and stuff, but it's so hard to catch one outside of that place, we just decided to walk. For some reason, and Erin will have a hard time believing this, I have NO sense of direction in that damn city… I DO NOT know north from south, and as hard as I try, I just can't figure it out!! That's just not like me at all. We finally made it to the Hilton Times Square, and 42^nd Street.. and make our way to the room.

I was hungry and tired, so we wanted to just grab a quick bite and call it a night. We stopped in at a place we had been last trip and got a bunch of food. Honestly I was so tired that night; I don't even remember what we ate!

Soooo… Friday comes way too soon; we slowly get up and at 'em. Get our asses onto the subway and go back to the Statue of Liberty, to actually SEE her this time! And boy did we ever see her!! We didn't take the ferry out to see her; we stayed on land, because I didn't really want to wait in the long line to go out there. So she is smaller then I thought, and farther out in the water then I thought, so I don't have close up pics, but that's okay… I got some other great shots!

Okay, okay… I'm still on Friday and I'm taking up a lot of room… I'll try to move a bit faster.

So after that, we walked around lower Manhattan some more… got a hotdog, because that is like my favorite thing to do in NYC!! And walked and walked and walked and walked… damn, there is so much walking to be done in that city. During all of the walking we got to see the Brooklyn Bridge… for those that know… I LOVE BRIDGES!!! I was so excited to see that, and got some great pictures of it to bring home with me! We stopped in and had a beer, checked out a few different places to eat for Saturday night… just casually walked and planned our dinner for that night (we love to eat!)

So Friday night we went back to the Upper East Side and had a wonderful fancy dinner, at a few different places. Then jumped a cab back to Times Square and got a slice of New York style cheesecake... YUMMY! The rest of the night is private, so never you mind what we did!

SATURDAY… there really is so much to see in that city. We walked more on Saturday then on Friday! And really… we didn't 'see' anything too exciting, we went to Grand Central Station, which was cool to experience, I ate more hot dogs, we sat at a park for awhile… the weather was great! Upper 60's-lower 70's and sunny… WONDERFUL!

Once we were so sore and tired from walking for 2 days straight, we decided to jump back on that subway and head over to Brooklyn! What a site, I expected Brooklyn to be 'ghetto' or just dirty… I guess adapting to a stereotype really isn't a good idea! Brooklyn was beautiful, much more residential compared to Manhattan, people actually live there! I got some nice shots of the Manhattan skyline, and as I was doing so I could only imagine what it looked like with the WTC towers standing up. Looking at pictures of NYC before 9-11 gives you an idea of how tall the buildings were, but once you see the skyline without them, it really makes it all fit. I didn't want to get sad, because I was having such a great trip, but at the same time I felt it would be disrespectful to just ignore the facts… so we payed our respects in a positive way, and kept on walking. To top it all off… we decided to walk back to Manhattan via the Brooklyn Bridge!! So not only do I get to see the bridge this trip, I get to walk over the damn thing! We were walking over it as the sun was starting to set, so I got some kick ass pictures of the Statue of Liberty with the sun's effects! (I'll look into posting a blog with a NYC picture slideshow)

Alright... moving along to Saturday night… making it short, because I'm sure you don't really care about the detail of this part. We went back the hotel, got ready and headed to The Village for dinner, we ate at two places, and I got to try Sangria for the first time! We ate at a place that a few critics call New York's number one Italian restaurant. Where there is reportedly celebrities all the time… we didn't see anyone famous, but I managed to catch a nice buzz… ah hell, who am I kidding, I was drunk! This being our last night together, I got a bit emotional... and that is where I'll stop.

All in all, I had a wonderful trip to New York, weather was perfect, and the company was, of course, perfect, and most of all I think I may have fallen a bit in love with the big apple! There are lots of places in the world I want to go and have been, but if I ever have the chance to go back and see NYC, I will not pass it up! I highly suggest you don't pass it up either, and if you've dreamed of going there… do it, do whatever it takes to get there!

Well, I hope you all enjoyed reading about my trip… I'll try to get a slideshow up soon. If you want to know anything else, as I left some details out, feel free to ask… I'm an open book (most of the time)!

Take care and have a great St. Patrick's Day, and stay safe!

Ciao!

oh yeah, I typed this last night and i didn't proof read it, so sorry if there is any typo's!