I (heart) NYC

I can officially say I have been to New York City! On Friday morning at 2am I took Carl to the bus station and as he headed home for the weekend, I was headed to NYC! I left home at about 7:30am and drove to Syracuse, New York (just under 2 hours) to pick up Catherine, my friend from home! From there, we headed to NYC! As we drove, we saw a sign that read "Welcome to Pennsylvania"...We had to triple check the GPS to make sure we were headed in the right direction and sure enough, we were, we just didn't realize we'd be popping into another state along the way! And just a side note, pumping your own gas in Pennsylvania is illegal (found that one out the hard way - don't worry, they didn't call the cops! ). After another 6 hours of driving, we parked our car at Newark airport in New Jersey (which is a state, not a city as Cat and I both learned this trip!). We decided not to drive right into New York City and thank goodness we didn't, the traffic was CRAZY! From New Jersey we took a shuttle to the airport where we caught a bus that took us to Time Square and about 4 blocks from our hotel! By the time we got to our destination, we had probably sweat out the 6 bottles of water we had consumed on the way! We had heard it was about 40 degrees plus humidity!

This is us waiting for the bus in the HOT weather after already traveling for several hours! As I took this picture, I felt a trickle of sweat run down my leg! We arrived at our hotel, or should I say "Yotel" and were impressed right from the start!

Not only did we get a good deal but we were about 4 blocks from Times Square, the staff were super friendly and the place was brand new and very cool! It was kind of futuristic looking, complete with "Yobot" the robot who stored your luggage!

We settled into our hotel and headed out for dinner and our first preview of Times Square!

Although we had had a long day and it was getting close to 9pm we decided to get into full tourist mode and purchased a bus tour (yes, the tacky tourist, double decker kind!). It was one of the best purchases we made! All weekend we hopped on and off the bus and explored every tourist attraction we could! Our first tour was a night tour where we drove over the Manhattan Bridge and got a beautiful view of the Brooklyn Bridge and Manhattan all lit up!

We peeled our sweaty bums off the plastic chairs of the bus and headed back to our hotel where we slept in peace in the air conditioning! On Day 2, we again hopped on and off the bus exploring the sights! We went to Chinatown where we got "Coach" bags and "Tiffany" jewelry, had lunch in Little Italy, saw some famous buildings such as the Empire State Building, the Trump Tower where Donald Trump lives, Central Park, the Guggenheim Museum and the list goes on!

As we got closer to the site of the 9/11 disaster we passed a firehall. We were told earlier that if we knock on the door of any firehall we could get a tour. So we popped inside this one and spoke to one of the guys on duty. We were just climbing into the fire truck to get our picture taken and the fire alarm went off! We had to quickly jump out so the firemen could jump in and attend the call! In the garage of this firehall was a memorial to all the men that had worked in this particular hall and had lost their lives on September 11th.

Further down the street we got to the actual 9/11 site where they are building a new World Trade Centre and Memorial.

The Memorial will feature waterfalls in the spot where the original buildings stood. There is currently a small Memorial Museum with artifacts and video of the disaster along with 2 walls full of photos of those who lost their lives. It was heart wrenching to walk through...

After a full day of exploring we went back to our hotel and got all dolled so we could head to Broadway in style! We saw "The Lion King" and loved every bit of it! It was bedtime after that!

The following morning it was back on the bus and onto the boat! We took a short harbour cruise to get a water view of Manhattan and the surrounding area and of course, say hello to Lady Liberty (which I kept referring to as the Eiffel Tower for some reason!). And here she is!

Just kidding! Now for the real one...

Tada!

And one of all three of us!

After the boat cruise and a quick peek down Wall Street, there was just one more place Cat really wanted to visit. So we figured out the New York subway and headed to New Jersey to see the one and only Carlo's Bakery!

For those of you who don't know, this Bake Shop is the location for the TV show "Cake Boss", one of Cat's favorite shows :) We weren't about to wait in the 2 hour line up to get inside so we snapped a quick photo instead! We also snuck behind the the building where we saw Buddy's car parked outside and talked to a few of the employees!

And that about sums up our experience of NYC! Even with the heat, the humidity and the sometimes unbearable smell of rotting garbage on the street, we had so much fun exploring the city together!