first, a little back story -- ben had been to new york before, but i never had. waayyyy back when we were dating, i told him i'd always wanted to go, and he promised me he would take me. a couple months ago, he looked at me and said "i'm taking you to new york." :) LOVE that man. he's such a sweetie.
packing up:
SIDE NOTE about WEDNESDAY - we were originally supposed to go to west palm on thursday morning, but at the last minute, ben thought we should go wednesday afternoon, so we did. as we got to air ops to check in for our flight, the lady checking us in said "good thing you're going out today as you wouldn't have made it tomorrow!" if you're at all familiar with the way things go around here, the flights are all standby, and i am SOOO thankful that we were able to get out wednesday night in order to make our flight thursday! God is so good.
the weather was awesome while we were there!
THURSDAY -
we started out our trip in west palm beach, and we ate at the chili's in the airport. YUM. we love chili's. :) we flew from there to la guardia, where we caught our shuttle bus to the hotel. OH. MY. WORD. talk about CRAZY DRIVERS! we weaved in and out of traffic and i wondered a little bit if we'd make it to the hotel in one piece! haha. thankfully we did, and after getting checked in and cleaned up, we headed out to see times square!! wow. so many lights and so many people! after coming from our island and tiny base with like 250 people or something, it was a bit overwhelming to be surrounded by so many people at once! we stopped to grab a quick slice at sbarro before heading to see WICKED. it was AMAZING. absolutely loved it and what a wonderful way to kick off our time in new york! :)
FRIDAY -
we woke up to some rain, but that didn't damper our spirits. we headed out to walk the city, and started out with some breakfast. i had a big bowl of oatmeal with cranberries and toasted bananas. YUM. from there we headed to the MoMA (museum of modern art) to check out the paintings. it was neat to see works from van gogh, picasso, etc. when we left the MoMA, it was raining even harder, so we broke down and got an umbrella from one of the street vendors, and kept on walking :) we made it to the huge Apple Store, and FAO Schwartz before heading back to the hotel to take a little rest. this became our pattern for the entire trip. sightsee until sometime after lunch, then take a rest before going back out for our evening plans. it worked out great! after our rest, we headed back into the madness and swarms of people, and after walking around we ate some yummy supper at Chevy's Tex Mex and called it a night.
starbucks where i had the yummiest frapp EVER!
SATURDAY -
it was the perfect fall day in new york! cool, but not cold - sun shining and trees all kinds of pretty colors. we headed out to central park. it was so beautiful! we walked the bottom half of it, up to the natural history museum, where we spent the next couple of hours looking at all the neat exhibits they have there! we also got to see a planetarium show, which was included in our CITYPASS (let me take a second to say that if you're going to NYC and want to do sightseeing, the citypass is a great deal! www.citypass.com) after that, we walked down the other side of the park, and made it back to times square in time to eat an early supper/late lunch at bubba gumps. a perfect chance to rest our feet, and we wanted to hit up bubba's as we'd been to the bubba's in maui and hong kong! a fun little tradition to add new york to that list. :) after that it was time for our rest once again :) when we got up, we went out to dave & busters for a little fun, and ended the evening with a late night snack of ice cream sundaes and french fries at good ole mcdonalds.
central park:
history museum:
bubba gumps:
SUNDAY -
with only 2 days left in the city, we got up sunday morning and enjoyed a little starbucks breakfast before we headed down to the empire state building. very fun to go up to the observatory and see the awesome view! after that we went to macy's - the largest department store in the world! one floor was entirely shoes! wow. they had super neat old wooden escalators which were unique and probably part of the original store. on the way to our next destination, we passed a five guys and went right in to get some burgers for lunch :) just the fuel we needed to walk the rest of the way down to the pier where we hopped on our liberty cruise. we cruised down the hudson and saw the city from a different point of view, as well as a much closer view of the statue of liberty. it was neat, except that there were SO many people, and our particular seats unfortunately made us get squished quite a few times from tourists trying to take a million pictures of lady liberty. oh my. it was also pretty chilly in the shade, so although it was neat and i enjoyed the tour, i was not sad when the cruise was over and we had some space again! :P after our rest on sunday, we went to a neat little thai restaurant called Room Service and it was AMAZING. it was more of local, hole in the wall place, and i ordered pad thai with chicken that was SO yummy. we also tried these golden triangles for an appetizer in that delicious sauce. oh man, it's making me hungry just remembering it!
empire state view:
liberty cruise:
MONDAY -
our last day in the city was by far our busiest, and we knew it would be. **a little back story -- i am a HUGE jimmy fallon fan, and had been calling for over a month to try to get us tickets. i had almost given up hope when i finally got through, only to be told that he was going to be on hiatus the first part of our trip! my only option was to get us tickets on monday, so that is exactly what i did** :) we got up that morning and went to grab some breakfast at ellen's stardust diner. it was a fun 50s kind of place where the waitresses sing to you while you eat! (ben put a video of it up on facebook). from there, we headed to rockefeller center for top of the rock. slightly similar to empire state, but a different viewpoint. it was a nice view, and they had this neat room with lights on the ceiling that tracked motion - as soon as you walked into it, it would assign you a color of lights and the lights would follow you around. ben enjoyed that room more than the view, i'm pretty sure :) once we made it back down to the nbc experience store, where we checked in to get our tickets to see JIMMY FALLON!!!! :) we saw gerald butler, madeline stowe (from revenge), felix baumgartner (who jumped from space), and musical guest wu-tang clan. at the end of the show, jimmy ran through the audience and gave high fives, and we were sitting on the edge of our row, so i got one! it was so neat to see him in person, and the show was great! you can even see us in one of the shots. after that was over, we had to boogey over a few streets to the majestic theater where we saw phantom of the opera. those of you who know me, know that phantom is my favorite. i have seen it 4 times! although it was good, i actually liked wicked better! :) all in all, it was the perfect ending to our perfect trip.
top of the rock:
so excited to see fallon!
TUESDAY -
we got up and finished packing, then risked our life in the shuttle back to the airport (haha!) and headed back to fla.
TODAY -
i am sitting on my bed typing this now as the rain is pouring outside, a hurricane is headed our way - we got back just in time ;)
what an amazing time with the love of my life. it was such a blessing to be able to fit so many neat things into our 4 days there, and i had a blast! so thankful to my sweet hubby for all the love he showed me in taking me on that trip. it's one i'll never forget! <3
