NY Day 4

On our last day in the city we got up to hit up Times Square once more because Aaron decided he wanted a NY hat. On our way we passed by a watch stand where Aaron found a $5 watch. While we were browsing, 2 cops pulled over and talked to the vendor to see his license. He was working hard to get out of a ticket and doing some serious smooth talking. It worked and the cops told him he had to move and said he could finish up any sales. They were sure to tell us that he wasn't selling anything illegial. I tried to find a watch, too but I didn't find any that I liked. After we found a hat we checked out of the hotel, grabbed a cab and went to Grand Central Station. Our hotel for our last night was closer to the White Plains airport. We were able to get right on a train, unfortunately the a/c was broken. Ugh! It was so horrible. Luckily we had grabbed some cold water bottles on our way out of the hotel and it helped keep us cool. The train ride was probably 30 minutes long, but felt much longer due to the heat! We finally made it to Rye and grabbed a taxi ride to the hotel. The hotel was nice, but looked like it might have peaked as a weekend resort for folks from the city in the late 80s. We decided to use the Nuvi to find somewhere nearby for lunch. As the hotel seemed like a resort, it was outside of town a bit, but it looked like there were some places to eat less than a mile away so we headed out. When we got to the restaurant it didn't look very good and 0.5 miles away there were fast food restaurants, so we continued on. Most of the walk we were the only English speaking people we saw. It looked like a well cared for area, but we did feel like we stuck out a bit. It wasn't terribly hot, but it was extremely humid, so the walk was miserable. We finally made it to Burger King and probably took 2 hours to eat just because we didn't want to have to trek all the way back to the hotel! On our way back the GPS took a different route (I guess it was shorter since we didn't stop by the first restaurant). We went by a park that had a motorcycle toy and I guess we were a little giddy by that point and decided to go for a ride.

When we got closer to the hotel we ran across a beautiful rock wall.

I even decided to do some rock climbing. ;)

When we got back to the hotel we decided to play shuffle board and then Aaron cooled off in the pool and I dipped my feet in and read for a while.
We went back to the room and started packing for our flight the next morning. At that point I realized that we left my purse in the safe at the hotel in the city! Aghhh!! I did have my license, so I could fly home, but my credit card, bank card and $40 cash were all in the purse. I called the hotel right away and they said someone in security said they would check the safe for us and call me back that night. They never called and even though I knew that I could cancel my cards and $40 wasn't that much money, I hardly got any rest that night.

NY Day 3

This morning we took our time getting around and headed to Cental Park, which was just a few blocks north of our hotel. We thought about taking a carriage ride, but decided to see it by foot. We only ended up making it about 1/3 of the way into the park, but there was so much to see in just that little area that we were ok not seeing the rest. We stumbled across a visitor's center on our walk and they directed us to a beautiful area with a fountain and a pond. There were people renting row boats in the pond and we thought about doing it, but the pond was really small and there were a lot of boats, so we decided just to watch. There was a large cafe overlooking the pond and we were hungry, so we stopped to check it out. Unfortunately it was fairly hoity-toity which meant there were only 5 things on the menu and the cheapest was $27.50 (a hamburger). We decided to keep walking and we'd find something that we'd like better. We headed back towards our hotel through the park taking a different path. We ran across another pond, this time it was full of rented mini sailboats -- very picturesque. Aaron saw a family with an RC speed boat, so he watched it. We later saw the sign that said they were forbidden!

After that we ended up going through the children's area, which has a zoo and some carnival rides. There was also a restaurant. Well, we thought it was a restaurant, but it was really a grab-and-go cafeteria, but we were so hungry by that time that we decided to go ahead and eat. The food was actually pretty good, we shared a small pizza and a quesadilla. We sat outside and could watch all of the people walking through the park. I don't know if any of you have read (or seen) the Nannie Diaries, but I kept thinking about it as I'd see women walking by with children that obviously weren't theirs.

We went back by the hotel for a nap and then headed back out to go to the Empire State Building. Our hotel had such a great view of the city, we weren't interested to go to the top, but we wanted to go by the building and thought it would be a nice walk to an area we hadn't visited. On our way back we stopped by a Chinese restaurant for dinner and then decided to walk some more and we stumbled across Rockafeller Center. The skating rink was a restaurant and we saw 3 armed (automatic weapons!) police officers. It freaked me out because we had been to many other areas that had to have been extremely high security areas, but we hadn't seen that type of security. When we left, we saw 3 other officers staked out along one side of the rink. Maybe there was a celebrity eating and they had hired police security? Either way it was a little scary!

NY Day 2

We got up in the morning and decided to check out the continential breakfast. We got up to the cafeteria and there was a long line to wait in just to get in, so we decided that we'd rather find somewhere on our walk to the subway station to eat. I still had to finish getting ready, so we went back to the room and I finished up. We decided to go by the cafeteria once more to see if the wait was better and it was, so we snuck in. They just had fruit and breads, but it was enough and tasted good. The view was great and we could see Central Park (from our room, which was a few floors lower and a few rooms further in we couldn't see the park).

After breakfast we headed to Times Square to get on the subway to go to the South Ferry area (Battery Park, Statue of Liberty, WTC). We bought all day passes. The subway was very clean and not crowded at all. We got to the South Ferry and decided to head to the area along the river where we could see the Statue of Liberty. The area along the river was very pretty and the weather was great, so we sat and watched the boats for a while.

Then we headed into Battery Park and walked around a bit and watched some street performers, the mile long line to the ferry to the Statue of Liberty, and lots of pidgeons. It was a fun area and full of so many interesting things. From there, we walked to the World Trade Center site. It was my first day of a lot of walking and I was getting tired pretty quickly, so we stopped a couple times on the way, even though it was a fairly short walk. It was a bit of a bummer that I was so worn out because I don't think I took the time to think about the site and what had happened there and was more focused on wanting to sit down and get a drink. Aaron did get a few good pictures of the progress thus far. While he was doing that, I squatted down for a minute to rest my legs. As soon as I had bent down, a security person hollered and me and told me to stand up. I understood, but man I wanted to rest my legs! We moved on into one of the World Financial buildings, which had a better view than the first place we were out (still no seating though) and Aaron took a few more pictures.

After visiting the WTC site, we walked back down to Battery Park via a different route that was along the river. There were benches every 100 feet or so, so we sat down a few times and watched the river traffic. Aaron even stopped for a long while to watch an Asian family who was fishing in the river. They never caught anything while he was watching, but it looked like fun. I certianly wouldn't eat the fish from that river though! Yuck!

When we got back to the South Ferry area, we decided to take the Staten Island Ferry, which drives right by the Statue of Liberty (we didn't want to wait in the mile-long line to visit it and Ellis Island). The ferry was huge! As we made our way near the SoL, everyone moved to that side of the boat and it was hard to see. But, folks were nice and moved out of the way to let everyone have a view. We moved over the other other side of the boat and could see the Brooklyn Bridge. When we got to Staten Island, they made us disembark and then reimbark. We thought we'd hop off, go through security, wait about 10 minutes for the boat to be cleared, and then get back on. WRONG! We ended up waiting in a huge group of people for about 45 minutes, most who were European (i.e., they stood way closer to a pregnant lady than she wanted them to!). We finally got back on the boat and decided to ride on a different level than we had on our first trip and it was much less crowded, so we had a very nice ride. Here's Little Miss Cain as we went by the SoL. The picture makes it look a lot farther away than it really was.

After the ferry ride, we headed to China Town and Little Italy. The subway stop was right at the point where they meet. China Town was EXACTLY like I pictured it.

There were lots of fruit and fish markets (yes, they smelled horrible) and tons of merchants on the street. You'd walk by someone on the corner and they'd say "Coach purse? Watch? Or DVD! DVD! DVD!" Designer purses aren't my thing, even if they are super cheap, but we did look at some watches for Aaron and had to get some DVDs (more on them later). The watches weren't as cheap as I would have expected, and we passed on them. Aaron later found one at a vendor on the street by our hotel for $5 and it looked nicer than most of what we had seen in China Town. We bought a few I love NY shirts and headed to Little Italy for an early dinner. There were so many places to choose from and the entire area had the wonder aroma of Italian cooking. We finally decided on a restaurant that had a host outside who had been talking to us. We went in and waited and waited and waited. After 10 minutes without service (there were only 2 other people in the restaurant and the waiter wasn't doing anything) we left. Of course as soon as we got up the waiter and host ran over to us, but it was too little too late and we decided to find somewhere else to eat. Boy was I glad we did! We found a place called Benito's II. It was small and quaint and appeard to be "family owned" (if you know what I mean). But, the food was amazing and the staff was super friendly. We both had tortellini, mine with cream sauce and Aaron's with red sauce. We shared and neither of us could decide which was the best.

After eating we headed back to the subway stop to head back to the hotel. My pass wouldn't work, but the guy working buzzed me through and off we went. We got to the station where we needed to transfer lines and my card still wouldn't work. There wasn't anyone working in that area, so we headed above ground and I called customer service. Of course they don't have a 24 hour help line (even though the subways run 24 hours...), so we had to find the nearest station with personnel. Luckily it was only a few blocks away and we didn't mind getting to check out another area of town (this time it was NoHo and SoHo). We didn't get any pictures, but it seemed like it would have been a fun area to explore. We made it to the station and tried my pass again and it still didn't work, so we went to the guy working. They sit behind a huge glass window, which is probably nearly impossible to penetrate and I now know why. :) When we asked him to look at my pass he grabbed it and said "there's nothing wrong with it." I swiped it in front of him and he said it must be the machine, so I said that I had tried it at 2 other stations in multiple machines that many other people were using. He still said it wasn't the card. I asked he could just get us a replacement and he shrugged his shoulders in a very rude way and said no. I went on a bit trying to get him to help us and finally got so mad that I stomped off and threw my card across the station. I don't really have much of a temper, but it was unbelievable how rude he was! I asked Aaron later if he'd ever seen me so mad at someone besides him and he laughed and said no. I went over to the ticket machine and was getting ready to buy another ticket when the woman who had been in line behind us came up to me and gave me her old pass (she had been buying one for the next month and had enough for a couple stops on her current card). It was so nice of her to do and I let her know how appreciative I was. We hopped back on the subway and rode back to our hotel. We stopped by an ice cream shop and then headed back to our room to watch one of the DVDs. We turned it on and I immediately started cracking up! It was everything I thought it would be -- it was obviously taped by someone at a movie theater, the camera was angled crooked, and once during the movie you could see someone stand up in front! Ha! Ha! Yes, I felt bad for buying a bootlegged movie, but it is just one of those things that you have to do if you visit China Town and it was well worth it. So, the movie wasn't nearly as good as we had hoped, but the bootleg factor made up for it.

NY Day 1

Our first full day in New York we got up and hit the continential breakfast and then checked out of the hotel. We hopped in the rental car and powered up the Nuvi and trekked to visit the OCC shop. It was about an hour away and one of the most beautiful drives I've ever been on. Here we are at a scenic rest stop overlooking the Hudson river. Baby too of course!

The GPS didn't know the address for the new OCC shop, so we had to call them when we got to Newburgh, but it was easy to find. Here is Aaron standing in front of the building.I didn't mind going there especially since Aaron really want to, but really didn't think I'd enjoy it. I was wrong though. It was neat to see all of their special bikes and we were able to go to a "viewing area" to watch them working on bikes. The only person from the show we saw was Rick. We heard one of the workers tell someone else that everyone was there, but we had looked online and Mikey had an event the next day somewhere a ways away and then I heard one of the sales people talking to one of the mechanics about how Paul, Sr was gone. So, I'm guessing that none of them were there. It was alright though since they have so many bikes on display.
After OCC, we got on the road for NYC. We had planned to go back to White Plains and take a train to Grand Central Station and then a taxi to our hotel, but the lady at the rental car station talked us into taking the car into Manhattan to a drop that was close to our hotel. We left OCC at 3pm so we could make it to the drop by 5pm. It was a little longer than 1 hour drive according to the GPS and we figured we needed to add a bit for traffic. To start it off, I had changed the settings on the GPS to avoid tolls. Bad idea because apparently the only way to get to NYC without tolls is via Cleveland! We thought the GPS was going haywire and spent about 15 minutes trying to figure out where to go. I finally realized what happened and it routed us right to the drop, no worries. We headed on the road and the drive was still very pretty up until about the time we hit New Jersey when it turned into city. About the time we were able to see the NYC skyline we hit traffic. I could tell right away that it was going to push us to the time limit with the car, so I called the rental station to give them a heads up in hopes that we could avoid a fee ($33 per hour for the first 2 hours and then a full rental fee for longer than that). Of course they said, "tough". We figured we could stll make it before 6 and figured we'd just have to eat the fee. Well, 6 rolls around and we had gone 1.5 miles from 5. I kid you not. I don't know if it was normal for Friday evening to go to Manhattan island, but it was horrible. We finally made it to the Lincoln Tunnel at around 6:45 (it was 1.5 miles from where we were at 6). After we got to the tunnel things started moving and we got into Manhattan and quickly found the rental station. It was just before 7 and we were trying to get into the booth to check in before 7 to save some money, but they were busy. Aaron had to move everything out of the car while I waited in line. It finally got to me and I politely asked if they could remove the late fee. The guy working laughed and said no that's not something they can do. He had to take a call right then, so I sat and waited. Well, in my pregnant hormonal state (wink) I started to tear up. Ok, I was pretty upset and was probably really was close to tears out of frustration, but I probably could have hidden it better than I did. While he was on the phone he was finishing up our check-out. He got off the phone and told me the total -- which did not include any late fees. Who hoo! It was so funny because he was so grumpy when I got there, but after that he was all smiles and really friendly. It was really nice and make the beginning of our time in the city a lot better. We headed to our hotel, which was just a few blocks away. We hailed our first taxi, which was pretty exciting. We were staying at the Hilton that was located just south of Central Park and a few blocks east of Times Square. It was a great location and I got a great deal on it. When we got there, we asked them to add Aaron's points to it (he stays at Hilton hotels a lot for business). When the lady was adding it, she said she was going to upgrade us to an executive level, which we think moved us from a lower floor to a higher floor (the 40th! out of 44) and gave us access to the executive lounge which included free continential breakfast and access to wireless internet in that area. We both had some vertigo when we looked out the hotel room!

After we settled in the room, we headed out to find dinner. It was pretty late for me, so I wanted to find something fast. We just wandered aimlessly hoping to stumble across something that looked good. What we didn't realize was that we stumbled into Times Square! It took us walking around a while in that area to realize where we were. We found a pizza shop that our chiropractor had mentioned and tried it out. We carried the food out and walked towards our hotel. We found a nice fountain on the way and stopped and sat on its edge to eat. There were a lot of people walking by, but it also felt like we were alone. The pizza was great and we were tired, so we headed back to the hotel for bed.

I had hoped to update you on our whole trip tonight, but it is way past my bedtime already, so you'll have to wait until tomorrow to learn about the rest of our trip!

I've arrived!

After an interesting day, I made it into White Plains last night around 6:30. My day started off with a 3 hour flight from KC to Philly. I ended up sitting next to a woman who was probably in her mid to late 50s that didn't speak English. Additionally, she was traveling with a baby on her lap. He was probably 14 months if I had to guess. She was very nice, but obviously we couldn't communicate. I had to help her get in and out of her bag a few times to get stuff for the baby and before the flight attendant would come over she'd try to work with me to make sure I knew what she needed so it didn't cause too much distraction for the flight attendant. She spoke enough English words that it ended up alright. The baby was pretty good too (thank goodness!). He fell asleep shortly after takeoff and slept for about 2 hours. But, he was fussy when he woke up and cried for probably 15 minutes. I felt so bad for her because you could tell it was exactly what she didn't want to happen. All in all, I thought it was a neat experience.

When we got into Philly and were about to board the plane, they told us there was a maintenance issue. Great. We ended up being delayed for about an hour. The funny thing is, I think that it probably isn't much more than an hour to drive from Philly to White Plains! The flight wasn't even 30 minutes long. The issue they had was with the A/C. I'm not sure they really got it fixed because it was still pretty warm on the flight. Luckliy it was short.

Aaron was waiting for me when I landed and we got our rental car and checked into the hotel. It is really nice! We used some points he had earned traveling to book the room and it is one of the nicest rooms I've stayed in. We don't have a way to post pics until we get home, but I'll take some and post them after we return.

Bon Voyage!

I'm all packed and ready to go! Aaron left on Sunday and has been in Crotonville, NY for the last few days at his leadership program. Tomorrow I will be flying into White Plains, NY to meet him and then we'll stay the night in White Plains and get a rental car for the day on Friday. Aaron really wants to visit the OCC shop, which is about an hour away from where we are staying, so we will probably get up on Friday and drive there. Who knows where our driving adventure will take us from there! Friday evening we'll head into the city to spend Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights. Monday evening we will head back to the White Plains area so we can catch our early flight home the next morning. Aaron will have his computer, so hopefully we'll be able to post a few times while we're traveling.

Lots of Updates

First, I want to wish Grandma Long a happy belated birthday!

In additional to Grandma's birthday, Saturday was our 5th anniversary. I had to leave before Aaron got up that morning to start getting ready for Chris and Heather's wedding. The bridesmaids met at their house to get our hair and makeup done. They did a great job with the hair and makeup and it really made me feel a lot better about myself (yes, I am to that point in pregnancy where I tend to feel like a big blob even though my belly isn't all that big). Heather though was beautiful! She looked absolutely perfect. I am so happy for her and Chris, they are a great couple. The wedding was very nice and their son Grant was one of the cutest ring bearers ever.

I ended up leaving the reception around 10:30 pm to head home. Aaron made it to the wedding but couldn't make it to the reception, so we really hadn't seen each other all day. Of course I was worn out and only managed to stay awake about 20 minutes after I got home. We did manage to sneak in our anniversary ritual, which is to eat a bite of our wedding cake. I know the traditional ritual is just to have a piece on your first anniversary, but for some reason we decided to do it the 2nd year and have kept it up. So far we've survived, so I'm not too worried about eating it and it is a fun tradition -- even though I don't like cake! We have a little over 1/2 of the cake left and Aaron says that we have to get another one when it runs out.

In case you are wondering how I looked all preggers in my bridesmaids dress, here is a pic that Aaron took when I got home. I think you can tell that I'm really tired!