Today was the girl’s 20th birthday.  What a great way to celebrate your b’day, in NYC!  Since it was our final day in the city we got a little earlier start than normal.  Our first stop was the outside window of the Good Morning America Studio.  The anchor crew was downstairs for the final segments with 6 year-old piano prodigy Ethan Bortnick and an interview with Rebecca Romijn.  We hoped we would be able to wave to Arkansas from outside but it didn’t happen.

When the show was over we went to Central Park.  There was a threat of rain this afternoon so we wanted to walk through the park, or at least a little of it, before the weather turned bad.  Central Park is one large plot of prime real estate.  I didn’t get to see near as much of the park as I wanted to.  It would have taken the best part of a day or two to really see it all.  We didn’t have that much time so we settled for a short stroll through the south/southwest side of the park.

That led us to the Museum of Natural History.  We wanted to visit there and see some of what was shot in the recent movie, “Night in the Museum.”  It, too, like Central Park was much too big to see in a part of the day.  So, we picked out a few points of interest to see and headed out for Times Square.

Katie and Emily had their first cab ride as we headed over to F.A.O. Swartz.  Debbie, Josh and Katie grabbed the first available cab and Emily and I followed in the next.  There is a 4 person per cab limit so we could not ride together.  FAO was a cool toy store, not as large as I have envisioned, but still very cool.  We grabbed a sandwich in the café’ before wandering around the store.  Here is a picture of Emily and me playing “Chop Sticks” on the big floor piano like Tom Hanks played in “Big.”  While it was not the exact piano, it is an exact replica, which you could take home for the price of $250,000.  I would not have believed it if I had not seen it with my own eyes! 

In front of the FAO building is the coolest store I have ever been in.  The Apple store entryway, which is basically on the sidewalk, says it all.  The store is actually under ground.  The cool, big glass cube is simply the entry.  

After a short visit there we took the subway back toward the hotel.  The sky was screaming, “I am fixing to drown you!” and it did.  By the time we got off the subway it was coming down and we still had 5 blocks to walk back to the 30/30.  It ended up being quite funny, us running through Manhattan in a rain storm.  We dried off, and changed for dinner and the show.

We ate at a fun little diner called Elllen’s Stardust Restaurant on Broadway.  It was recommended to me by a friend of the family from Tupelo.  The waiters and waitresses sing between waiting on customers.  Most are aspiring Broadway actors and actresses so we heard them sing mostly Broadway tunes.  However, our waiter named Cowboy, sang “Sweet Home Alabama” in honor of the southerners in the house.  It didn’t take him but a couple of syllables to recognize we were from, as he said, south of the Mason Dixon line.

Following dinner, we put Debbie, Emily and Katie in a cab for the Minskoff Theatre while Josh and I hid behind umbrellas and walked the 5 blocks down Broadway to meet them to see The Lion King.  It wasn’t raining all that hard at this point so it wasn’t too bad.  The worst of it was the other 500 people on our sidewalk all with umbrellas trying to hurry out of the rain.  Only the fittest survived!

The Lion King was awesome.  I had heard it was the best choice and we were not disappointed.  From our 2nd row center seats we were right there in the thick of all the actions.  The costumes were incredible.  The acting, singing and staging were all first class as well, as you would expect.  It was Broadway in New York City.

After a few more shots of Times Square at night we headed for the subway for the last ride back to the room.  We packed and got ready for the morning as we would have to leave the hotel for the airport early for the trip home.  While we really are not ready to go home yet, we are exhausted from the 4 days of sight seeing all over the city.  It has been an incredible week and we have had an unforgettable time.  Can’t wait until we can go back!

It was another awesome day hanging out in lower Manhattan today.   It was a very long day and we were exhausted when we got back to the room.  We headed out this morning around 8:00 AM and returned a little after 10:00 PM.  We are really enjoying life on the subway.  You see some really interesting characters along the way.  It is not uncommon to see or hear music being played or groups dancing and adding spice to an other wise ordinary commute.

We headed out first thing for China Town.  We checked a map and headed into the heart of the land of shorter people then we.  As we got deeper into the area it was a little unnerving to realize we had not seen any of “our kind” in a good while and we had not heard English since we left the subway, not that we have heard much English since we arrived.  The people of China Town smiled, spoke and joked with us along the way recognizing us as tourist, I’m sure.  I don’t know what gave that away!  :-)  They were among the friendliest we encountered.

We made our way from China Town into Little Italy.  We didn’t spend as much time there as we did in China Town, only walking a couple of blocks in to shoot a few pictures.  Notice the Empire State Building in this one.  Katie and Emily saw a couple of street vendors they wanted to check out their wares so we headed back to the edge of people yelling in broken English, “Couch, purse, ladies hand bags!”

We jumped back on the subway and headed down to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.  We bought Ferry tickets, boarded and headed over to Liberty Island.  You don’t get the perspective of her size until you stand under the statue.  She is huge. We enjoyed walking around and listening to the audio tour.  From there we headed over to Ellis Island.  We watched a film of Ellis Island and the rush of immigrants and then walked the way of the immigrants while we listened to the audio tour.  You couldn’t help but try to imagine the hopelessness of those people who came from countries with no hope.  Unbelievable.

After spending the entire afternoon on the islands we headed back to the room for a short break and freshening up before a bite of dinner.  We hopped on the R train and headed up to Times Square for a short stroll before finding a place to eat.  The lights and video walls were quite impressive.  There were more people as well.  We mapped out Tuesday’s day and settled in at Bubba Gump Shrimp for dinner.  If you watch Good Morning America, it is often seen in the background of the show.  The food was really good and the sit down was very welcomed.  When we got off the subway, Emily and I grabbed a Stabucks for the walk back to the room.  

Awesome day.  I’m very tired, leg weary and heading to bed!  

We slept in this morning.  It was 8:00 before we knew it.  A car constantly honking their horn down on the street below woke us up.  After dragging ourselves out of bed and getting ready for the day, we headed for the 34th street subway.  It was a trip figuring out the metro pass and how to get on and off the subway not to mention doing it in the correct location.

We headed to Brooklyn to worship at Brooklyn Tabernacle Church.  We were blessed to be in their service.  Everyone was so welcoming and friendly and the worship was fresh and contagious.  It was good to be there on Mother’s Day.

 

Following the 2 hour service we headed for Coney Island for some freak show action and some of Nathan’s World Famous hotdogs.  I am kidding about the freak show but not the hotdogs.  Nathan’s is where the hotdog-eating contest is held each Fourth of July.  You know the little guy named Koby from Japan that ate 53 ¾ hot dogs and buns in 12 minutes.   Really good hotdog!  After strolling down the board-walk and seeing a few board-walk acts we headed back for the D train and the financial district.  We walked down a very silent Wall Street past the NY Stock Exchange and over to the Twin Tower site.  Very ominous.  It is a huge hole in the ground with a lot of construction.  It was hard to imagine the events of September 11 as we stood looking at the site.  Check it out at: http://www.nathansfamous.com/nathans/contest/hot_dog_contest_2006_results.php

We headed for the Empire State Building (34th street area) to try and catch the sun set from the top of the observatory deck.  We barely made it.  We hung out there waiting for the night sky and the lights of the city to appear as the wind grew much colder.  Josh grabbed this picture of the Chrysler Building.  The view was awesome from the 86th floor!  By the time we got back to the sidewalk below and sat down for a bite of supper it was 10:30.  We could not believe it had gotten so late.  However, from the way we felt, we could tell it had been a long day and we had covered a lot of ground on our first full day.

5:30 came early this morning, especially since we didn’t get to bed until just over 4 hours before.  Up and at ‘em, load up and head out for the airport was the first thing on the agenda today.  Being Saturday the traffic in Dallas was extremely light and we made it to the airport with no hindrances.  Checked in, checked through, boarded and now we are at 37,000 feet looking for ways to kill time on the 31/2 hour flight while we wait for landing at JFK.  We should get in about 3:30.

The flight has been uneventful which is good!  It’s fun flying with the kids since we don’t fly as a family all that often.  We have so much we want to do, we don’t know where to begin.  We plan to check-in at the hotel (http://www.thirtythirty-nyc.com) first thing and then get out into the city for a while before finding a local diner for dinner.  We hope to find mostly interesting local establishments and cuisine unique to the city while we are here.  

(Later Saturday afternoon)

The ride from the airport was interesting, to say the least!  We hired a private van to load up the family/luggage and take us to the hotel.  There is a 4 person limit for cabs so we opted to stay together thus getting the van.  We hung on and enjoyed the scenery.  The little driver from Jamaica was friendly, helpful and competent enough to get us here without any major incidents!  

We checked in, dropped the bags and headed up 5th Ave.  We strolled around 5th Ave., Broadway, and Madison Ave. before hitting Macy’s and stopping off for some pizza at Empire Pizza at the bottom of the Empire State Building.  Our hotel is just around the corner from this most recognizable building in NYC.

We covered a good bit of ground tonight even getting into the city late this afternoon.  We are all pretty tired from the past couple of days and looking forward to a good nights rest.