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Thursday, March 27, 2014

New York, New York

In February, I got the chance to go to New York City and hang out with my sisters, my mom, and my cute niece Emily.  It was sooo fun!  I've done a girl's trip and tons of girls nights with Pat's family, but never ever have I gotten a girls anything with my family so I was pretty excited!  I didn't think it was going to happen for me but Pat figured out a way for babysitting to work out and thanks to him and my sister-in-law I could go, yeah!!!!

My mom and I met up with my sister and her daughter at the airport and flew to New York.  That was the start of our awesome journey.  I got to sit in between to fun people, a med student at UC Davis and this pro Kendama player guy named TJ - totally cool people.  TJ taught us all about Kendama, what a great spokesperson, seriously, he had me sold and I want to get kendamas for all my nephews!!  Kendama is a toy - though not the same, as he was describing it, it reminded me of hacky sack.  Just a bunch of people in a circle showing off their tricks - never could do hacky sack, probably can't do kendama but it's pretty cool.  If you want to see some video you can check it out here.  Anyway, made the trip very exciting, I was entertained the whole 5 hours.

We got to NY, went to pick up our rental car and that was a DISASTER.  No one will be able to speak the name Danesha in our family without cracking a smile from now on.....but, "it could have been worse" (right Megan?).

Finally, off to our hotel on Staten Island.  We got in, collapsed onto our beds and slept great.  We woke up to a bit of a stormy day (one of the east coasts mega snow storms was passing through).  Luckily, I have an awesome friend who lives in Manhattan who recommended snow boots.  Wouldn't have thought of it but it was the best suggestion EVER.  My feet were toasty warm.  We headed out to Carlos' Bakery in Hoboken.  Megan and Emily are big Cake Boss fans so that's what they wanted to see.  I do admit - we tried several bakeries and it was the best of the ones we tried.  MMMM, my mouth is still watering when I think of those yummy butter cookies.  My favorite.  Emily got a cupcake at every place.  She wants to be a cupcake maker so she was in the quest to try out as many as she could.

We strolled down to the bay and looked across into the city.  Then we hustled back to the car and ate our delicious cookies and lobster tails (a pastry filled with creme) in the car.  It was cold and wet and pore Emily's feet were freezing.


Then we headed straight for the Staten Island Ferry.  Staying on Staten Island has its perks - it's cheaper.  The downside - the ferry.  It's fun and has an awesome view of the Statue of Liberty.  But - I get EXTREME vertigo I guess and just one ride on the thing and I was bobbing and swaying the rest of the trip.  We rode it six times = bobbing and swaying for 2 weeks after the trip.  Makes me worried for the two cruises I'm going on later in the year.





We had tickets to go out to the Statue of Liberty and go up to the pedestal.  We almost didn't make it because Emily made a snowball and tried to take it with her.  The workers didn't know what to think!  "A snowball, she's got a snowball.  What do we do?"  I tell you, they treated it like a code red (almost!).  In the end, they just made her through it away in a trashbag before she got in line.  The Statue of Liberty was very fun; last time I was there, right before 9/11 it was closed for maintenance.  So it was fun to go up the stairs, wish we could have gone all the way up but you have to get those tickets about 4 months in advance.  There stairs looked pretty cool though!  We hopped back on the ferry and rode over to Ellis Island which had just barely reopened after Hurricane Sandy.  There's a lot of potential there to make a REALLY cool museum.  It must still be in the works after Sandy.



We hopped back on the ferry back to the mainland and by now it was snowing but we weren't done.  We walked over to the 9/11 memorial.  While we walked it got snowier and snowier.  We were absolutely freezing and in the cold and snow it seemed like a really long walk.  It was a very impressive memorial though.  I could have stared at it for quite some time if we hadn't been so cold and wet.  It was dusk and also completely cloud covered so it was more impressive as the lights were on throughout the waterfalls.  There is a tree there called the Survivor Tree which survived through the 9/11 tragedies.  I wanted to see it but since it was so dark and snowy we didn't look for it.  Plus, it being winter, none of the trees had leaves on them anyway!




 On the way we had to stop to catch the snowflakes.  It wasn't too tricky.  It was snowing so dang hard!

Then we made a trek over to the Shake Shack.  Oh my word - move over McDonalds!  This place now has the BEST french fries.....ever (for the best hamburger you'll have to fly across the country and try out Slater's 50/50 in San Diego, YUM).  I could have eaten at the Shake Shack for every meal it was so good.

The next morning we woke up to a cold but beautiful, sunny day.  We went to church on Staten Island and then met up with Sarah who drove up from DC that morning.  We hopped onto the ferry again and this time headed to Times Square.  We got in line to buy tickets to Matilda and checked out a few of the stores in Times Square.  We also had tickets to see the Art of the Brick at Discovery Times Square.  Really cool - think Legoland without the rides.  The first part was like an art museum where the artist recreated famous works of art like the Mona Lisa, The Girl with the Pearl Earring, and Starry Night.  Then he recreated famous ancient statues and then we got into his original creations.  Lego-ing is cool!


Emily found a DC Cupcakes cafe.  She watches this show too and was pretty excited so on her quest for the most delicious cupcake got two different flavors.  We split the chocolate one 5 different ways!  What a treat, as my mother-in-law would say, just a suggestion of cupcake please!


Then time for Matilda.  Totally cute and the kids did an amazing job.  A little different from the book and I wish they had talked a little more about Matilda's magic, that seemed to be overlooked (weird right?) but still a way cute show.  Though my sister didn't agree, I loved the Trunchbull.  He/She did a fantastic job!  It was really fun to finally go to a broadway show.  I've always wanted to see one and now I finally did.  After the show we had to basically run back to the Staten Island Ferry in order to catch the last one for the night (or wait around in Manhattan until like 1:30am).  



On Monday we ended up going on a hop on hop off bus tour of uptown and Harlem.  Interesting......maybe, we did get to drive past the LDS Temple - which the tour guide didn't point out we just lucked out and saw it out the window at the last second.  We ended up ditching the tour at the Met, taking a look inside and then walking through central park.  It was the most perfect day to walk through the park.  Since it was President's Day combined with a storm that dropped 12 inches in the city and sunny, the park was full of people walking around and sledding.  Walking through the park made me want to live in that kind of lifestyle.  I liked it.  Then we stopped by FAO Schwartz - who wouldn't.  Such a great toy store.  When you walk into a toy store like that, even adults get a bit excited right?  


On our last morning, we tried out a few bakeries in Staten Island (Carlos beats them all hands down), said bye to Sarah and headed out to the airport.  Such a fun trip!!!  So glad Megan organized it and that I could go.  Wish all of us lived closer together so we could hang out together more often (putting a plug out - if any of you know of a good radiation oncology job in the Salt Lake Valley or a statistics job....let me know!!  Maybe I can get my sisters out here eventually!)  


Such a fun girl's trip with my amazing sisters and our AWESOME mom!


























1 comment:

Melanie Herway said...

Hurray! What a great trip! Looks like you handled the snow and cold as best you could. I think you really made the most of your time too. So much fun to do a girls trip...I could really go for one of those. So glad you liked the Shake Shack ;)