A Bite of the Big Apple

Holly: What to do with three roundtrip flights? Joey and I had accumulated some rewards on Southwest Airlines, and they were about to expire in August. Use it or lose it! But we weren’t too sure where to go. Visit family? Go someplace nice? Give it away? After a little discussion, we decided to do all of the above! We chose a trip to New York City, plus gave one flight to my sister Jill who came in from Virginia to do babysitting/dogsitting/housesitting duties for us. I’d been a couple times before, but this was Joey’s first trip to the Big Apple. So off we went!

Joey: To get to NYC, we had to land in Newark, so from there we took a train through the lovely eastern New Jersey junkyards countryside. Not too impressive.

Holly: Once we arrived at the hotel and unpacked, I went to explore a little of Central Park and the immediate area. It was so nice to be outside in temps about 25 degrees lower than those at home, and even COOLER once you step into the park. The canopy of trees was most welcome. I probably walked 2 miles that night. Nice!

Day One.
Joey: I started the morning off with a jog around Central Park. Awesome! I can now officially mark that off my bucket list.

Holly: About 10 a.m. we met Judy, our Big Apple Greeter, who took us on a terrific personalized guided tour of many parts of the city. She led us from our hotel, The Hudson Hotel, to the Flatiron Building and on through Chelsea, NoHo, SoHo, Little Italy, Chinatown, East Village and even into the Lower East side a little bit. Judy was chock full of information about the people and architecture of the area, and showed us a great Italian restaurant for dinner.

Joey: Our tour guide was fantastic! What a treat! I’d normally expect a tour like that to cost hundreds of dollars, but the Big Apple Greeters just love their city so much they do it for free. You get an up-close-and-personal look at the city, plus you get to make a new friend. She totally blew away the stereotype that New Yorkers are rude and unfriendly. You did an awesome job!! Thanks Judy for an excellent tour and a memorable morning!

Holly: Being the nerd that I am, I turned my pedometer on when we left with Judy. 5 hours later when we returned, we’d logged more than 13,000 steps. I’m calling it at around 6 or 7 miles walked! Afterwards, we explored the hotel, which has an awesome “sky terrace” on the 15th floor, with several little sitting areas, a hammock under a pergola, a bar and terrific views up and down 58th street, 8th Avenue and the Hudson River.

Day Two.
Holly: We both woke up a little sore, but decided to rent bikes and conquer the rest of Central Park. So, in one hour we made the big loop around the park and saw many famous sites. Great ride, and a little tougher than expected, since there were hills in the park. We learned that joggers tend to jog wherever they want, including the bike lanes, and that the counterclockwise traffic flow arrows were more “suggestions” than rules of any kind. There were more than a couple times where we had to dodge oncoming joggers and bike riders, which just made it a little more interesting.

Joey: We headed down to Times Square later in the afternoon and on a whim decided to see a Broadway show. Scored some tickets for half price to see “The Addams Family” starring Brooke Shields as Morticia. We totally lucked out on the seats — lower box seats, hanging out over stage left. Sweet!

Day Three:
Joey: Today Holly had plans to visit a friend on the Upper West Side, so I decided to head out on my own and do some urban exploring. I started out with a trip to the 86th floor of the Empire State Building. I mean, that’s a tourist requirement if you are visiting NYC, right? It was lots of waiting in line to buy a ticket, then waiting in line for an elevator, then waiting in another line to ride another elevator… finally I just decided to hoof it the rest of the way up the stairs. Too many tourists up here!! It was jam packed full of people. So I just snapped some pictures, enjoyed the view a little, then headed back down to street level. It was more interesting down there anyway. I got a chuckle out of seeing a row of construction guys on break making cat-calls to every woman that walked by. I continued on to see the World Trade Center site (just a big hole in the ground and lots of construction), and then walked over to Wall Street to see the craziness over there. It began to rain hard at one point, so I found refuge under a building and just did some people watching for awhile.

Joey: Late in the afternoon I got a text from a hot chick saying let’s rendezvous…. So we met up at this spicy little Italian restaurant on the corner of Broadway and 5th…

Holly: After dinner, we hopped on the Red Line (subway) and went straight to the Staten Island Ferry for a nice casual ride…

Day 4:
Holly: We said goodbye to NYC, hopped on a train back to New Jersey, and then a flight home.
Joey: Totally enjoyed visiting New York City. Definitely would go back for another visit! Still lots to see and do.

Honorable Mention: Super big thanks to Jill who flew in from Virginia to stay with Ivy while we were gone. You did a fantastic job! Thanks for taking on this job and removing the worries from our minds so we could enjoy our trip. What a blessing! I hope you enjoyed your time here as well. Thanks also to Amber and Jane for helping out, and also BIG THANKS to Arturo for taking Ivy to her swim lessons each day. You guys are the best!! 🙂