(WARNING: THIS IS AN INCREDIBLY LONG POST WITH A LOT OF PICTURES)
Monday morning my mom dropped us off at the airport and we
were New York bound! I’m a nervous flyer but everything went smoothly and we
touched down that afternoon. We took our
first taxi to the hotel, which I thought was important for us to document…Nathan
not so much. It was expensive and New
York is absolutely filled with crazy drivers who honk—a lot!
We arrived at our
humble abode and got unpacked. The hotel
was so nice! We stayed in the financial district which is located in Lower
Manhattan actually right next to where the twin towers once were. We freshened up and then headed out for
food. They pointed us in the direction
of a local pizza place. New York knows
how to do pizza! We walked around for a bit and stopped by a neighborhood
garden on the way back to the hotel. It’s
open to the public and neighbors sign up to volunteer to take care of it. It was pretty neat! That was about the extent
of any type of green space out there in the concrete jungle. When we got back we walked around the hotel
looking for the pool…until an employee told us that there was in fact no
pool. That was a big bummer because I
planned on laying out during the day while Nathan was in his meetings.
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| View from our room |
Tuesday Nathan started his conference. He would come back every two hours or so with
food for me. He said he had to sneak it
because he didn’t want his new friends to think he was eating two meals
himself! Hahaha! Everyone in his group was from NY so he shared a little
Texas swag with them. They loved him! He
thrives in those situations…we are complete opposites in that respect.
That evening we hesitantly took the subway to
Yankee Stadium, it actually turned out to be very convenient and much MUCH
cheaper than a taxi. We enjoyed a huge
hot dog each and also were secretly pleased to see them lose to the
Royals. It started raining huuuuuge fat
rain drops during the 5th inning.
Everyone rushed out of their seats to find a place they could stay
dry. It didn’t last long so we all
headed back to our seats…and not 5 minutes later it started again. We decided we would just wait it out, and it
actually felt nice because it was SO humid there! I was SHOCKED at how hot it
was while we were there, there were days that it was hotter in NY than back
home in Lewisville. Boooooo
Wednesday we met up with Nathan’s new friends at a pub
called Ulysses, which ended up being about 10 blocks from our hotel. Everyone walks in NY, I got a lot of exercise
while we were there! Nathan had a couple of beers with his new friends and then
one sweet girl offered to take us into Chinatown for dinner. She said she knew the best authentic Chinese
food place in all of New York. It was
quite a trek from where we started but we got to see a lot of cool sights along
the way! She ended up taking us to Big
Wong’s. We had quite a spread, including
duck, which was very interesting. After
dinner we walked to Little Italy to get dessert. We had our first Cannolis!! They were to die
for. I was supposed to share them with
Nathan buuuuut I ended up eating more than my fair share.
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| The picture on the bottom left is where a lot of law and order shots are filmed! |
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| Food Food Food! |
Thursday I hung out at the hotel and then headed to the
garden area to sit in the shade and read. It’s located right in front of the
freedom tower. It was nice and relaxing!
I headed back to the hotel when Nathan got done with his meetings.
We had plans to walk to the Brooklyn Bridge
but Nathan was exhausted so he laid down to take a “little” nap…2 and a half
hours later I woke him up because baby was starving! It was getting dark so we
decided to not venture too far from the hotel.
We found a little Italian restaurant to eat at and enjoyed a nice dinner
together. It’s so funny because no matter
what we’re talking about our conversation always gets back to baby girl. It’s crazy that this is our last vacation we’ll
be taking just the two of us. We have
loved our almost two years of marriage together and it’s going to be
interesting to see how our family dynamic changes, we are truly so excited to
meet this little girl!
On Friday Nathan got done with his meetings early. We met up with some of his friends and then
decided we would head to Times Square.
Talk about one crazy place. Woah!
Lights and people and cars and noise and music and colors and smells…it was
completely overwhelming.
We decided to
take a stroll down 5th Avenue when I remembered that we HAD to go to
FAO Schwarz and get a toy for baby. Turns
out it was on the opposite side of 5th Avenue, we ended up walking a
looooong way. But it was totally worth
it because we found the cutest teddy bear for her.
We headed back towards Times Square to ride the subway home
but decided to have dinner first. We
stumbled upon a little burger joint and it was delicious! When we left the
restaurant it was pouring—not a fun experience! Our little umbrella just didn’t
do so we proceeded to board the subway soaking wet. Oh well! Our night was made
100% better when we stopped at a little diner and got a Cannoli. Haha! If you
can’t tell…I eat ALL the time.
Saturday was the day I had been looking forward to all week!
We had the whole day to go explore. We
woke up and had breakfast at George’s.
We became big fans of George’s while we were there and they had the BEST
breakfast.
After I stuffed myself silly
we walked off our meal on the way to the subway. We got dropped off at the southern end of Central
Park. If you’ve never been there, it is a
huge place! We were only able to see a small portion, but we did take the time to stop by the Central
Park Zoo. I’m not going to lie, it was
kind of disappointing. It was pretty,
just very very small. After the zoo I
convinced Nathan to let us get a caricature done since we hadn’t gotten any
other souvenirs. We sat down for about
20 minutes while a man drew us, and when he turned it around it was
horrible! I thought/seriously hoped he was joking…but he took our money and that was that. Dumb!
After that debacle we walked down and saw the Balto
statue. I thought that was so cool
because when I was growing up I watched that movie a thousand times! We also
saw a puppeteer, the kids were eating him up! We took a lengthy stroll and when
our stomach’s got the best of us we headed to The Plaza (that’s right people)
for lunch. They have a really really
neat collection of shops in the lower level of the hotel. We decided to eat at the Todd English Food
Hall. They make their pasta right in
front of you so I had to have lasagna and Nathan ordered a brick oven pizza…YUM!
We got dessert at a little cupcake shop.
There weren’t any places to sit so we took our cupcakes outside and
across the street to sit on some steps.
I looked over at Nathan and sitting right behind him was Eric Bana! He
tried to be stealthy in a cap and sunglasses but it was most definitely him! So
we had our celebrity sighting while we were there!
We headed back to the hotel because we had
made an appointment to tour the World Trade Center Memorial. What an experience, it is beautiful and very
surreal. There are two huge pools set where the actual buildings once
stood. The names of all the victims are engraved around the outside of the pools. The Freedom Tower stands over them and
lights up in red, white, and blue at night.
I think they did a great job with the memorial and it is a
beautiful way to commemorate the lives of the ones we lost that day. After the memorial we were both exhausted so
we went back to the hotel and started to pack up all of our stuff.
We flew back on Sunday morning and arrived in DFW around
lunch time. It was an awesome trip, I just really enjoyed being able to spend
quality time with my boo. It was a great
babymoon!
