Arrival

We landed at LaGuardia Airport on Saturday morning ready for our whirlwind trip through New York City over the next 24+ hours.  I'm a little uneasy about the whole New York thing, because I am sure that every New Yorker is out to get me somehow.  I made it through the airport without getting mugged, and into one of New York's fine taxi cabs.  We told the guy where to take us, and he took us there.  Easy enough.  Of course, I have no idea if he took us the shortest route, or if he charged us the right amount.  I just know that I got out of the cab at our hotel and I was safely through my first NYC traffic experience.  And we only nearly hit 2 pedestrians and a car.

The Hotel

We were staying the night at the Milford Plaza hotel which is right in the middle of the Theater District in midtown, 2 blocks away from Times Square.  We were in the perfect location, and would definitely stay there again.  It was an old hotel, but it was in good shape.  Rooms were pretty small, but we really weren't in the room all that much, so it really didn't matter that much.  Emily nearly blew a gasket waiting for them to bring an iron to our room, so if you think you may need an iron, and you will be staying at the Milford Plaza, bring your own instead of waiting the hour that you'll need to wait to get one from housekeeping.

First Trip Out

After getting Emily's outfit ironed, we set out to survey the general area and see where we wanted to have our pre-theater dinner.  We walked over a couple of blocks to Times Square first to check out all of the people selling fake bags and watches.  Because everyone in NY is out to get me, I made sure to take only a credit card, ID and a little cash with me and left everything else in the hotel room.  I made sure that my mini-pack was in my back pocket and that the pocket was buttoned.  My heart nearly stopped, when after being in Times Squarely for almost 30 seconds, I felt my back pocket and it was unbuttoned and there was nothing in it.  We had been in NY a little over 2 hours and they had already gotten me!  Fortunately, I had actually put everything in a front pocket and left my back pocket unbuttoned.  I was still safe.

One thing that I did see, that I never thought I would see was an ambulance getting sideswiped by a car.  The ambulance was turning left from a one way onto another one way street, but it wasn't in the far left turn lane because it had to get around some cars.  An Explorer appeared to yield to the ambulance, but apparently didn't think that the ambulance would turn left in front of it.  But it did.  And the Explorer HIT THE AMBULANCE.  How do you crash into an ambulance?  I can't make this stuff up.

Theater Time

Emily a couple of nights before had bought tickets online for Rent.  I didn't know much about it except that it was kind of depressing.  We got seated at the theater soon after the doors opened.  With about 10 minutes before curtains up, I heard a girl scream and then everyone start clapping.  I turn around and I see Clay and Ruben from American Idol.  While it may not sound like a huge deal now, it was at the time because it was less than a month after the show ended so it was still fresh in everyone's minds.  They created such a ruckus that people were still staring, pointing and talking when the curtain went up.

I have to say that Rent was the best musical I had ever seen.  Even though, at the time, I thought that the story was a little thin, the music was outstanding.  I got the soundtrack after we got home, and after listening to it for a while, I have picked up lots more about the story, and I can't wait to see it again.

After Theater

After we got out of the theater, we walked the 4 blocks back to our hotel.  Our plan was to go to a little Irish pub and have a cider or two, but instead we ended up at a deli.  Close to the same thing.  Anyway, since we ate dinner before the theater, we decided to have a quick desert before bed.  Emily ordered cheesecake and I got apple pie.  Very American.  We have both decided that we can never get cheesecake anywhere else again.  Ever.  Because nothing can compare anymore.  This cheesecake was by far, the best we had ever had.  Definitely cheesy. It's amazing that of my trip to New York, one of the main things I remember is cheesecake.

Saturday in New York

We had every intention of getting up early and hitting the Saturday Today show in Rockefeller Plaza.  Didn't happen.  We slept in a little long for that, but we still made it up to the Plaza mid-morning.  We were pretty flexible on what we wanted to do during the day, but we knew that we wanted to be the traditional NY tourist and hit most of the major sites.

We started up at Rockefeller Plaza and checked out the NBC Studios.  We wanted to do a studio tour, but the next available tour wasn't until 3:00 and we needed to be on our way to the airport by that.  So we just walked around the area and took some pictures before starting our walk south toward the Empire State Building.

Because I had never been to NYC and never really had that much interest in learning about it, I had no idea that the Empire State Building and Chrysler building were nowhere near the World Trade Center buildings.  Who knew?  Anyway, we made our way down to the ESB before heading west over towards Madison Square Garden and Macy's.

Emily wasn't convinced that we should use the subway because she was worried that we wouldn't be able to figure it out (or she was worried about terrorism....one or the other).  I finally convinced her that we have handled the DC, Paris and London subways, and NY's couldn't be any harder.  I was wrong.  For a first time person in the NYC subway, it makes absolutely no sense compared to the others I have been in.  We did finally figure it out, but we had to ask one of the personality-filled NYC transit workers.  What a joy.

We got off the subway at the very southern tip of Manhattan in Battery Park and after checking out the Statue of Liberty, started walking north toward the World Trade Center site.  While it is starting to look like just another construction site in a big city, it is still an eerie feeling to be there and read all of the memorials that are tacked to a temporary wall along the edge of the site.  It gets even worse when you are walking and hear a jet engine overhead that is on its way to LGA.  It sounds just like it did on TV on 9/11.  Made Emily and I stop and pause for a second....strange.

After that, we were getting pretty tired, so we made an express trip to get a hot dog at a hot dog stand (one of my NYC requests), see the NYSE on Wall Street and then head back to the hotel.  Once we got back up to midtown, we stopped in a pizza place so I could try some real NYC pizza (another one of my requests).  One word.  Overrated.  Just to be sure, I got another slice in another place.  Overrated.  Ledo Pizza here in the DC area and all of the major Chicago-style places in Chicago just destroy NY pizza.  Put that in your pipe an smoke it New Yorkers.

After getting packed up back in the hotel room, we hailed a cab and headed back to the airport.  The cabbie took us through some really, um, interesting areas of Queens.  I can now add that to my list of places that I've been that I didn't really want to go to.

As always, the US Airways Shuttle was on time and got us back to DC safely.  And it was free.  I love working for an airline.

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