Right before take-off!!!!! \240Take off 6:06 am!!!

Landed about 7:20, earlier than expected!!

World Trade Station. I’m in NYC!!

Just out walking trying to get a feel for what is around us. Mom and I are straight up tourists. The Daniels get in in about an hour.

First meal in NYC. Pretty good!! I’m determined to eat only in places I can’t eat at home! We’ll see how that works. We found a Subway and I refused! The Burger King we passed serves beer. Seems like an odd combination.

Our hotel- it’s right beside the World Trade Center Memorial. We are just chilling right now, waiting on check in and the Daniels clan to arrive.

So once the Daniels get here, we go out exploring. They want lunch and we just want to look around some more. So, our random walk today took us a whole bunch of places.

Trinity Church- it has a graveyard next to it where Alexander Hamilton is buried.

We then walked to Wall Street. \240

New Your Stock Exchange.

Old Federal Building- George Washington was inaugurated here.

The front of the New York Stock exchange. I like the the old building and architecture right next to the smooth, grey modern building.

Inside the Old Federal Building. It was used as a secondary treasury.

Outside of Tiffany’s

Second floor of the inside of Tiffany’s.

The charging bulll statue.

One World Trade Center

The WTC Memorial- to even be able to pretend to imagine what it was like on 9-11. To imagine the destruction, the chaos, the fear. I am blown away!!

One World Trade looking straight up.

Street art near the Occulus. This is where we came in yesterday but because we went out the wrong end, it took us forever to get to the hotel. It’s really close if you go out the right end! 🙄

Final event of the evening- walking through China Town. It really seems like another country. The signs, food, language. Pretty cool! And we finished out the night by getting our subway cards and figuring out the system. Thank goodness for the NYC subway app!!!

View from the 20th floor of our hotel. Really cool place to eat breakfast.

Some more views from 20- I love the reflections in this building.

Heading to Battery Park to get the ferry to the Statue of Liberty. The statue is Vasco deGamma.

First views of Lady Liberty from the boat. The ferry was multi-level and a huge amount of people could fit on it. Everything ran really smoothly and we didn’t have to wait very long in any lines throughout the whole trip.

Views from Liberty Island back into the city. People were boating, jet skiing and \240fishing.

Close up of the statue. \240The coolest part of this trip is everywhere we go, hearing the different languages and accents. It would be so interesting to know all the different countries represented.

Trip from Liberty Island to Ellis Island.

The entrance to Ellis Island. This is the building the immigrants came into when coming to the country. Walking through this with the audio tour was enlightening. To image leaving everything but what you can pack into a bag, being herded into the receiving room, that was packed with people speaking a million different languages, being directed by someone speaking English. Then to be examined by a doctor for physical and mental evaluations. Some women had never been seen or touched by any man other than their husbands and had a real hard time with being examined by a male doctor. A matron has to be present in every examination to help protect and calm these women. 80% filtered through the process in a few hours, some were held for days or even months depending on health, legal proceedings and waiting on family. 20% approximately got sent back home for a variety of reasons. We learned about the aid societies that helped people get settled, the mail order brides that couldn’t leave with their fiancée so most of them were married right then.

Lombardi’s is the first American pizzeria. We didn’t use the subway efficiently and walked for a million years. It was a cool building and it was good but they only took cash and wasn’t worth the walk.

We got on the subway and went into midtown and split up. \240Noah wanted to go to MOMA and no one else was super thrilled but mom and I went with him. Jeremiah, Jordan and Jill split off and went down 5th Avenue. I’m glad we went. It was a chance to slow down, cool off and chill. Mom and I didn’t do the whole thing but it helped to expand my world view some. They best were these paper buildings made by a Nigerian artist. They were very futuristic and made of all kinds of paper and other materials. Very cool.

We finished up the day by riding back to our end of the world.

Here we are- without Mom😕.

Jeremiah and I on the bridge!!

BROOKLYN!!! So when I spin my engaged to Captain America tale, I can add “I went to Brooklyn this summer so he could show me around.” Doing it!!

Some cool buildings in Brooklyn.....

So Noah really wanted to just walk and explore, which would have been nice but I was way more tired than I thought. So Jordan, Jeremiah and I sat at this little patio area for a while while Noah and Jill explored. After a little bit, we walked around Dumbo some. Dumbo is the silicone valley for the east coast. Several companies are headquartered here like Etsy and West Elm. I saw West Elm across the street from the cafe we stopped at.

We didn’t realize that there was such a huge, cool park near us. But we met Jill and Noah at this outdoor cafe and they were telling us about it. So we kept walking with them and checked out some Piers. Brooklyn is very much a beach town and I could see myself living there way more than living in Manhattan. It was a cool place.

After seeming this cool Pop Up Pool, Jeremiah, Jordan and I decided to go back to the hotel and meet up with Mom for lunch. We ate at George’s. It was a pretty cool place- it had a huge menu and like most places here way bigger on the inside than it seemed from the outside. Mom and I just chilled this afternoon. The other 4 split up and explored all over. They saw some cool stuff but I just couldn’t do it. While I was sitting on the rooftop reading, I watched two guys cleaning the windows. I was so blown away and can’t even imagine doing that!! The building near it is under construction so it was kind of cool to watch them working on that. \240

Later in the evening, Mom and I went to Century 21. It’s this giant department store that is mark downs. It kind of reminded me of Dillard’s Outlet. We met everyone up on the terrace later in the evening.

Times Square

The front of Grand Central Station. It is an amazing building with amazing details and architecture. The ceiling is teal, with gold constellations. The detail in the carvings, it was insane!!

The New York Public Libary entrance. I think there is another main entrance but we went in here. Another amazing building, the details, the marble steps, the ceiling details. It’s amazing to think about all of this craftsmanship and detail that went into these buildings when the technology wasn’t available.

Library lobby

Looking down from the first floor.

Bryant Park behind the library. Such a cool little space. Very shady, an outdoor restaurant, a merry-go-round. It was a really neat space. After the Park was lunch and then we split up. Jeremiah and Jordan went back to take a nap. \240Mom, Jill, Noah and I went to Macy’s. It was 8 floors and a really cool set up. Each of the brands had there own little “store”- \240Walls, decor and their name above the door.

Macy’s was located in Herald Square which was a cool little area with shops and restaurants.

We then took a train to the Flatiron Building. It is really cool architecture but I’m not sure why it’s such a draw. But cool nonetheless. There was a little outdoor space where we rested and then decided to split up. Mom and I were going back and Jill and Noah went to the Met.

You can see the Chrysler Building from here as well.

Mom and I stopped at the Leggo Store. It’s so cool to look at the wall of parts and the store’s creations.

So, I’m officially done with the subway. Getting home should have been - get right back on where we got off and take the R all the way back. But after being in the hot station for 5-10 minutes, the sign still said R was 9minutes out. Alerts on the app said R was experiencing some delays. I had no interest in waiting on a train that may or may not be having issues. So I looked up the next option for getting home. We walked to the next station, and because it was the weekend it wasn’t running normal trains. What the sign suggested didn’t even matter because it was closed. So then I had to find the next station, which was a half mile away, and figure out what to do from there. I HATE feeling stupid and I was hot and probably not enough water yesterday, so I felt completely awful. Mom was nice about it but it was a really annoying afternoon. So when we get back, I wanted to come to the roof and read but it was closed for an event. I was tired, irritated and annoyed. But O well, I survived. Mom and I crashed for the evening and watched TV. I went out later to get a pretzel from a street cart but other than that, just chilled. It’s been an amazing trip but I am ready to go home.

After meeting them, they decide to go eat at the diner from Seinfeld. We had just eaten. \240So we split up and Mom and I took off down the road to Rockefeller Center.

Rockefeller Center

This is the plaza out front. There are a ton of flags all around and an outdoor diner. In the winter, this is where the ice skating rink is.

Today there were huge screens set up and a huge crowd spilling over into the streets to watch France play Croatia in the World Cup. It was really cool! You could hear \240them cheering from a long way away.

NBC studios

Once we left Rockefeller Center, we walked for a little while and found some other well known places. Here is the Rainbow Room.

Radio City Music Hall

Another cool thing about this city is the cool fountains, statues and art everywhere.

We kept walking, did a little shopping and ended up at Central Park. A man in front of us said you know you’re in Central Park when you can smell the horse poop! There were a line of horse and carriages waiting to take people around. I read that the city is trying to get that banned because it’s abusive for the horses, the traffic, exhaust etc.

Central Park was really cool and we only ended up looking at some of it. There are lakes and statues everywhere. The paths twist and turn throughout the park. We started at the zoo but it was $14 to get in so we didn’t stay.

I really liked to get pictures of the contrast between the city and the park. It’s such a oasis in the middle of the city.

I love the hexagon tiles throughout the park.

Arches leaving the zoo area.

Balto

There were several tunnels and arches throughout the park. They all looked and felt a little different. It was a neat touch.

Selfie with Mom!!

We sat at this central plaza area to wait for the rest of the crew. We watched a improv show by the a group who were doing some dance, acrobatics. It was really just a money grab but it was kind of funny. As we walked deeper into the park we came across this fountain which was near the turtle pond where some people were boating.

Tile work in a tunnel.

Just because.....

This bridge went over turtle pond and Jordan just wanted some good pictures of the two of them and apparently Jeremiah takes crappy pictures!!

Strawberry Fields - John Lennon memorial

Getting the subway back - Jeremiah was all about finding rats in the subways. We saw one one night that was pretty big and he was hooked.

A lady on the elevator had a Target bag and I was curious to see if there was one around. Come to find out there was and it was pretty close. So I went to find it this evening. Turns out it was in TriBeCa which was really close to WTC. It was a really cool setup. The street level was kind of tiny, a few clothes, a tiny bit of housewares and a small cafe. \240There was a downstairs though that was about 3 times the upstairs size. It had everything- just not as much. For example, the toy section was about 2 rows versus the 10 rows at a normal store. They also had these charging stations where you could leave your phone charging while you shop. Cool idea!!

I really enjoyed our roof deck. I got to spend some time there in the afternoons reading. But at night, I got to see everything lit up. That was pretty cool too.

So, ok, I guess. But there is a flight to Norfolk leaving out of this gate that is just delayed. I don’t know how long but it didn’t get canceled and I wonder why mine was canceled and not just delayed like that one. Who knows. Mom’s flight was fine, she got home. Jill and Noah got an earlier flight with a \240layover in Houston but they think they will get stuck there. I’m not sure about Jordan and Jeremiah. Jordan texted that she and her mom were somewhere but I’m not sure what their plans were/are. Thankfully I was able to get a hold of Olivia and Lexie so one or both of them will keep an eye on Sam. Good thing I don’t have to be anywhere tomorrow!!! Gotta love traveling!! I’m super thankful for technology to give me some stuff to do.