Saturday:
We first had to decide what play we wanted to see that night, if any. I decided on Phantom of the Opera and we headed down to the discount ticket office. When we got there the tickets were outrageous, so we decided not to see anything that night. While we were waiting for Laura and Jordan to meet us at the ferry dock, we visited Federal Hall. Last visit we saw the outside of the building but didn't go in. We enjoyed the few things on exhibit in there.
Flags retired from around the world:
An old vault:
The stone President Washington stood on to give his inauguration speech:
A portion of his speech. I like how he says that the founding of the country was providential:
A replica of Washington's desk and a view of the New York Stock Exchange out the window:
Then it was time to ferry over to Governor's Island. After a picnic lunch we got to kayak! That was a lot of fun:
Then we check out the cute houses and the old church around Nolan Park:
I wish we had had more time to explore the cute peaceful island a little more. Alas, we had to catch the ferry back to Manhattan since we already had tickets to tour the Tenement Museum.
The museum didn't let us take pictures, but here is the back of the building where we exited:
It was an expensive but interesting tour. We saw restored apartments and heard stories about a Jewish German family who lived there in the 1870's and an Italian Catholic family who lived there during the depression.
Next we explored Chinatown on our way to dinner in Little Italy:
We were surprised to see that there was a festival in Little Italy called Saint Gennaro. It was so crowded that we could hardly move, but it's hard to tell in this pictures:
Look, there's a ferris wheel in the street!:
There were pictures of the Saint and lights and flag colors and food booths and fair booths everywhere! The most crowded area happened to be right in front of Jordan and Laura' favorite restaurant. Luckily the wait wasn't too bad!:
It's really cute and cozy inside:
And yummy!:
After dinner we walked through the festival debating on buying more Italian food but then decided to head over to Chinatown and get ice cream in fish shaped waffle cones:
Fun!:
Jordan and Laura headed home while Dad and I decided to go find the American Girl store to take a picture for Lulu. We passed this cool church:
And then we found the store!:
It was closed, but we looked inside. It's cute:
The store is right by Rockefeller Center, so we checked that out. They had pretty lights up already!:
Then it was already time for bed!
Sunday:
Sunday morning we got to sleep in a little, have breakfast, go to church, and then come home and have yummy lunch that had cooked in the crock pot. After eating we trekked the few blocks over to Central Park and brought a blanket and a game. We passed the statue of General William Tecumseh, who Dad really admires. We had to stop for a picture:
We also walked through the Plaza hotel, which is a super famous and super fancy hotel across the street from the Park:
Then we found the perfect spot in the park for playing games. This was the view from our blanket:
We played our favorite game, couples against couples, and it was a tie!:
By this time sunset was fast approaching and I had wanted to see the NYC skyline from Brooklyn at sunset, so we hurried down on the subway and made it to Brooklyn.
We walked through a gorgeous neighborhood on the way to the river:
And here we are! Just in time for the sunset:
The promenade goes right by these cool houses:
More pictures as the sun set:
We walked all along the promenade, under the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan bridge. It was such a pretty walk, and the weather was perfect!:
We caught the subway from there and went back to the apartment for the night.
Monday:
This morning we knew we wanted to get in line to get rush tickets for a show called Miss Saigon. If you wait in line you can get discounted tickets for shows that day. We waited for two hours, and it was surprisingly cool and rainy:
After securing our tickets we walked around the Time Square area a little and decided to go in the M&M store. We were surprised at how fun it was. This computer reads your mood and then tells you what color of candy you are:
We bought a sample of a few cool flavors of M&M's:
Then we took the subway clear up to Harlem to find President Grant's tomb. We got there and it was closed! That was a bummer. I hadn't thought to check what days the National monuments would be closed. Turns out they were all closed on Mondays so we also missed Alexander Hamilton's summer home and Theodore Roosevelt's birthplace. So bummed. But the building was still pretty:
and we had a nice picnic lunch on those benches to the side:
Funny thing is Laura used to live directly across the street when she first moved to New York and had never known what the building was!
Across the street from there was a cool church that we decided to check out:
Then we took the bus, for the first time, and made it to Central Park, on the North side where we hadn't visited before.
We walked down to an area called the Conservatory Garden. It was soooo pretty. It was really peaceful and not crowded too:
Then we walked through the park over to the West side until we found the apartment that John Lenon used to live in. He was killed on that street corner:
In Central Park there is a monument to him. It says Imagine because that is one of his most well known and inspirational songs:
We also walked by the famous bridge that has been in many movies, like Elf:
This was just a really pretty ornate building that we walked past on the way to the subway station:
We made it to T Roosevelt's birthplace and checked out the outside:
Just a few steps down from there is a store that makes and sells their own cheese. I had to go in and watch. They sampled their cheeses and Dad found the souvenir he wanted to bring home!:
Then we noticed a food fair at Madison Square park and they were selling empanadas. Since it was Chile's independence day I had joked about finding empanadas for dinner to celebrate. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to get some:
After trying Laura's Indian food, we met Jordan at a fun sushi restaurant:
It was fun to be there when Laura tried sushi for the very first time:
After that we were stuffed and it was time to head over to our play, right on Broadway street:
We were super excited, especially Dad:
We loved it:
It was already late and Laura and Jordan had to work the next morning, so it was back to the apartment for one last sleep.
We rode the subway back to the airport and had a smooth flight home.
We were excited to see you guys! We brought you treats from the fun candy store:
And Lulu got some lip gloss from Jordan's work!
Gramma said you were all really good for her. You had fun too! Here's a picture from your Saturday trip to the zoo with Grandpa's friends:
I'm grateful that Dad had enough time off and wanted to visit New York again with me. We always have fun together. I'm grateful that Laura and Jordan let us stay with them and that they like to do stuff with us! And of course we couldn't have done it without Gramma and Grandpa, so I'm very grateful for them!
I think that's the last time we will visit New York City. We saw so many things over our two visits. It is such a fun city. You guys will all have to visit when you're older. You will love it too.
Love you all,
Mom
