Tuesday, July 07, 2009

Great time in NYC

We spent four days in New York City. My brother & sister-in-law were up there visiting their grown daughter & her husband who live there. We stayed in mid-Manhattan, while my brother was dog sitting on the upper east side, and my niece lives in the village. It was fun getting together everyday via subway, bus, or taxi or just plain "walking your ass off". So many things have changed since I was last in the city. The most noticeable difference was that the honk honk honk honk of cars was gone! I remember everyone always honking. I found out the they finally passed a law to stop the honking - $350. fine! I still heard honking, but not near like it used to be. The taxi drivers are still the wildest drivers I have EVER seen, and I admire their skill as they weave through traffic at a high rate of speed. There are 13,000 cabs in NYC and I love traveling in them! We also honed our subway skills and went uptown, downtown & all around on them. The most difficult thing about that is finding the station entrances, so we finally got a map. We also got a three day pass for the Grey Line tour bus. It makes you seem like a real tourist; even though I was born there - I am a tourist after this long. The good thing about the bus is that you can get on & off as many times as you like, so we used that a lot to get around & go shopping.


We visited the site of the World Trade Center disaster and St. Paul's Church memorial. It was shocking to see a construction site in place of the tallest building that we used to stand on top of. The church is an old historical site itself, that now has many pictures and mementos of September 11.















We went to Rockefeller Center and went to the "top of the rock". It is cheaper that going to the Empire State Building (I have done that plenty of times) and it is much less crowded. You can see all of New York (including the Empire State Building) from 70 floors up and it was great. On Sunday we went to beautiful Central Park and saw the dance skaters. This is a club that meets every weekend to skate in the park. It is a real collection of characters just getting their grove on and doing their own thing - It was great.
The weather was in the mid 70's when we were there. We had a great time and plan to visit again SOON. Next time we will take the boys with us.
NYC is truly one of the greatest cities in the world!

4 comments:

Jellyhead said...

Sounds like a fabulous NY getaway!

I am practically taking notes from your post, as we hope to make a trip to the US sometime next year, which will include New York. It's reassuring to hear that you had fun, and that it's not all scary (I have this irrational big city fear about New York, that everywhere I go I'll be mugged/attacked/hassled!)

Glad you had such a happy time :-)

Finding the Happy said...

Awesome post Tuff...glad your return to NYC was a good one.

Epiphenita said...

I'm so jealous! Sounds like a great time. My daughter had relocated to Brooklyn so I thought we'd be seeing NYC again soon but the nomadic girl is now in BrookLINE, so it'll be Boston instead. NYC would be much more fun...hope you had a knish or a slice while you were there.

Kerri said...

Hey Tuff! Long time, no see...and here's something wierd...I was just thinking about you a little earlier, and that I hadn't visited your blog in a long time, and must do so. And presto...there you were, saying "hello". Mental telepathy? :)
And to think you were not far away earlier in July!
Yes, The Big Apple is a fun city. We haven't been down to visit our daughter in quite a while. Glad you had a wonderful time in the city (cue for a song) :)
I've enjoyed catching up on your 'doings' tonight.
Yes, I'm enjoying the NY summer, thanks, especially since we've had some temps that actually feel like summer this week..but still more rain! Glad to know you got some rain too.