Day 2: What else can you do in a day?

After a late-night we slept in a little and had our second Jamba Juice in 8 hours for breakfast. Yes, knowing what we had for a late night snack and breakfast is important. We headed to Columbus Circle via the subway and emerged to all the fanfare that surrounds Earth-Day. How fitting, we visit Central Park New York on earth-day. Also being memorialized but less popular is the day Armenians remember the genocide by the Turks. We saw a ceremony for that in Times Square on our way to the park. Also across from the genocide commemoration was the infamous Naked Cowboy serenading all comers. Only in New York I can presume.

We emerged from the earth out into Columbus Circle only to be welcomed by HSBC employees trying to give away compact florescent lightbulbs. I didn’t want one because I didn’t want to break it hauling it around for 3000+ miles. But I watched the people beside me refuse as well, and they were locals I am sure of it, no cameras, maps, books or strollers with two kids in tow. You would think that in the epicenter of all things liberal, people would be carting off these compact fluorescents by the wheelbarrow so the Earth could be saved. It wasn’t happening, I watched for a few minutes and the only conclusion I came up with is if you want to hand stuff out in New York you need to put it in a bag and leave it on the corner. Or perhaps could it be that savvy urbane people never take something for free because nothing for free is worth having. So in this vein we preceded across the south side of central park to the east side. To what is some of the most expensive real estate in the world. 5^th Ave. Home of Tiffany’s Cartier and even Apple. Who would have thought even 10 years ago a computer store could ever grace a place like this, somehow they have pulled it off.

Our first stop was of course Tiffany’s Ashlee had to go, plus she was not as impressed by central park as she thought she would be. The trees weren’t full of leaves and the grass had not yet quite recovered from the ravages of winter. To her it was not as pristine and lush as the flagship park of Salt Lake City, Sugar House Park. In my opinion we just came too early in the year to give it a fair shake. But honestly I don’t think we could have had better weather. Low 70’s maybe high 60’s and lots of sunshine. Perfect for walking, and we did a lot of that on this day. From Tiffanys back across to 7^th avenue to the famous Carnegie Deli.

We had the most insane sandwich I have ever seen. It’s on the menu and it’s called the Woody Allen. Half Pastrami Half Corned Beef, and all heaven! It even came with two slices of Rye bread, but I’m not sure what they were for. Ashlee was amazed by the quality of the meat but she could not believe the cheesecake. It was truly decadent, Lance was thrilled by the platter of pickles they gave him and we were stuffed within 20 minutes of arriving. On our way out we were stopped maybe 5 or 6 times by restaurant patrons and staff all admiring Renee, people in Manhattan seem to adore babies.

So about a block away from the deli we had our first problem of the trip. A total blow out, and I don’t mean a tire. As I mentioned before we had Jamba Juice two times in 8 hours. There are consequences to theses kinds of decisions. Unfortunately, Lance paid dearly for those decisions. It was a total mess, I will spare you the details, but I will mention that the stroller did have to be dismantled down to its raw frame.

We had to walk all the way back to the hotel, and we made a full recovery. We set back out and caught the last Gray Line bus making the Downtown Loop. I am so glad we did. The guide for this trip was awesome, we learned so much from him and he was also entertaining, especially while he was showing off his French vocabulary so some of the other Eruopean tourists on the bus. He showed us the good and the bad and really conveyed his love of the city he calls home. We were in love with New York by the end of the Route. So much so that we stayed on the same bus and took the night time tour and saw the city at night. We got a little cold but were in good spirits. After 5 or so hours on a bus we were ready to get off and have dinner. We found a late night restaurant that was probably Ashlee’s favorite for the trip. A little French bistro that had a lot of atmosphere and great food. We walked back to the hotel for our last nights stay in the Big Apple and crashed… hard.

Day 1: The Red Eye

We booked out flights with JetBlue, which I believe is the best bang-for-your-buck value out there. The only JetBlue flight to NYC leaves SLC around midnight which has its pros and cons. Pros are: You aren’t wasting a whole day at the airport. You can sleep on the plane. You arrive very early before the rush at the airport. The flights are cheap. Cons are: You waste a whole night of rest. Nobody can sleep on a plane, no matter how much legroom you have. There is always a rush at JFK airport. Flying is always expensive. In fairness the JetBlue flights are the next best thing to business class flights. We paid less than $280 round trip. The bummer is we did have to buy a full price ticket for Lance, but at least we got a whole row of seats to ourselves.
We arrived at JFK and I had arranged a private driver to shuttle us to Manhattan from the airport. We had 10 bags and the kids car seats so we needed more than a taxi. He took us to our hotel that was truly in the heart of Times Square its called the Renaissance Hotel, and my neighbor friend Dave hooked me up with a sweet deal. This hotel was awesome! We were on the 24th floor and had an awesome view. We checked in our room and went to the hotel restaurant on the lobby floor and had breakfast, then we went back up to our room and slept. We didn’t really want to but we were too tired to enjoy ourselves.
We woke up at 2 and went downstairs and got on the Grey Line bus. This is truly the greatest way to see NYC for the first time. Our first tour guide was the low talker from Seinfeld, so we got off the bus early and checked out Greenwich Village. We ate a late lunch at a little noodle shop and walked around for a few minutes. Then we got back on another bus and headed down to Battery Park.
We decided to get off at the World Trade Center site. I was not prepared to the emotions I had while I was there. It was truly moving, and the reality of that tragic day hit me again more powerful than any time before. Happily they are starting the construction on the new Freedom Tower, maybe our next trip to NYC will be for the opening of that new tower that is to stand 1776 ft tall, I anticipate the triumph, jubilations and sorrow of that future day.
From the WTC site we walked to Battery Park and looked out on the harbor at Lady Liberty. I had wanted to do that ever since I was 7 years old. It was beautiful and as the sun went down on the first day of our trip I felt like the trip and expenses were already worth it. To see the same sights my grandparents saw when they immigrated to America from Switzerland more than half a century ago was priceless.
We then proceeded on a long walk to the South Street Seaport, which was beautiful but ultimately disappointing. The first restaurant we went to seated us immediately but we did not see a waiter or even a bus boy for water for over 20 minutes, even after a request after the first 10 minutes. We got up and left and went to another café a block or so down. The food was mediocre at best comparable to airport counter food.
We finally got a hold of our friend Kirk that was going to meet us back at our hotel. So we headed back to Times Square via the NYC Subway. That’s a load of fun with a double wide stroller and two infants. We had to look like hayseeds, and that’s mostly because we are. Times Square at night is truly a sight to behold, we walked around and finally indulged Lance with a trip to the Toys R Us store, which was really the coolest toy store I had ever seen. Kirk met us there and we walked back to out hotel.
While we were at the hotel Kirk told us all about his personal thoughts on the city. He had a great insight he shared with us. I cant remember verbatim but it was something to the effect that although while you are in the city you are never more that 20ft. away from someone, you can feel absolutely alone and lonely. The anonymity of walking around so many people you don’t know, who don’t know you, can drive you insane. And some people snap! They want others to notice them so they yell or do something weird, and sure enough people notice you. I guess that could feel good to someone who is desperately lonely. It explained to me the crazies we saw riding around the city yelling, waving, dancing and freaking us out. They just wanted us to look at them, and we did.
We followed up Kirks visit with a half block midnight run to Ray’s pizza which was just incredible. Then we went to bed ready to see the city again.

We just had to get out of Dodge.

So me, Ashlee and two kids decided to take a trip. Using my powers of persuasion we came up with the destinations of New York City and Washington DC. The real reason for the trip was to visit my sister who is currently living in Charlottesville Virginia. Her husband Ben is graduating from The University of Virginia Law School. They will be relocating to Rochester New York in September. I wanted to visit them there because I love Virginia and Ashlee had never been. So rather show up for Ben's graduation and get lost in the scheduling of that major event we decided to make a little trip out of it for ourselves and see some of the sights. I have been to the DC area a few times myself and I really thought Ashlee would love it. I wanted her to see a few of the things that I think make our country great. We chose adding New York to the trip because we just don't ever get the chance to visit that part of the country and if we didnt make the effort it would never happen, plus we missed out on the trip my parents took to NYC with my siblings in 2005 (Ashlee was pregnant with Lance). So the next few posts are going to chronicle the trip we took.