New York

Well, it started raining as we left Pennsylvania, and poured all the way to New Jersey!  We got to our campground in Jersey City about midday, so we went into the city to meet a friend.  The only way into the city is the PATH train, so we walked the 4 blocks in the pouring rain to the station, and into Manhattan we went.  After bad directions and poor cell service, we finally met up with our friend in midtown.  We went shopping for a while and then headed to Chinatown for dinner.  While looking for a restaurant, I was checking out the designer knockoff bags for sale in the tiny shops.  I ended up buying a "Prada" bag from a tiny room through a false door at the back of a tiny shop.  We had a great dinner at a Malasian restaurant, and then walked down the block to a bakery and had some dessert.  It was still rainy and cold, but we were having a great time.  We headed down to ground zero at the former World Trade Center site.  There is a temporary memorial there while they build the permanent one, and it was very sobering.  Then we took the PATH train back to Jersey for the night.

 

We were up early the next morning and went back into the city to the MET.  It was cold, but dry... at least until the snow flurries started.  The MET was great, but the twins didn't last long there.  It was hot and crowded inside.  We did buy a print of "The Kiss" by Klimt.  We headed over to Central Park and ate hot dogs from a street vendor and played in Central Park until the grown-ups were too cold to stand it anymore.  Then we took a cab to the Empire State Building, only to find out there was construction and only a few elevators were working.  We waited -forever- and then took an elevator up to the 80th floor, and then took the stairs up to the 86th floor and the Observation Deck.  The view was incredible, but the wind and the cold was a bit much for us lightweights.  We had dinner at a Chipotle nearby, and a local girl from Brooklyn told us it wasn't that popular in NYC.  What????  We did some more shopping on the way to the train back to Jersey.  We were having a great time, but Kristian was already started to talk about his, um, un-preference for the Big Apple.  The hospitality of the south definitely resonated more with him.

 

On Friday we headed back to Manhattan for one more day.  We started in Greenwich Village and checked out lots of little shops and boutiques.  We had lunch at John's Pizza... famous for its famous clientele.  Then we headed down to Wall street, and made our way to Battery Park.  We had intended to take the Staten Island Ferry and check out the view of the Statue of Liberty, but we ended up springing for the Liberty Island Ferry and stopped at Ellis Island to look through the museum there.  We headed back uo to the Village, hoping for some Thai food, but couldn't find a restaurant we had seen earlier.  Some friendly folks told us about a restaurant up in midtown, so we hopped back on the subway to Times Square and found a great Thai place a few blocks over.  Our dinner conversation was pretty interesting, since I was saying I could definitely live in Manhattan, and Kristian said he'd rather eat a box of nails before he would live there.  Ok then.

 

Overall, most of the time, we were freezing cold, but we had a great time anyway!

 

Next up... wearing my new Yankees cap in Boston....

 

**** added later

 

I forgot to explain the picture of the guy on the ferry... Aislinn dropped her mitten over the side of the ferry before it left the dock at Ellis Island.  She was very upset about it, as she could still see it laying on the ledge on the side of the ferry, near the water.  Dad asked a ferry guy if it could be retrieved, and he said it could.  Hanging on to the ropes on the side of the ferry, he inched out from the stern along the ledge and retrieved her mitten.  He wanted to return it himself, and so I snapped a picture.  Aislinn was so grateful, she kept track of her mittens for a couple of hours and promptly lost it again.  Oh well.