Our Trip

We just got home, last night, from our trip to New York. It was the most exciting two days ever. Our very first NYC experience was getting yelled at by a toll booth operator on a bridge. It was great. Anyway, we stayed out on Long Island and Sunday night we decided to check out Jones Beach since it was a little too late to go into the city. It's been about 5 years since I've seen the Atlantic Ocean and it was just as gorgeous as ever. Jones Beach was pretty cool too. They have a really great board walk and several historical buildings so there's plenty to see and do there.

Then, Monday, we drove into the city. Just getting there was thrilling. We took the Queens/Midtown tunnel into the city. When you first get to the tunnel, you're still a little outside looking at the skyline and stuff. When you emerge out of the tunnel, you're THERE. Right in the midst of midtown Manhattan. It was so awesome! We wanted to walk around so we found a parking garage at freaking $23/hour!! if you can believe that and walked around for a bit. We were very pressed for time so we didn't get to see a whole lot but it didn't matter. Just being there was enough. Walking in the midst of humanity on the streets of New York was freaking exhilarating. We had the kids with us, of course, and they were just as awestruck. S wasn't intimidated at all and was, in fact, pulling me around by the hand at times. We got yelled at again by this lady trying to cross the street. I yelled right back waving my arms and all. I could totally live in New York.

I'm not going to run down a list of the things that we saw but I will mention the very first landmark we walked by, The Empire State Building. When you're right next to it on the street, it's so tall that you can't even see the tower on top. Oh, and you get vertigo when you look up, lol. We went into 4 out of the 5 boroughs, Harlem being the only one we didn't go to. We accidentally ended up in Brooklyn but besides the $4.50 toll to get there it turned out to be pretty cool since we got to see the Brooklyn Bridge up close and personal.

Something that I found interesting about the city but isn't something you always hear about is how traffic laws may as well not exist. Nobody pays attention to them at all. It's illegal to turn right on red and I saw a lady almost get hit by a car doing that exact thing. There's also a $350 fine for honking but that doesn't stop a single soul from doing it, lol. Oh, and pedestrians pay absolutely no attention to the crossing signals which in turn provokes people into blowing their horns, heheh. To pull out a Friends nerd moment, when that lady almost got hit I was reminded of the episode where Joanna dies, lmao. Anywho...

It was such a high being there. I didn't come down the whole time we were there. It was great and an experience that I will never forget. We plan on stopping through again on our way to North Carolina when we'll have more time to see more stuff.

Lastly, we bought a GPS gadget for the sole purpose of this trip and it paid for itself in those two days. We drove there and back and around the city without a map and besides the little side trip into Brooklyn, which wasn't the unit's fault, it functioned perfectly and we got around like pros. Totally and completely worth the money and a lot of fun besides. As C would say, we're gadget whores, lmao.

Ok. So the pictures below...The first one is the very first glimpse of the city that we got driving out to Long Island. The second one is Jones Beach. The third one is the Flat Iron building. How cool, right? And the last one is, of course, the Empire State Building.