New York, New York

I know it’s about a week past our trip, but I’m finally ready to write about the first part of our wonderful family vacation:  New York City.

Here we all are on the New York Subway.  At first when Sam whipped out the camera I thought, “Oh great, now we just SCREAM tourists!”  But, I think the itty bitty stroller and the fact that we were all bundled up in 20 degree weather pointed out our tourist-ness more so. 

It was fun getting the hang of the subway system in New York.  I love that public transportation is so easy, and after awhile the pee smell is hardly noticeable.   It wasn’t ever too crowded, and I loved seeing high school students on the subway obviously on their way somewhere from school.  One thing I really hate about So. Cal. is the lack of decent public transportation.  In order to get anywhere in the suburbs I have to drive or spend hours on the bus.  Ugh!

When we got off of the subway we found ourselves in Central Park by the Museum of Natural History.

View Full Album

Nathaniel (my amazing little nerd) didn’t want to hang out in the park, he wanted to go to the museum.  Luckily, it was 30 minutes to close so we didn’t have to pay for entrance into the museum.  We had recently watched “Night at the Museum” with Nathaniel and so he really wanted to see “Dum-Dum” (the Easter Island Head).  We ran through the museum to get to it, and managed to see it.  We wished we could have spent more time there because it was AMAZING!

From there we went to FAO Schwartz, 5th Avenue, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Rockefeller Plaza, and Time’s Square.  We finally headed back to Sue Anne’s at 11:30 that night.

View Full Album

The next morning we all slept until about 10:30 (what?  We were still on California time!) and after a yummy brunch we headed for the Financial District where we saw Ground Zero, St. Paul’s church (where the rescue workers rested during September 11th), Wall Street (we waved to our money), and Battery Park where we saw the Statue of Liberty.  We also headed down to Greenwich Village for coffee and to NoHo to Katz’ Deli for some yummy pastrami sandwiches (the deli is from When Harry Met Sally).  Then we headed back to Boston.

Two favorite stories from our trip that day.  We were on Wall Street and there was a statue of George Washington at the building where he had been inaugurated as president.  Nathaniel and I climbed up on the statue and waited our turn while a group of Chinese men got their pictures taken (as well they should have, the center flag on the NYSE is the Chinese flag).  The men waved Nathaniel and I over so I thought they were done getting their picture taken.  Then, they all lined up with me and had me in their group photo!  Somewhere in China there is a picture of Nathaniel and I floating around.

My second favorite story is from the coffee shop.  Nathaniel had to go to the bathroom but there wasn’t one there.  So, Sam asked if he could use the private one.  At first they weren’t going to let him, but then Nathaniel said, “I’m going to pee in my pants!”  He was quickly ushered back to the bathroom.

Ground Zero was impressive.  They are rebuilding (finally) so we couldn’t see the site where the towers stood, but we went to St. Paul’s and looked around and then went to the memorial building.  It was all really powerful and still very sad.  Nathaniel was pretty somber himself and was looking at a children’s book there.  They showed a picture of planed flying by the towers and then a picture of an explosion.  He shut the book and put it away.  I couldn’t believe that they would have that in a children’s book!

View Full Album

All in all it was a very busy, but awesome day in NYC.  Our kids are fabulous travelers.  I am so glad that we are able to travel as a family!

 

Sorry for the super long entry, in a few days we’ll blog about Boston!