It was a New York Weekend

This post was a week in the making...sorry it took so long and sorry for the ten thousand photos.  All this marathon training is wiping me out.  I am so exhausted by the time I get home that all I can do is shove food in my mouth, shower, and climb into bed.  But, albeit a big bit late, here's my NYC story!

Last week Ivan and I headed to NYC!!  Yup, excitement was in the air.  Well, I was excited, he was a bit nervous.  Remember, he's a cows and country person - and NYC is the opposite of this.  We saw no cows and no country.

But we saw many other things!  It was a completely exhausting weekend.  NYC is quite large and it is very difficult to do everything in two days.  We tried though.

To start things off, Ivan had to work from 6:30am until 9:30am and I had a six mile run starting at 7:30am.  So a busy morning we had.  I ran, came home and shoveled food into my mouth, and took a shower.  Then we high-tailed it outta there and Bolt-bused it from Baltimore to NYC.  Bolt Bus is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!  It cost us only $100 roundtrip for both of us.  If we had been less lazy and bought our tickets a week earlier it would have been $60 for both of us.  What a deal!  And to make it even sweeter, the bus was FAST and comfy.  The only bad thing were the loud passengers that insisted on talking really loud, chatting on their cell phones, and listening to their iPhones without headsets.  But for $100 I can't complain.

In exactly 3.5 hours we were in the big city.  And there to meet us was Melanie and her boyfriend Ian.  Wow was I glad to see here - the last time I saw here was at my wedding, over a year ago!



She's the cutie-pie peanut in the purple-ish dress
all the way on the left.

She went to Columbia University and is a NYC expert.  We were in good hands.  Our first stop was Discovery Times Square to see the Pompeii exhibit (actually our first stop was Chipotle, but that's not NYC-exciting, so I'm skipping that).  I was excited about the exhibit because I won the tickets on Novelista Barista's site.  It was the first time I've ever won anything and I was pretty excited.  Next door to the Pompeii exhibit was a Harry Potter exhibit but due to very tight financial circumstance, we didn't go.  Oh, and maybe because my husband HATES Harry Potter.

Pompeii was cool, but not as cool as the real Pompeii.  They did a great job though and my friends loved it too.  Ivan got a kick out of naked statues.  He's immature like that and I don't think he'd ever seen a statue before.  I don't remember any statues in Honduras and definitely not any naked ones - maybe just religious ones.  I don't have any pictures because photos were not allowed.  Touching wasn't allowed either but some punk 10 year old kid was touching everything and I wanted to slap him.  I held back though.  But seriously, don't let your kid run around Pompeii exhibits and touch everything. 

From there we headed for a short walk in Central Park on our way to Rockefeller Center.



This photo only took like 100 takes because it kept coming out dark.
The final product is nice though!

Top of the Rock (Rockefeller Center) was awesome.  We chose to do that instead of the Empire State Building because you can buy tickets in advance.  And there is much less of a line because you have a set time.  Plus, it's almost as tall as the Empire State Building and so you can see everything.  It was a good choice.  We took like 1000 photos.

 

Here we are with Central Park in the background -
and yes, my hair got more outta control as the day went on.



Hubsters looking too cool for his shoes.  His hair never gets messed up.

Aww so pretty - Central Park is just beautiful from up here.



Empire State Building -
I can't take a straight picture to save my life!



And this is what Melanie and I look like with loads of hair in our face.
And I'm just gonna say that the Empire State Building is crooked -
like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, ok.

Although this doesn't sound like much, we were EXHAUSTED by the time we finished the Rock so we headed home.  Melanie lives about a 45 minute train ride from NYC so we didn't get home until late.  We ordered yummy Thai food, filled our bellies, and went to bed.

The next day we had two goals: to see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.  That was all.  And it's a good thing because it took us the ENTIRE day to see those boogers.  And we didn't even get a chance to get off the boat.  We had a bit of a late start in the morning because we were making delicious choco-chip pancakes so by the time we arrived in Battery Park the line to buy tickets was 30 minutes and the line to get on the ferry was 2 hours.  Yup, two full hours.  Ivan REALLY wanted to see the Statue of Liberty though and he was ok with waiting.  So we did.  I've never stood in line so long in my entire life.  Luckily Melanie is good company so I hardly noticed how long it took.

Only bad part was I had to use the loo.  And the public loos in NYC are crap compared to the public loos in DC.  I once used the loo at 10pm near the WWII monument in DC and it was gorgeous.  As clean as my house bathroom.  Umm, not so in NYC.  This bathroom was despicable, and I've seen some sketchy bathrooms (think latrines, Honduras).  This was worse.  First, all the bathrooms were broken except two, the broken ones had erupted all over the floor, there was no toilet paper, the stalls didn't close all the way, the sinks were broken, and it smelled like everyone in the entire city had taken a dump there.  After waiting in misery for 30 minutes, I gave up.  I actually held my pee all the way back to Baltimore and my own loo.  Now that is talent.

We finally made it on the ferry to the Statue of Liberty, but it had taken so long that we didn't have time to get off the boat.  We just stayed on it and went to Ellis Island.  We couldn't get off the boat there either, so we stayed on it and headed back to Battery Park.  I was totally fine with this though - the lines to get back on the ferry were pretty crazy too.



Umm, I'll stay on the boat and guard my super sweet boat perch, thanks.

 Because of my super sweet boat perch I got some excellent photos of the pretty lady.

 

Just in case you wanted a close-up of my face and a tiny Statue of Liberty
in the background.



So beautiful.  She always brings tears to my eyes.



Ellis Island - I wonder if my family went through these doors?


After getting off the ferry we bolted for the Bolt Bus...and I mean bolted.  We got there five minutes before it arrived and had just enough time to grab some grub.  Ivan got gross looking Chinese food (he seems to have survived though) and I got delicious NY pizza.  Then we quickly gave hugs to Melanie and hopped on the bus.  And that's it' folks - our NYC adventure came to an end. 

And Ivan's summation of the experience:

"NYC has too many people and a lot of crazy people [he thought the street performers were the strangest thing he had ever see].  I had a lot of fun, but I don't think I need to go back.  I'd prefer to go to Vermont."

Yup - Vermont is his true love.  It was such a fun trip though and it was even more fun to see Melanie and to get away for a short bit of time.



Love you honey!
And my hair is NOT that blond - not sure why it looks that way!