East Coast Anniversary Trip, New York City (post 2)

New York City in one word, AMAZING!

Everything about this stop was just that. Our room in Brooklyn had an amazing view of Manhattan, the bus tour was amazing, the weather was amazing. The food? You guessed it, AMAZING!

We arrived in Brooklyn late afternoon, checked into our hotel, and walked around Brooklyn. We ate dinner at a little hole in the wall place, retired to our room early to enjoy the view and rest up for our big day.

 

{the views from our 9th floor room. This was the nicest Best Western we've been in, and thanks to Tony's reward points, cost us less than $100/day, parking included!)

 Day two was jammed packed with a ferry tour and 3 bus tours. {Thanks to my friend, Debbie, for the suggestion} We got a screaming deal at less than $60 each. This included the ferry tour, 5 bus tours, and museum passes. We did not have time to do all that, but sure got our moneys worth anyway. 

After taking the subway {which was directly in front of our hotel!} in to Times Square, 

we picked up our passes and headed off for our ferry tour.

What a beautiful day already!

After the ferry, we took our first bus tour, the down town route. This took us passed many land marks {Empire State Building, Chrysler Building, Times Square, So-Ho, Macy's, new World trade Center Building, 9/11 memorial, Wall Street, Little Italy, Chinatown, and more that I am sure I am forgetting!}

bus tour selfie!

Iconic NYC yellow cabs, everywhere!

We hopped of our tour to eat at a traditional Jewish Deli, Katz {thanks again, Debbie!}

The best hot pastrami I have ever had!

Back in Times Square we switched to our Uptown tour {including Central Park, Museums, Churches, Harlem, Grant's tomb, and more}

Tony and I were constantly amazed by the architecture!

 

Where John Lennon was shot, so sad!

The Apollo in Harlem.

It was back to Times Square to pick up our night tour. This took us passed many of the same landmarks, then over the bridge into Brooklyn to see the Manhattan skyline at night.

 Empire State Building lit up for Memorial Day.

It was such a jammed packed day! The bus tour guides were so good, funny, informative, etc. There was not one thing I did not love about our day.

The next day we took the subway back in to walk around Little Italy, Chinatown, and So-Ho. We braved the city on our own, found fabulous traditional NY style pizza for lunch, and got our kiddos some swag in Chinatown.

 Gorgeous Little Italy

 Souvenir shopping in Chinatown

Window shopping in So-ho. Semi-disappointing as it was less artsy and more strip mall-y than I hoped.

And that's how to do NYC in a day and a half. This just makes me want to go back for at least a week {girl's trip anyone?}. Next time I want to walk through central park, visit museums, and catch a show. Who's down?

East Coast Anniversary Trip, post 1

Boy it's been a long time since I've blogged! I had so much to share with our busiest Softball season ever (Celeste pitched in the state tourney and got the "rookie of the year award" for her first season on Varsity. Sophie is following in sissy's footsteps and pitched a game as well). With 100s of pictures to go through, that post never happened...

And as many of you know, Tony's work has kept him out of town more this year than he has been home! It's been hard at times, but we are thankful for the work.

And thankful to take advantage of the travel opportunities when we can! Tony had been in Erie, PA for over a month when I flew out to take a whirl wind East Coast tour with him.

After cruising around the great lake, Lake Erie, we started out heading to Niagara Falls in NY.

(Photos from my phone, where was my camera?)

 It was fun, and I'm glad we did it, but I guess our expectations were high and we were sort of underwhelmed.

   (road trip selfie, aren't we cute?)

Then it was on to Rochester, NY to see my old Nebraska friend, Liz. Did we get any photos? No we did not...loosers.

Our next destination was Boston, which we reached the next afternoon.

 It was over cast, rainy-ish and gloomy, and we really did not know what to do there. We drove around and enjoyed how beautiful the city was. We did drive by Harvard and the "Cheers" bar, and also where the marathon and bombing were. 

We figured when in Boston, seafood was in order and went to the oldest, single family owned seafood restaurant, called "No Name". Tony enjoyed his seafood platter of lobster tail, scallops, and shrimp and I had broiled scrod (which sounds gross but was sooo good!).

The following morning we headed out toward New York, with no clear path in mind. Michael collects shot glasses from places, and we wanted to get as many states as possible, so our route took us through Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Delaware.

 Any one remember "Mystic Pizza" with Julia Roberts? We drove through the cute town that was originally a whale boat manufactoring town.

 And Rhode Island where we saw the capitol, did a little shopping, and found out the do not have sales tax, score!

Next up was New York City, but that needs a post of it's own. Stay tuned....