New York City: Day 2, Part 1

On Day 2 of our NYC experience, we took a city tour.  There are several companies that offer these, we chose On Board Tours.  It was awesome.  We got to see so much of the city!  Here we are on the bus ready to see the sights. 

Our first stop was Central Park, where we visited "Strawberry Fields," the area dedicated to the memory of John Lennon, who had been killed nearby.  At most of the stops, we all (about 25 of us all together) got off the bus with our tour guide and walked to the various places of interest.

Central Park is such a beautiful place.  It's nice that there is this oasis of grass and trees inside the huge maze of concrete, steel, and blacktop that makes up New York City.

 It's a great place for some peaceful reading,

Or for a scenic pedicab ride,

or a romantic horse and carriage ride.

This man sleeping along the sidewalk was pretty hard for me to see.  I knew I would encounter homelessness, and poverty, but when it is in such close proximity to the wealth just across the street, it is quite hard to stomach.

Yoko Ono lives in this building (just across the street from the Lennon memorial).  The tour guide told us how much an apartment in this building would sell for, and I can't remember exactly, but I know it was several million.

 I loved to stop whenever we encountered street performers.  I'm always fascinated by them.

The architecture of the old buildings and churches was amazing! 

 We visited Rockefeller Plaza.

I'd love to see the view from the top of the Rockefeller!

 They were in the process of putting up the famed Christmas tree.  It was several stories tall and there was special scaffolding built around the front of the building to allow workers to decorate the tree.

I love this shot of Harold with our tour guide (in the red cap) in front of the NBC studio! 

The Flatiron building. 

 The Empire State Building!

 The Occupy Wall Street protesters were in NYC during the time we were there.

 Here are a few of the signs we spotted.

 We actually passed Zuccotti Park the day after it had been cleared out.  There were so many police men, but no more protesters.

We also passed through China Town, which was pretty neat.  I guess it never occurred to me that China Town is actually mostly inhabited by people who are Chinese.  (I know, big duh, right?) But it really was just like stepping into a little town in China. 

After buzzing through China Town, we headed down to the South Sea Port for the boat ride portion of our tour.  I'll write about that next time.

New York City: Day 1...

A couple months before we knew we would be going to NYC, Harold had the idea to check into how we could get in to see the taping of the Late Show with David Letterman.  He got online, made a couple of phone calls, and left the appropriate messages with the folks who get you in, and then we were to wait to hear back from them. 

It got to be the week before we were leaving and we still hadn't heard anything, so we decided that it just wasn't meant to be.  No biggie, we knew there would be plenty to do in NYC, so we weren't worried.  But about three days before we were to leave, we got the phone call saying we had seats and giving us directions.

Basically, the directions were, be there by 1:00, wait in line forever, go through security, wait in another line, go spend an hour or two doing something else while you wait, then come back and stand in another line, do security again, then hurry into your seat (ours was in the balcony behind the sound booth, so it was hard to see), then enjoy the show.  No pictures allowed.  Boo.  Seeing the Late Show was fun, but it was disappointing to have to spend the WHOLE day in order to get to see it.  We were there the night that Dave interviewed Regis Philbin.  It was the night before Regis was to retire, so it was kind of a "big" night, so that was nice.

One of the things we did while we were waiting was scope out "Rupert's Hello Deli" which is featured occasionally on the Late Show.  It's just around the corner from the Ed Sullivan Theater.  We could see Rupert through the window.

It rained off and on all day, which made us thankful for our umbrellas while we were waiting in line outside the theater (all 50 hours!!!).

After the Late Show was over, we walked to Times Square, bought something to drink at Starbucks, and spent some time enjoying the atmosphere.  I could sit right there and just absorb all the sights and sounds for days.

There are so many things that we got to see in person that we had seen on TV a million times, but to see them live was fun.  It was neat to be able to put the New Year's Eve ball dropping that I'd seen forever on TV into perspective.

I think that might be an "Occupy" sign on the back of that bike.  We were in NYC during the time the 99%-ers were there.  In fact, on one of the days, there was a huge ordeal with the protesters clogging up the subway traffic and the news was broadcasting lots of warnings about delays and the possibility of things turning ugly if things got out of hand.

Fortunately, we didn't run into any trouble.  In fact, overall, NYC was much cleaner and friendlier than I had anticipated!  Of course, we were in the "tourist-y" areas for the most part, but still, I expected it to be much grittier.  I'm not sure why I thought that, but I was pleasantly surprised!

It was so much fun for just the two of us to spend time together.  We LOVE LOVE LOVE our kids, but we also LOVE LOVE LOVE each other, and this mini-vacation for just us was a lot of fun!  Here we are enjoying the NYC night life in Times Square.



A Visit to the Cake Boss!

 Harold had to go to New Jersey for some meetings related to his work.  Since I had always wanted to go to New York City, we planned for me to meet him after his meetings were over and we would go to the city for a couple afternoons of sightseeing. 

 As we made plans for the trip, we realized how close we would be to Carlo's Bakery in Hoboken, NJ, and decided we couldn't pass up the opportunity to stop in and sample his wares.

 When we arrived, we were given a number--I had 17.  The announcements were still on 80-something, so it had to go all the way to 100 then up to 17 from 1.  (Obviously this picture was taken after folks had cleared out a bit.)  It was shoulder-to-shoulder people when we first got there.  Thankfully several folks left, and as they did, they would pass their numbers to those of us still waiting.  We finally ended up with the number 10.

 We had plenty of time to peruse the shelves, deciding how we were going to narrow down our purchase to just a few items.  I'll tell you, that was a tough job!  There were so many delicious-looking confections to choose from!

 Cupcakes, cookies, cannolis...

 Tarts, truffles, and tortes.  Not to mention all the beautifully decorated cakes. 

 At one point, Buddy's sister and nephew (or cousin?) came from upstairs to take care of some bit of business and were nice enough to say hello to all of the customers, and let us take a few pictures.

 I took this picture (below) because you can see the stairs in the back that the workers on the show are always trying to navigate without dropping the cakes. 

 After we left Carlo's, we wandered around on Washington Street for a bit.  Hoboken has a very cute downtown area.  We decided to stop at this little health food store that had a great salad and hot bar with a cute little cafe area upstairs to eat our lunch.

 Delish!

 And for dessert, of course, we had to sample our wares from Carlo's! 

 A cannoli!

 We shared it.  I'd love to describe it, but I would probably fail miserably.  I loved it, but Harold wasn't very impressed.  The shell is crispy, and the filling is devine.  I think it's actually a sweet ricotta cheese mixture of some kind with chocolate chips sprinkled throughout.  Here, take a closer look, but don't drool.

Hibachi Birthday To You....

 This is me.  I turned 40 in October.  Wow!   I'm finally "growing up."

 Harold took mom and me out for a Hibachi dinner for our birthdays.  Mom turned 70 the day after my 40th birthday! 

 This was our chef.  He was a cutie.

 I wasn't quick enough with my camera finger to catch the egg in the picture as he used his spatula to bounce it around and finally up into his hat.

 The onion volcano, complete with sound effects.

 The kids had their own chef and their own onion volcano. 

 I love John Wesley's and Jared's expressions in this picture!  The chef was popping shrimp at them to catch in their mouths.  I think Jared was waiting for his piece! 

 The ladies came out and sang us a birthday song and gave mom and me a birthday treat!  What a fun and delicious day we had.