Back in "The City"...

I spent last Saturday through Thursday in New York City with Joe. I got in from my cruise early Saturday morning and was able to check into the Grand Hyatt early which worked out perfect. Joe's flight was delayed, so he didn't get in until 7 pm. I had the whole day to myself. I had lunch at Junior's at Grand Central station and then headed out to Best Buy to get a new camera. I stopped at H&M on the way back and shopped around for a while. I then spent 3 hours at Starbucks blogging until Joe got there. We headed to Times Square for dinner. We were in search for this Thai restaurant we had found a few years ago but go there too late. We ended up having dinner at "Roxy's". The portions there are HUGE!!! We shared a cheeseburger and had the BEST cheesecake!! It was sooo yummy!



Sunday we headed out kind of late. We had lunch at Serendipity and had the famous "frozen hot chocolate". It pretty much reminded me of a frosty at Wendy's! We then headed out to the Macy's, the Apple store and a few other shops along the way. We went to the NBC store and Joe got a sweet "Dundler Mifflin" t-shirt to support "The Office"!! We pretty much shopped all day and night which is always fun. We also went down to Soho to the "Firestore". It is a store of all FDNY stuff. Joe really wanted to go there. He got a couple of cool t-shirts and we even found some cute little shirts for Jaden and Carter. We went to the Thai restaurant for dinner and then headed back out to some shops in Times Square. There is a new store called "M&M World". It is a pretty cool store. I wasn't sure what would be in the store, but it was filled anything you could think of (shirts, balls, jewelry, place settings, toys, golf gear, cookie jars, etc) made of M&M logos and characters. This place is a gold mine!! The coolest part of the store was the giant M&M dispensers. There was every color you could think of and you could make your own bags of M&M's!!



Monday we headed back to Soho to go to the Fire Museum. After getting a bit lost, we finally found it but it was CLOSED!!! Joe was able to get in touch with one of his old bosses from Citibank who works in the building on LIC (Long Island City). I really wanted to go there because the view from the building is AMAZING!!! We were able to go to the top floor which is the 50th floor and see the view. It was a bit over cast, but still incredible. We were told that on a clear day you can see as far as 50 miles out!! The building is known as the "Green Monster" because it is the only tall building on LIC and it sticks out like a sore thumb...BIG and GREEN! It was neat to be able to see the building that most of the people I talk to on the phone work! We went to lunch with his old boss at this little restaurant called "Brooks Restaurant". Joe was soo excited because the person who runs the restaurant was on the Godfather. His name is Anthony. For those of you who have seen the Godfather, he is the oldest son of Michael(Al Pacino). There is a scene when Marlon Brando has a heart attack in the garden and the little boy, who is also named Anthony in the movie, is there when he dies. That little boy is who runs the restaurant. Joe was pretty excited to meet him and get a picture with him!! After lunch we headed to a couple of other Citibank spots so that I could see those too. We had dinner at Junior's and walked around Grand Central Station.



I decided that Joe and I should both pick a day to surprise each other, since one of the reasons we went was to celebrate our birthday's. My day was Tuesday. I started the day off with a tour of Yankee stadium. I thought it would be pretty neat since it was the last year for the stadium. It was a really cool tour. We got to go on the field, the dugout and saw Monument Park where they have all the plaques of the player's whose numbers are retired. We also go to go to the clubhouse (locker room) but weren't allowed to take any pictures in that part. Then we got to go sit up where all the press people sit. I got to sit in the seat where the "official scorer" sits and calls out the scores! Afterwards we walked around to see the new stadium that is being built right next door. It was pretty cool!



We had enough time before our dinner reservations to go back to the Fire museum. It was really neat and there was a lot of things from 9/11. It was really sad seeing a memorial that was made with all the pictures of the firefighter that died on 9/11. There were 343 that died. We had a quick piece of pizza for lunch at "Joe's Pizza". Of course we had to eat there because of the name and come to find out that it is the same pizza place in the movie Spiderman! (Where Tobey McGuire worked)



For dinner we went and ate at Tao and then headed out to see "Stomp". The show was great and really funny!! Afterwards, I wanted a little treat. We stumbled upon a Pinkberry and thought I should probably give it a try since everyone always talks about it. I got an original with strawberries and kiwi. All I can say is HOOKED!! It is the BEST!!




Wednesday, Joe had lined up a bike tour through Central Park. It was 70 degrees out and beautiful which made it a perfect day for a bike ride. It was a lot of fun and our tour guides gave us a lot of history about the park. They even took us to the building where John Lenon was shot. It was a great way to see the park, but there was still soo much more to see that will have to be for another time. I was laughing soo hard because 3 people fell off their bikes and it reminded me of the "crash club" in Bermuda!!!


This is the Dakota Building, where John Lenon was shot. Yoko Ono owns the entire top floors of the building (from the black iron fence up) all the way around!


We passed by a Pinkberry after the bike ride, so we HAD to stop and get a treat!! After the bike tour me met up with one of Joe's good friend, Samson, in Little Italy for lunch. He took us to the second oldest pizza place in New York, Lombardi's. It opened in 1905!! It was sooo good!! We then headed out the Chinatown to go see his wife who also works at Citibank. Chinatown was soo neat. I had never been there before. We stopped at this little bakery that had the yummiest pastries!!! They were all just $1!! We saw some really interesting things in Chinatown. There was this one little store that had FROGS for sale??? There were all these ladies checking them out to find the right one to buy to bring home to cook!!?? It was soo sad, I felt bad for those poor little frogs!!



We then headed out the a Mets baseball game. We figured that since last time we went to a Yankees game, that we should go to a Mets game. This is also the last year the Mets will be playing at Shae Stadium. There new stadium is also being built right next door and will be called "Citi Field". (Citibank paid $20 million for the new stadium...We joke that that is the reason Joe and soo many people were laid off!! They paid all that money and couldn't afford to keep the employees!!) It rained during part of the game and it was FREEZING!!! Luckliy we had bought some sweatshirts for the game, so we were kind of prepared for the cold. We only lasted 4innings and then decided to leave. We went back to "Roxy's" in Times Square for some more of the yummy cheesecake!


Thursday was a beautiful day....75 degrees and HOT!! Of course, the day we left!! We went back to Times Square to get in some last minute shopping done and had a final lunch at...Roxy's!! We couldn't get enough of the great food and desert there!! We took a airport shuttle right next to our hotel and Grand Central to the airport which worked out perfectly. We were lucky that our flight on American wasn't canceled!!! We got right on our flight with no delays!!



Since we had been in NY a couple of years ago and did all the "tourist" things then, it was nice to just take it easy and do the things we wanted to do and not feel so rushed. You never have enough time to see everything in the City, but we did pretty much everything we wanted to do. I am glad to be home. I feel like I have been gone FOREVER!!!! I am still not used to the time difference. Being 4 hours ahead while in Bermuda for a week and then 3 hours ahead while in New York another week makes it hard to get used to California time. Good thing I have 3 days to rest until I go back to work and go back to a normal life!!