I'm Back - NYC Day 1

We are back! We had a great time in NYC but it is great to be home. I thought I would break our trip up and blog about each day we were there. I hope I don't bore you too much.

Day 1 which was Sunday, was spent traveling. We left DFW airport at 9:45 am, had a connecting flight in Atlanta, and finally landed at LaGuardia airport at 4:00. We caught the shuttle and headed to our hotel. It was after 5:00 pm by the time we checked into our hotel. We rested for a little bit and then headed out. Our hotel was really close to Times Square so we spent the evening walking around Times Square.

We stayed at the Hilton Garden Inns in Times Square. The hotel was really nice but we weren't there very much.

Sunday night we ate at Bubba Gump Shrimp Factory in Times Square. It was Forest Gump themed. It was a neat restaurant.

Times Square

Monday we got up bright and early and bought out tickets for the double decker bus tour. If you ever go to NYC I highly recommend the bus tours. We bought passes that lasted 72 hours and you can get on and off as many times as you want. The buses go all over Manhattan and Brooklyn. Our first stop was the Empire State Building.

After the Empire State Building we headed down to SoHo, Little Italy and Chinatown.

These are Tiles for America which is a tribute to 9/11. This was in Greenwich Village on our way to SoHo.

After we got off the buss in SoHo we headed towards Little Italy and ate at Lombardi's Pizza. It was so yummy!

It was the first pizzeria in the United States.

Then we headed over to Chinatown. I didn't get any pictures of Chinatown because I was too busy trying to find a purse. It was a lot easier than I thought. We were standing on the street and this Chinese lady comes up and whispers to me "you want purse"? I said yes and we followed her several blocks into Chinatown. We met this other lady who pulled me aside and showed me pictures of the purses. I bought a big Coach purse for $50. It came with the Coach bag, the inside says Coach and it even has the Coach tag like you see in the department stores. I am sure they do some shady stuff to get these purses.

They actually had to be sneaky about it because the cops patrol that neighborhood quite often looking for them. I seriously felt like I was doing a drug deal or something, not that I know what that is like.

After I got my purse we headed downtown towards the World Trade Center site.

You really can't see much because they are doing construction to build the memorial. This was about the only picture we could get of it.

This is a picture of part of the memorial for the firefighters who lost their lives on 9/11. It was built on the side of Fire Station 10 which faced the World Trade Centers. Their department lost the most guys as they were the first responders.

This is Dustin in front of Station 10.

Next door to the fire station they have a temporary memorial center with some of the memorabilia from the WTC. It was really sad to walk through. They had pieces of the aircraft, fire fighter's helmets, and shoes that were recovered from the site. It also had pictures of the missing people who's bodies were never found. It also had a huge wall showing pictures of the towers after they came down. It is beyond imaginable what took place that day in NYC. I can't believe that this September will be 8 years. I was a senior in high school when it happened and I still remember what I was doing the moment I found out. It is something that I will never forget. I didn't get any pictures inside the memorial center because as my luck would have it, my camera battery died.

Then we headed down to the Seaport / Pier 17 area.

We decided not to go over to the Statue of Liberty because one it takes more than half a day to get over there. You have to wait in long lines and then take the ferry over. We didn't want to climb up it plus you have to buy those tickets way in advance. You could see the Statue of Liberty from the pier.

Also on the pier you could get really good shots of Brooklyn and the Brooklyn Bridge.

After this we headed back towards Time Square. We ate dinner at a place in Midtown called Burger Heaven. It was pretty good but nothing better than what you can get right here in Texas. We walked around Midtown after dinner and stopped into the Magnolia Bakery. I got a red velvet cupcake and it was so good. It was a really cute bakery on the corner.

We did a lot of walking the first day and my feet were so sore. We ended up back at the hotel room by 10:00. We were exhausted.

Day 2 is coming up tomorrow. I am slowly getting caught up on all your blogs. I sure did miss a lot while I was gone!