Today is our last full day here in New York. We had one more attraction to use and decided to use it on a 2.5 hour boat cruise in the Hudson River and the Harlem River.
We were able to see the beautiful New York buildings, the Statue of Liberty and the Brooklyn Bridge one last time.
Estimated miles walked 6.5miles
Today we left the hotel at 1pm - a very late start. It's been really hard for us to do anything other than lounge around in the hotel, we've seen all what we came to see, do so anything going forward is a bonus. It takes two or more hours to get ready with several breaks or naps and watch TV. I feel bad for not being able to walk much. Larry has been rubbing my knees, shins and ankles (what a good hubby) and I have been soaking in warm water to get some relief. Thankfully I have tons of ibuprofen on hand and have been ingesting some to reduce the swelling. We have been watching a lot of re-runs and staying up till 11pm (side note, the same time as on pacific time) watching the weather channel! Wow. It was very interesting, for us to stay up that late.
It's just after 230pm and we're on our way back to the hotel, what we call home away from home. The pain has been tolerable the last two days, but today they are acting up.
Since it's still really early, we decided to do our laundry today and start packing tonight, (side note), Larry said he's surprised to hear me say that. Usually I would procrastinate to our last few hours. It's funny but I see that the military has installed a lot of good qualities in him. We still have one more attraction voucher that we need to use before we leave. If we do our laundry today we'll be able to cruise the good ol' Hudson River and bay tomorrow ending with actual shopping tomorrow. I'll be able to take my pain killers tomorrow so I'll be rolling again, we'll at least for the first 8 hours.
Estimated miles walked ~2.5miles
Authors: Noelle & Larry
We've done so much and there was still so much to do. We only stayed in the city but next time when we come, we'll need to see the country side.
When we first got here, we instantly fell in love with New York so much so we wanted to live here. Now that we've been here for 2 weeks, we both thought this isn't really a place for us.
We're both glad to be on our way home, back to our family and our pets who we love and miss so much.
We totalled about 78 miles walked during our two week stay. Wow, that should rack up major calories right? Well, of course it depends on how much you weigh and how fast you're going, but I found via the Internet that it was only about 7500 to 7800 calories which is about 2 lbs. Grrrr!
Haha...Larry is dacing while waiting for Virgin America to open and he's happy because he's "going back to cali, cali, cali, he's back to cali..."
Thanks Uber and lyft!
Since I was saving the remaining pain killers, we couldn't walk that much today. Larry was so sweet, he decided to give me an unlimited budget to window shop.
We decided to shop at Columbus Circle. Not too much long after leaving our hotel, we made our way back to rest.
For dinner, we at at Tom's Restaurant, known for delicious food, featured on Seinfeld and was wrote about in Suzanne Vega's song, Tom's Diner (a personal favorite).
Estimated miles walked 3.5miles
Today is another slow day for us. In fact it was so slow today, we had breakfast delivered to our room. We ddint leave the room until about 1130am. We then sat in the Starbucks next door to us for about an hour to write musings to our family. We then started our way to the post office but got lost on our way. After our business at the post office, we sat in their chairs for about 20 minutes before making our way back to Starbucks for a "delivery." Finally, by 145pm, we were on the subway to start our day.
As of yesterday, we've seen everything that we came to see in Gotham City and the rest of the time here is now considered bonus time.
Since we came during the magical time for NY, we get to see a life size gingerbread house display in Madison Square Park (located at the Flat Iron Plaza). But wait, there's a foo-foo coffee place we must go to.
Larry talked about buying some New York coffee beans. We searched on Google and found a number of local growers. Thankfully the shops that sold their products were all close by. We found our way to a neighborhood and thought there couldn't be a store here. it appeared we were in a residential area. as we continued to walk down the street, sure enough, Google Maps was right, we found it.
We walked into a very hipster coffee house where people were lanky, had beards and thick brimmed glasses. Larry started to talk to the workers, asking many questions about the coffee. We decided on a bag of beans, bought two cups of coffee and a chocolate expresso cookie. Yes, it was yum!
When we came above ground from the subway, we saw a Samsung trailer. We stopped by, received a $10 gift certificate to New York & Company and sampled their virtual reality glasses. We've never used them before so we didn't know what to expect. We were given a roller coaster ride to watch. It felt like we were on the ride actually experiencing the ride. We were definitely sold. Thankfully they didn't have any at that time for us to snatch up. But what do you know, on Groupon they are selling them for $19.99 without speakers and $32.99 with speakers, selling at $91% off.
SIDE NOTE: I check out Groupon and several other discount sites before buying tickets (airfare, shows, etc), electronics, pet supplies, vacation packages and basically anything I hope to get a discount on. In fact there were several attractions we did in NY via Groupon. Groupon, Travelocity, and TravelZoo are my three favorites.
We finally found the gingerbread house. The only thing wrong with it was that it wasn't completely built yet. Oh well, maybe in a day or two it will be finished and then we can walk in a winter wonderland.
We were hungry so we decided to eat Chinese food. We found X'ian Famous Food. As we were heading towards the restaurant it was a little sketchy. Nothing really touristy about it. When we finally arrived and found the restaurant nicely decorated on the outside. The inside was plain, was as wide as two hall ways and had stool seating that faced the white walls.
Now about the food. They claimed they wanted to be authentic and to be authentic they didn't hold back any of the flavor or spices found in a Chinese dish. As we looked over the menu, we noticed the typical dish wasn't found - no fried rice, orange chicken, nothing like that. Larry tried the shredded beef burger that was only bun and meat. The bun was some type of hand made bun. I had the spicy beef noodles where the noodles were long and varried in thickness, about 2-3 inches wide. The food was so tasty. We've never eaten anything like this before.
After dinner, I asked Larry if we can go to a speakeasy. I've always wanted to see what it was like during the prohibition era. We found a place near X'ian. To enter the speakeasy, we entered another business, Cliffs Hotdogs, and searched for an old phone booth. We had to pick up the receiver and ring once. The left side wall of the phone booth opened and a man dressed in old fashioned suit greeted us. He asked us what he could do for us. I told him I wanted to come in and he said ok and asked me to hold on. He closed the phone booth door and came back several minutes later to let us in. Just the entrance was awesome enough. Now that we've made it in, we were kinda obligated to buy a drink. We just had Shirly Temples and ice water and was out in 15 minutes. The room itself probably held about 30 people, very dark and way cool.
Estimated miles walked ~6miles
Today was probably the most scariest day for the both of us - we realized we were almost out of pain killers. Ibuprofen and pain killers have been getting me though every day. Larry needed a few for his back to help him get through initially but thankfully his pain subsided.
Around 9am, we decided to leave for breakfast, but before we left, we prayed.
Our first stop was to visit the charging bull. As we approached the bull, we saw many people waiting all around the bull, touching the bull, climbing the bull and taking pictures with the bull from both ends! We finally were able to snap a quick picture and quickly left.
After the bull, we took the subway to the Brooklyn Bridge. Larry wanted to simply walk across the bridge, but I knew I couldn't make it. There were bike rentals near by, so we decided to bike. The views from the bridge was stunning. These were probably my favorite views of the city.
After our ride, we took the subway to the Supreme Court of New York which was featured in SVU. Unfortunately it was closed, otherwise we would check out the inside.
By this time my legs were killing me and it was only about 1130am.
When we were talking to Giovanni, he gave us a coupon code for 10 free rides from lyft ($5 or less). Since we had them already credited to us we decided to use two of those rides. Our first ride was to Ferraras, then our second ride was to the subway to head home.
By the time we got home, I knocked out while Larry caught up on some SVU re-runs.
Later on we ordered delivery from Cheesy Pizza.
Blessing 13: How wonderful it was to have someone deliver food to us. Extra bonus for us was those free lyft rides...
We went to bed well fed and happy.
Estimated miles walked ~1.5miles
Laundry and biking central park make a good combination!
Yes, today was another scheduled laundry day. We'll have one more scheduled laundry day before the end of our trip.
While we waited for the clothes to be washed, we went to the McDonald's next door.
Blessing #12: It's awesome how things work out. We have the laundromat, the subway and McDonald's all right next to us.
While we waited for our food, there was a man that came in. He had some sort of stand and a case about 2.5 feet wide and about 4 feet long. The case may have been for some type of tool or instrument. The man smelled horribly. He was hunched over and he paced around his table while he was muttering something. He reached into his pocket, took out a few dollars and change, muttered something and looked at his money. He started to paced again while he looked at his change. He stopped, muttered some more and began pacing again. I was waiting for my food as I watched the man. He left and our food was ready. I went outside with my sandwich looking for him but he was out of sight. I went back in and prayed for our food and that man. I felt so bad for him, I just prayed he was able to find some food since it looked like he was hungry.
When we finished we returned to our clothes, dried them and were off to our next adventure, Central Park.
We picked up our bikes and rode to the park. We were only able to ride on the designated paths which went around the park. It was a lot of fun riding through the park. There were many people, kids, dogs, carriages, joggers, bikers and pedicabs. I can't imagine how much more packed it would be when it's summer.
We had the bikes all day so we decided go out of the park and for lunch. We came across The Bread Factory & Cafe. We bought lunch and something sweet and rested there for several hours before moving on.
We went back to the park to see the "Friends" fountain that is featured in the beginning credits of the citcom. It was just a bummer to know it really wasn't the fountain but a replica which I think is slightly different than the one shown in the credits. The real one is in London. Well, I guess you know where we'll go next!
After the fountain, we went to the central park carousel which is featured in SVU!! Now that was pretty cool. The bridge underpass that was next to the carousel was also featured in SVU. That's where Stabler and Benson would find their bodies.
After the park we went to the World One Observatory. It was near closing time when we arrived so there wasn't much waiting around for us. The introductory films shown to us were well done. In the elevator, the walls displayed what New York looked like in the 1600s all the way through today. The display showed NY was once grasslands with rivers, then people settling, ending with homes and buildings built. When we we got to the 102 floor, they showed us another intro. This intro featured all the bustlings of NY. At the end of the film, the panels retracted and you were able to see all of NY! WOW! We then walked down to floor 101 where they talked to us some more. We finally made our way to floor 100 where we had 360 degree views of NY and NJ. Of course it was amazing and beautiful to see.
After we had our fill, we made our way home. On the subway ride home, Larry started talking to Rachel, a lady who was trying to get to Atlanta. Larry told asked her, "Yo, how you do'n? I'm a New Yoooker!" Rachel laughed and said, "No you're not." That started a conversation between us as we rode home. Another girl came on board and he tried the same lines on her. She just thanked him for letting her know he was from New York.
Soon enough, it was our turn to get exit.
NOTE: We found the Soup Nazi Restaurant (Soup Man) which was made famous by being featured in Seinfeld. We also spotted some of New York's silly cop cars!
Estimated miles walked ~6miles.
We've been waking up very late every day, 8 to 9am. We wanted to sleep in today, but not like we have been. Rather than waking up at our normal time, 2am, we slept in til 4am, in order to get ready and be out the door by 7am.
We arrived at our first destination, the Top of the Rock at the Rockefeller Center. There was a large red rug that was in front of the main door. The front guard said today was the first day it was there so we had to do our red carpet walk into the building. The guard laughed and said, "Lady, you might be rich but your not famous." Haha...it was so funny!!
The entrance had high vaulted white ceilings, white walls and twinkling white lights suspended in the middle of a tall spiral staircase that was about 15 people shoulder to shoulder wide. We made our way to the ticket counter where one of the employees convinced us to take the tour for just over $18 dollars more. The observation area had three levels, where we could take in the views. At the very top we were greeted with gentle winds and gorgeous 360 degree views. Central Park looked like a fluffy green rug, the World One looked like a syringe with a long needle, the Satatue of Liberty looked like a toy soldier, the Empire State building was front and center standing at attention, and the Chrysler Building was shyly peaking around the Metlife Building.
After many pictures, we headed downstairs where we met Giovanni the guard. Giovanni grew up in New York but his family was from Sicily. He had the accent, thick long black eyebrows, an expressive face, about 5' 8" and energetic! He couldn't get enough of talking to us and telling us all the places to eat, what to see and how to get there!
We then made our way to the Rockefeller Center tour meeting spot to begin our walking tour. We learned how all the buildings became and about the art work. It was such a wonderful tour, I would recommend anyone to take it.
After thanking our wonderful tour guide, we then made our way to the Chrysler Building where we were only able to go into the lobby. The Chrysler Building is said to be the crown jewel of New York's Art Deco era. It is very beautiful and at night, it shines brightly along with the modern buildings.
Our next stop was the Empire State building. Inside, it looked like a palace; huge vaulted ceilings, beautiful twinkling white lights and stars hanging from the recessed ceiling and beautiful stone walls. We traveled to the 80th floor and 86th, where we had clear views of New York. The views were stunning.
We made our way back down to the lobby and was on our way to one of my favorite buildings, the Flat Iron Building.
I loved the building so much because it's featured behind Olivia Benson in the beginning credits of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. I stood in front of it and was pleased. What a beautiful building.
It was dinner time by the time we finished looking at my lovely Flat Iron Building. We made plans to meet Eddie and Victor, Larry's Navy buddies for dinner.
We all decided where to meet before heading to the Olive Garden in Times Sqaure. When Larry saw his friends he let out a joyous cry and hugs were given to everyone. After a heartfelt reunion, we were off to the Olive Garden. We ate and stories were shared. We all had a great evening.
Estimated miles walked ~ 9miles
