New York City

It's Wednesday October 1st, Lydia, Brooke and Fanny pick me up from work around 4pm and we're on the road driving to Buffalo, New York which is about a 2.5 hour drive.   We cross the border into the United States with no issues and check into our hotel. It's a short night because we're up at 3am to catch the 4:20am train for New York City.   We're all a little tired but excited about what lies ahead in New York.   The train ride is good, of course Brooke sleeps almost the entire 8 hour ride while poor Fanny doesn't sleep at all.   We make about 8 stops on our way to NYC and along the way see the beautiful fall colours as all the leaves have begun to change.

We arrive at Penn station at 12:45pm which is located directly underneath Madison Square Gardens the home of the New York Ranges (NHL) and New York Knicks (NBA) and we're also told by Fanny where One Direction has played.  New York is a magnificent city and although Lydia, Brooke and I have been before it just never gets old.  For Fanny, all she can say is " oh my god".    We walked out of Penn station and waited in line to get a cab and who should be right in front of us but New York Mets baseball great Mike Piazza.  Awesome!!!

We take the short cab ride to our hotel and get checked in.  It's only a short 2 block walk to Central Park where we rent bikes for 2 hours.   Just how large is Central Park?  Try 11.2km2.  It's big but the amazing thing is that it's right in the middle of New York City.

After our bike ride we head to pick up our Hop On/Off bus tickets and while Lydia waits in line I take the girls for a quick look at Times Square.  As we start to get closer, it starts to get busier and busier with more people and then we cross the street, Fanny looks up and realizes she has arrived.   The expression on Fanny's face and her repeating "oh my god" over and over again is worth it!!   There are so many people, so many billboards with advertising, so may lights that Fanny doesn't know where to look.  

Our first visit to Times Square is short but I reassure Fanny that we will be back.   We head back to pick up Lydia and then to our hotel to get ready to see Wicked on Broadway.   Wicked is one of the most successful plays on Broadway, having been on Broadway for 11 years and is the untold story of the witches of Oz (Wizard of Oz).     The play is fantastic, the $9 beers not so much but we are in NYC.  

 Friday October 3rd and we wake up early to begin our first full day in NYC.  We jump on the subway and take the 20 minute ride to Battery Park which is located on the southern tip of Manhattan Island.   Once there we board a ferry to see the Statue of Liberty.

The Statue of Liberty (La Liberté éclairant le monde)  is a magnificent sight all thanks to the French who presented it as a gift to the U.S. on October 28th 1886.  The views from the island over to Manhattan are awe inspiring and I can only imagine how the immigrants must have felt as they arrived to begin their new lives.    Once back to Manhattan we walked through Wall Street and up to the 911 Memorial.    It is an amazing site that one can't help but stop and reflect on all those 2,977 people who lost their lives on September 11, 2001.  

 We jump on one of the Hop On/Off buses and take a tour of Chinatown, Little Italy, the Brooklyn Bridge and the United Nations building before getting off and walking to Grand Central station. Grand Central is the main train station in NYC one that sees over 750,000 people pass through it daily.   It's iconic not only for its architecture but it has been featured in dozens of Hollywood movies.

A quick beer for Lydia and I and a snack for the girls and we're back at the hotel getting ready for our Friday night in New York City!!   I've made reservation for Virgil's which is a BBQ restaurant located just a block from Times Square.   We enjoy our ribs, pulled chicken and brisket but we all agreed that the smoked chicken wings were the best.

While Lydia and I finished dinner, Brooke and Fanny headed to Times Square. We met up a short while later and took in the sights of Times Square including Brooke taking a turn at skipping (see pic below).

We wake up Saturday morning and it's raining.   The other two days have been sunny and around 22. Lydia had purchased tickets for the Empire State Building so with umbrellas in hand we walk to the subway station.   We arrive at the Empire State building only to be told that due to the weather there is almost zero visibility from the top.   Not knowing what the weather was going to be like the rest of the day we opt to take our chances.   What a mistake, we arrived on the 86 floor to nothing but clouds and rain.  We took a couple of token pictures just to prove we had made it and quickly left disappointed.

Due to the weather we walked across the street to McDonald's for breakfast and to plan out our rain soaked day.   We opted to go to Macy's which is a large high end department store (all 8+ floors) to get out of the rain.   The building's 2.2 million square feet (almost 205,000 square meters)^[3] made it the world's largest department store from 1924 until 2009.  After with the rain subsiding we got on the Hop On/Off bus and took a tour of Harlem, one of the many burrows of NYC.   Fanny and I opted to sit on top of the double decker bus and put up with the rain while Brooke and Lydia stayed below.   It was a great tour of an area we hadn't seen before.  We saw the iconic Apollo Theatre where many African American performers got their start as well as the Guggenheim Museum and Columbia University.

We jumped off the bus and proceeded to the Apple store and the FAO Schwarz toy store.

Our last night and knowing that the girls were disappointed that they did not see NY from the Empire State building we bought tickets for Brooke and Fanny for Rockefeller Centre.  As the girls went up to check out NYC at night Lydia and I found a restaurant around the corner and after paying $9 a beer on Thursday night sure enjoyed paying $3 beer during "happy hour".     We met up with Brooke and Fanny about 90 minutes later and they were all smiles and still laughing about the fun they had just had.  

From there we walked back to Times Square for a late dinner at the Stardust Diner.  All the servers are aspiring Broadway singers and actors who put on a performance while they're serving.   It was a fun end to our 3 days in New York City.

 Fanny thanked us several times as we got on the train Sunday morning to leave New York.  It truly was an amazing trip!!!!