Greenwich Village
Today we headed down to Greenwich Village to take a walking food tour. I was particularly excited to experience a tour other than my own and compare notes. Our guide was quirky, to say the least, but she was sweet and did a great job. We walked a fraction of the distance we cover on my own tour, but crammed in as many restaurants. We had pizza from a place Ben Affleck frequents (first he and I in a movie together in Boston, now possibly pizza together!?), rice balls from an Italian deli, and olive oil from OandCo to name a few. We saw the house where Monica lived on Friends and the skinniest house in NYC, a whopping 9 feet wide, 1000 sqft total, just sold for 4.2 million dollars. Holy crap! After the tour we headed over to Washington park to check out the...
Read MoreLady Liberty
This morning we were up early once again. Abbe was awake at six and us shortly after. She headed to Chicago for the week, and we headed to see Lady Liberty. We took a taxi to Battery park. It was early and there weren’t many people. The park was filled though. The lawn was covered in flags, one flag to represent each person lost on 9/11. The flags were on poles that stood six feet tall, so their presence made a large impact because you could truly see how many people were lost that day. They were everywhere, on every lawn, in every direction. It was heartwrenching. We took a moment to observe the flags, the globe structure that used to be at the trade centers (it is now badly damaged) and the eternal flame that was lit in honor of those lost that day. We...
Read MoreLand’s End
Ten years ago today our world changed. The 9/11 attacks were life altering, gut wrenching and completely unforgettable. All of us recall exactly where we were that morning, or what we were doing when we heard the news. It was unbelievable then, and remains so today. With this morning came a flood of emotions, and waking up here, in Manhattan, on the anniversary of this tragic day was more than I could stand to bare. We knew a trip to NYC this week would be different, but I had underestimated how emotionally taxing it would truly be. You cannot walk one block without experiencing either a memorial dedicated to the many that were lost on 9/11, or a police blockade or check point; the city’s best effort to avert disaster again. The heightened terrorist threat this...
Read MoreSky High in NYC
Well, my alarm will be going off in 3.5 hours, but I figure since I’m not sleeping…I might as well update the blog! We started the day late, weren’t out the door until noon, but we still managed to cross a few great things off of our list. We met our SF home exchange friend, Abbe, for lunch at Bule Smoke, a bbq joint down the street. She just moved to Manhattan 10 days ago and is living 14 blocks from us. What a small world! We had a great lunch with her and just loved getting to spend time with her (we’re always missing each other in California, go figure we’d find the time to sit down and visit all the way across the nation!). After lunch we headed to the Empire State building. We had heard the lines could be treacherous, but...
Read MoreNYC Biker Parade
This was a 15-20 minute long biker parade down 42nd at the edge of Time Square. It was very very patriotic, moving and awesome. This is just a short 1 minute clip of the entire parade. I recommend watching it with the full screen button. What a way to end an evening. Bookmark on Delicious Digg this post Recommend on Facebook share via Reddit Share with Stumblers Tumblr it Tweet about it Tell a friend
Read MoreA Hot Day In NYC
Today was our first day in NYC and the highlight had to be our twilight cruise around Manhattan and the heat. It was a warm one today, over 80 all day long, and humid. I knew it was going to be humid but not like it is. (Today is shaping up to be a little cloudy which should be nice) Our plane arrived a little late today but our bags popped out and onto the carrousel almost immediately. We made our way to the ground transportation area to catch the private car Nicole had reserved. We were told that the Taxi line could be upwards of an hour and that a private car is only slightly more without the line. It was a great choice. Our driver, Jennifer, who her work refers to as JLo, was awesome. She was a super fun, high energy Jamaican woman. She entertained us with...
Read MoreWhat A Fiasco!
Well, we are now just over 24 hours from our plane’s scheduled departure time and what a roller coaster the last 36 hours have been. Nicole and I use homeexchange.com to schedule most of our trips. The service, up until this point, has been absolutely amazing. Nicole communicates with other homeowners who are willing to stay in Tahoe and in turn we stay in their homes. We’ve completed these exchanges, without a hitch in Valencia, Santa Cruz, Oregon, Chicago, San Diego, San Francisco (a few times cause of our amazing friend Abbe) and Pacific. Up until yesterday at 10am we thought New York was going to be added to that list. Nicole had arranged for us to exchange homes with a user who lives in Florida, but has an apartment on the Upper East Side of New...
Read MoreDave, Part Deux
Saturday, September 18th. Okay, I just finished our blog from yesterday. Now, to get today down and I’ll be all caught up! It is now 3:30 in the morning, so try to hang in there with me. I hope this all comes across in English, but I make no promises. We crawled out of bed this morning for just enough time to confirm that our feet were bruised on the bottoms. Yesterday took a toll on us and we weren’t ready to face the day just yet. Thankfully we didn’t have any morning plans, and so we laid in bed and watched the rain pour down and the bolts of lightning streak across the sky. Once we were ready to emerge for the day the rain had let up and we headed north again, this time to a little diner a few blocks away. I was craving eggs benedict, and...
Read MoreHello Boys!
Friday, September 17th I’m writing this on September 18th, well, 19th technically. It is 3am and I’m ready for bed, but I’ve sadly fallen behind on my blogging, so I’m going to try to play catch up right now! On Friday we decided to lay pretty low because we were going to have a long night on our feet at our concert. We left the house just before one and walked north to Oz Park which is created in honor of the creator of Wiz. of Oz, or something like that. Cute little neighborhood park with sculptures of Dorothy, Toto, Scarecrow and Tin Man. We went through Oz park and then over to Lincoln park. Lincoln park is big, and has a free zoo smack dab in the middle. We perused the zoo, saw some cool critters, giant spiders, giraffes, meerkats,...
Read More“If You Can’t, You Must!”
Thursday, September 16th We awoke this morning to a cloudy sky that soon opened up and dumped rain on the city. Thankfully we were still in bed when this happened and not walking the streets yet. We finally crawled out of bed at 9:30 and decided to take the subway down to the John Hancock center (the 3rd tallest building in Chicago) which is at the beginning of the Magnificent Mile (one mile of supreme shopping and sightseeing). Once out the door the rain had subsided and it was just below 70* with blue sky peeking through the clouds. The subway dumped us out just a few blocks from John Hancock and the moment I got a glimpse of the building my palms started to sweat. Kevin knew he was going to head to the top, and I had considered it yesterday, when I had viewed...
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