A 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 stories of driving celebrities and the who’s who of New York while having facial blindness (yes it’s real). Essentially she doesn’t recognize people by their faces so important or famous people get in her car and she has no idea who they are. Sometimes they laugh, sometimes they are offended; either way it made for great stories.

We made our way to the condo we are staying in in Kips Bay. It’s a basic little studio apartment and will work well for what we need. It’s on the 11th floor so it is hot up here but all we need to do is shower and sleep so we’ll buy a fan today; good enough for us. We decided to lay down for 30 minutes since neither of us slept on the plane. That 30 minutes turned into 2 hours. That was fine though, because we both needed the sleep big time.

After our much needed nap we made our way out to NYC. Our first stop, a neighborhood brick oven pizza by the slice restaurant for lunch. We ordered margherita pizza slices which were delicious. After that we pretty much spent the day wandering around New York. We made it to the outside of the Empire State building, Grand Central Station, The New York Public Library, a 9/11 Memorial at Bryant Park, Times Square, and the 12th Avenue pier area. We enjoyed a couple beers on the pier before heading out on the twilight cruise.

The cruise was absolutely amazing, starting at 6:30 we were able to see New York transform from a daytime city full of reflective glass to a city of towering, gorgeous, sparkling lights. The Statue of Liberty was front lit so we were able to take pictures. We made our way to an Indian restaurant Tiffin Willi for dinner and walked back to the condo for some much needed shut eye.

A few pictures of the day

(Click them to enlarge)