About the same time we were starting to plan to go to Newport for the wedding, I started discussing the idea of going to New York with Lila. She loves the theater and Hadestown is her favorite and it is playing on Broadway. The same morning I booked our flights to Long Beach with points I managed to find a deal with Steve's points from his trips to Singapore for us to fly into Newark and booked it. Then I found a good deal on a hotel near Grand Central Station and booked it. Then I bought tickets to Hadestown knowing that was a for sure thing we wanted to do. I was hoping when school started I would have time to sit down and plan the trip with Lila but as you can see from previous posts life has been crazy. So I asked Gemni AI (I got a free trial with my new phone) what we should do on our trip to New York. It gave us some good ideas and helped me get a timeline of things. I talked with Lila about one day during her home release class and told her she needed to decide what she wanted to see at The Met Museum. She also told me about a bookstore she wanted to see. So I felt like we had a good itinerary with some flexibility and I bought tickets for the things we needed tickets for the week before we left. My big concern was getting from the airport to our hotel so on Sunday, I asked Steve if he could help me research it. He found an express bus that picks you up right outside the terminal that would take us to Grand Central Station which was two blocks from our hotel so we booked it.
Man, I was nervous for this trip. When I was a recent college graduate I traveled by myself all the time. It was before cell phones. I would print out maps from my hotel to the locations I know I would need to go to. I would leave hotel phone numbers with date ranges for my family so they could reach me if necessary. But since being married I haven't traveled by myself much and it was silly because I do most of the planning but Steve really does handle the onsite logistics of getting us places and we were going to New York.
Anyway, we got off the airport Wednesday, October 14th fine. It was nice we had a midday flight so no getting up early. Flight went well, I watched the new Steven Spielberg and thought it was lame and pointless (turns out I'm not the only one a bunch of reviews about it feel the same). Anyway, we had a good view of the New York skyline as we were landing.
We also landed 30 minutes early which meant we could hopefully catch the earlier express bus (otherwise we would have to wait for almost an hour). We went out to the curb found the bus line. Realized we missed the 6pm but should be good to get the 6:15pm (the next one was 7pm and our flight was scheduled to land at 6:10 so we were glad we were ahead of schedule). We got on the bus no problem. He went to the second terminal no one was there. Then the third terminal the 6pm bus was still there so he just went right on by, we were ahead of the 6pm bus. CRAZY! Lila sat by the window and was tripping out a little about how fast the bus was going. She felt like he was flying by cars so she pulled up her google maps and was like, "Mom he's going 70 in a 50!" I replied, "It's an express bus Lila." Then she put her seatbelt on. 😂 As we got in the tunnel to cross the Hudson Lila asked if we were in New York. I pulled up my phone and showed her that the divide between New Jersey and New York was the middle of the river but google maps couldn't track us because we were in the tunnel. Then right as we looked up we saw the line on the tunnel that said New Jersey on one side and New York on the other. Timing! It was fun to pass some sites in New York as we made our way to Grand Central Station. We managed the bustling streets with our luggage to our hotel, checked in, took our things upstairs then went to get some dinner. There was a Los Tacos nearby so we walked there and ate.
Then we walked to Times Square because we could.
Unfortunately we had construction right outside our room and we were right across from the stairwell door that people would just let slam shut. UGH! Oh well, we made the best of it.
Thursday, October 15th we planned to go to The Met, Central Park, and Hadestown. I found a cute little cafe inside a cathedral near The Met so we walked to Grand Central Station to ride the subway uptown. When we got onto the platform I asked an attendant standing there if this subway would take us uptown to The Met and she said no we needed to go up and over and catch the other train. That's when we recognized the signs and what google maps was telling us matched up so that would help us in the future. However the subways going uptown were slammed and people were cramming on. So I suggested we walk up to the front to see if it wasn't as crowded. I turned around and couldn't see Lila then she got off the subway just as the doors were trying to shut and I told her just to get off and we would get the next one. 😂
We walked past the Guggenheim on our way to The Met. Once inside The Met, I let Lila take the lead and she grabbed a map and we walked around. We saw Monets Van Goghs, the Asian section, the Temple of Dendur in the Egyption section, and we enjoyed walking through the American section on our way to the Greek statues. It truly was an amazing place.
We sat down for a minute and decided it was time to venture out to Central Park. Lila pulled up City Tracker app which seemed to work better for our walking routes; google maps did not like the skyscrapers and would bounce around everywhere on streets and we couldn't really tell which way to go. So Lila decided I would map and handle subways and she would handle the walking routes which she did amazingly! It was a beautiful day to be in Central Park. We truly just enjoyed walking around and taking in the scenery. We walked to Bethesda Terrace where there were muscians playing under it that sounded amazing. One of them was playing an electric Erhu (which is like a Chinese violin) so I took a video to show Andrew. They sounded amazing. Then to Bow Bridge and we decided to take a different route back out of the park and saw a cute pond where they were doing motorized sail boats and then we ran into the Alice in Wonder statue that I wanted to see but forgot to put on our itinerary, it was perfect (seriously there are so many little moments where I felt like the Lord was guiding us as we enjoyed this trip together).
When we were showing the family these pictures Steve recognized the Ivy bridge on the left from the Home Alone in New York movie where he meets the pigeon lady.
Then we decided it was time to get food. We found this "pizza" place but it was more Italian than pizza. We ordered some yummy pasta and Lila got a fun fall drink, Cinnamade. Lila got cute heart shaped Lobster Raviolis. I had Carbonara. I ate about a third of it and was full Lila was starving so she ate the rest of my pasta too. I was glad she could eat because I didn't really want to take leftovers on the subway.
We took the subway back to our hotel to chill for a bit before heading out to see Hadestown. After resting for a bit we decided we had some extra time to do a few things. So we walked over to the New York library which was beautiful.
They have the original Winnie the Pooh stuffed animals and the gift store had this beautiful snow globe.
As we left the library, Lila was feeling a little tired so we looked at street vendors for a Dr Pepper but none of them had it then we walked into a little food joint who had a soda machine and they had Dr Pepper so we bought her a fountain soda to enjoy while we kept walking. We walked past St Patrick's Cathedral and a bunch of other iconic New York sites on our way to the theater.
It was a fun and tragic show. The set scene change was cool. At the end we noticed the girls in front of us bought little necklace souvenirs so on our way out I asked if she wanted to go find the stand with things to buy. She couldn't decide so we left. Then we were walking through Time Square the was tired, her phone died, she was annoyed we didn't go look at the stuff so she starts weaving in and out of people. I got a little upset mostly because her phone was dead so she couldn't reach me or walk back to the hotel. She said walking the Layton High School halls have taught her great weaving skills. 😂 I told her I do not have those skills and would appreciate her sticking with me. We went to bed tired and happy.
During the night I thought about Lila's comments on how she wanted to see The Great Gatsby and I thought I bet there is a matinee on Saturday we could go see. So when we woke up Friday, October 16th we looked at the weather. It called for light showers on Friday but then was going to get cold on Saturday like 42 degrees with 18mph winds. So we adjusted our plans a little. We decided to drop Chinatown on Friday and hit both bookstores so we could go to the matinee of The Great Gatsby on Saturday. I found an online ticket site that would look for cancelled tickets and we managed to get great seats for half price. Then we took off for Union Square to see Strand Bookstore.
Then we walked to Lillie's a place recommended to us by Steve's sister Debbie. She says they always decorate so fabulously for the season. It looked like a cute little Victorian Tea place but when we found it it was decorated for Halloween and the inside was dark and creepy and Lila was not feeling it so we walked back out.
We found a cute little pizza place an ordered pizza. There was this new pay phone right outside. We had seen someone use it the night before so we had to take a picture of it. We were tempted to call the boys but were too hungry.
We took our food back to Union Square and found a slightly wet bench to sit on and enjoy our lunch. The problem with New York is you walk and walk and then all the good dining places are standing only so you don't even get to rest to eat. So the park was nice. This cute Mom and toddler in a stroller sat down next to us. He wanted to play instead of eat so she turned him towards us and said look everyone is eating lunch now. His eyes got big and he said, "pizza!" Lila saw his face and knew he was going to say that so she giggled a little. The Mom said we'll get pizza for dinner eat your lunch now. It was cute. Then we all fed a few pigeons with our leftover crust.
Then we took the yellow subway to the 911 Memorial and Museum. Lila had just learned about this in history class but it definitely hit me harder having lived through it. Also my Mom, sister, and I went to New York October 11, 2001 and saw the devastation first hand. We walked past Fire Station 10 with all the handwritten cards, flowers, stuffed animals. We did a hop on and off bus tour and my Mom said just as we were passing The Empire State building the tour guide said they are opening The Empire State Building for the first time since 911 so we hopped off and went up and could see the buildings still smoldering. I don't remember that I remember the fire station and the site being blocked off. Anyway, this memorial was the busiest place for us all weekend. We had timed tickets but still had to wait in line for 30 minutes and there were so many people inside it almost took away from the somberness of it. Still really cool though.
They had audio from people's stories playing and phone calls people made from planes. It was really well done. They even had The Today show playing from that day which is what I was watching when the news broke of the Twin Tower being hit. I told Lila this is what I was watching and she was like this very show and I said this very show. My roommate and I would watch it while we were eating breakfast. She hopped in the shower and I turned it on and saw the news and went and banged on the bathroom door and told her she had to see this then I called my parents and told them to turn on the news. She thought that was cool to see/hear what I was doing that day.
Then we walked across the length of downtown Manhattan (.7miles) which included walking by St Paul's Chapel on our way to McNally Seaport Bookstore which was on Lila's bucket list. Thankfully I was able to find a nice cushy chair to sit in and rest because I did not sleep well the night before.
Then we started to walk down the pier. We found a street vendor who had a New York Yankees hat Lila wanted to buy before we went to the Empire State Building. I asked him how much he said $15. I asked Lila what she thought (we knew they typically went for $25-40) she hesitated a little so he said, $10 give me $10 and it's yours. Thankfully I had a ten dollar bill and I handed it to him and we were happy with our purchase. Then we made it to this little place on the pier to have fish n chips and I ordered a Diet Coke. The weather cleared up and it was lovely even maybe a little hot that afternoon. It was the perfect location because the line for our sunset cruise was right next to them so we enjoyed our dinner then chilled there until it was time to lineup for it.
On the right was our first look at lady liberty.
The cruise was really enjoyable we went all the way up both sides of Manhattan. We saw the sunset and the the New York skyline come alive and the statue light up. It was a relaxing fun way to see things from a different perspective
We stopped at Funny Face bakery on the Pier and snagged some cookies for dessert. As we stepped out it started to rain again. . .man we really had great weather for the cruise (another tender mercy).
Saturday, October 17th we woke up and decided we would have a sit down breakfast at the hotel restaurant, Wheeltapper. It was yummy. I had the Dublin breakfast which was basically like an Irish Eggs Benedict. Lila had pancakes and a side of bacon. The service was a little slow so thankfully I could reschedule our Empire State Building ticket time for an hour later. We were afraid it would be busy on Saturday but it was not busy at all. We were also afraid it would be overcast and block our view but we could see everything. It was however cold and windy. We were glad we put on our extra layers and took our gloves with us. I bought myself a NY beannie from a street vendor on our way. We had fun doing The Empire State building. Lila said it felt very much like an amusement ride.
The pictures for which the hat was bought
We looked at the gift shop and found fun mini Lego Empire State Building & New York city kits for the boys. Then we went in the Ghiradelli store at the bottom of the Empire State building and found a bunch of fun new flavors we have never tried so we filled an Empire State building candy box full to share with the family. We could take the subway from there straight to our show but it would put is there 30 minutes before the doors opened (I told you it was not busy at all). So we decided to walk back to our hotel and leave our souvenirs there. On our way back to our hotel we came upon the front of Grand Central (we had been taking the side entrance closer to our hotel, it was beautiful).
We rested for just a minute then had to leave for the show. We talked about riding the subway, I looked up the stops and everything but Lila felt like walking so we walked. The show was fun and tragic again. It was in The Broadway Theater which was bigger and newer than the Imperial where Hadestown was. It had fun set changes and of course great 20s costumes. Lila always gets giddy with excitement right before the show starts.
I had to use the restroom so we went down after the show and found this hidden gem to take a picture in front of. Then Lila found a fun burger, Blackiron Burger, it was just around the corner to grab dinner at. Then we hit a classic NY Gift Store to pick up Ellie a deck of cards then back to the hotel to pack up for our early departure. We had to get up at 4am EST time to catch our 5am bus back to the airport for our 7:30am flight.Back at the hotel I packed up quickly then turned on the BYU vs Notre Dame football game. During one of the commercial breaks the news reported a shooting at a subway stop and I knew that stop because it was then one Lila and I were supposed to get off at for the show at about that time so scary! I told Lila see the Lord is looking out for us and she said, "I think you are right." The game had some crazy ups and downs and I had to keep telling myself not to yell at the TV because we were in a hotel. 😜
Sunday we woke up, changed, and looked at the map to the the bus stop. I told Lila we were going to cross the street then go straight passed Grand Central Station two streets then the bus would be right there. Well two streets later and it didn't look right so I pulled out my phone. It was supposed to be a 5 minute walk from our hotel and we had been walking for 6 and now it was saying 8 minutes. UGH! I was panicking. Lila took over and said this way Mom. Thankfully she got us there with 5 minutes to spare. The lady bus driver was being a little weird and didn't want us to put our luggage underneath but I wanted to so she reluctantly opened it and then insisted my luggage go in first and I was still frazzled and stepped in a pot hole and twisted my ankle, the same one I twisted a few weeks ago in pickleball and was finally starting to think it was healed. 😒 We had to wait at Port Authority for 10 minutes but we still made it to the airport a little before 6am and through security with no problem (I was a little nervous about the timing if 90 minutes was enough for security but it was great). Newark is a cute airport. It had a little bookstore Lila walked around in, fun chairs to sit in, and a skeleton scavenger hunt.
My ankle was killing me on the flight home. Probably because I couldn't elevate it (I did on the bus ride and then I put on my compression sock I had brought). The flight seemed to take forever. All of the boys picked us up and we talked and talked all the way home. I even played In a New York Minute for them (that song came to my mind after hearing about the shooting and none of the kids had heard it before). Then we came home and of course the boys wanted to see the souvenirs we bought them.
Then I unpacked, showered, and started dinner. Porter and Ellie joined us which was fun. I even attempted making a version of the Cinnamade drink Lila got at Serafina in New York and she excitedly reported that I did a really good job duplicating it even though I hadn't tasted it. She really was quite shocked at how close it was. Then we shared our Ghiradelli chocolates for dessert. I went to bed early as I had been up since 2am MST.
It really was a fabulous trip! I'm so grateful I went for it even though I wasn't as planned as prepared as I like to be for things. It will be a cherished memory for me. And now the boys really want to go. Marcus even chose New York for his term project. 💕
