The "Big Apple" Trip.....

We are scheduled to leave today at 6am. We got up very early, to make sure we were to the airport on time. The night before, while packing, I told Jeremy that we needed to make sure we called the airport, just in case something went wrong with the flight. He assured me that nothing would happen. He said that "If" anything were to get delayed, it would be the flight leaving from Denver...not Spokane. Anyway, I woke up about 3:15am, and started getting ready. I could hear Jeremy downstairs, on hold (via speakerphone) with United Airlines. I knew something wasn't going right...but I didn't want to believe it. Jeremy came upstairs and peeked his head around the bathroom door. "Our flight has been cancelled," he said. I waited for him to say something like, "Just kidding!" but he didn't. He looked irritated. I finished getting ready, then the cab arrived at our house at 4am. We drove to the airport and there was already a large line of passengers forming in front of the United counter. Some people were able to get re booked the same day, to their destinations, while others had to wait till the next day. We were among the group that had to wait, till the next day to leave. We were pretty bummed. If we could have left on the day originally planned, we would of had an extra 2 days there. Apparently the flight we were supposed to leave on, never made it to Spokane. There was some mechanical issues. I think I took the news of being re booked harder than Jeremy did. I was moping around the house, and finally had to get out of the house. My mom and I met at Northtown mall, did some shopping, ate and talked. Hanging out with her, did help me feel better. Jeremy and I decided to treat ourselves to a nice dinner that night, as we had planned on doing that once we got to NYC anyway. We came back home, watched a movie, then went to bed, anxious for the next day......

Day 2: I woke up pretty early today, clearly excited to get this trip going! Jeremy and I were packed, ready to go! We called the taxi, to pick us up around 11am, and we were off. Getting the bags checked at the airport was a breeze. We tried getting reimbursed for all the extra cab fair we had to pay, due to the flight being cancelled. But since United is so lame, they didn't think that they should have to give us anything back, for the trip to and from, back to, the airport. On the bright side, our flight to NYC, from Denver was in 1st class. Jeremy told me that the seats in this section would be much nicer. We waited 2 hours to get on the flight from Spokane to Denver. I was a nervous wreck, as I DO NOT LIKE TO FLY.....at all! I chewed off all of my finger nails, and if Jeremy would have let me, I would have chewed his off too. It was time to board the flight, and we sat there for much longer than we were planned too. This extra wait time, was going to potentially make us late for our next flight....As we took off, I could feel myself getting more and more anxious. I almost started to cry, and knew that if I did end up crying, I'd have a full blown panic attack. I held Jeremy's hand and pretty much did that the entire flight. The flight had an episode of 30 rock playing, so that helped take my mind off of dying for 20 minutes or so. Then some random nature show came on, I listed to my ipod the rest of the flight. We got to Denver, and literally had to run to the next flight. Denver airport is on the larger side, so we took advantage of the moving sidewalk things, and ran on them....We arrived at the gate, very winded.

The upside of this flight...it was 1st class. It was much nicer and much roomier. The only thing that was annoying, was the lady sitting across from me. She could not take her damn eyes off of me. She was staring at my snow boots. It was getting quite uncomfortable, I finally stared back at her, and she looked up from my boots, and realized I was now watching her, she gave me a smile, and then went back to her laptop. The flight took off, and Jeremy leaned over to me and said, "As soon as that seat belt light goes off, I am going to the bathroom." He left, and I slid over, and sat in his seat. I wanted to sit window side, so that I could look at the lights of NYC. The flight was pretty uneventful. It was long, we were served tortellini for dinner. I had 4 glasses of wine, we watched 500 days of Summer, the same random nature show....and then I started to see the city of lights. It seemed to go on forever! Jeremy and I were so excited!! We got off the plane, and headed to the luggage terminal. The airport was nothing like I expected. It was kind of flashy. It actually was somewhat "Casino" like, but in a 70ish sort of way. We got to the luggage carousel and waited, waited and waited. Then it hit us....we had such a tight turn around between flights, there was no way that the luggage could have gotten on the plane to New York. There were a couple other people that were in the same boat, as us. We tried using the "Easy to Use Kiosk," to make a lost luggage claim, but it was more difficult than anything else. We ended up having to go speak with the customer service desk, and speak to live people. One of the representatives was nice and helpful, while the other was so stressed out, he was making everyone in there feel stupid. There was probably about 8 of us in this little office. Two French guys, a family of Italians, one guy from London, Jeremy and I, and another guy that butted his way in front of everyone, to make his claim. Everyone was talking at once, telling each other of their own stories of lost luggage. The grouchy worker said, "See Arthur, do you see why I had the door locked?? I told you we should only have one person at a time in here, do you see why now?!" Of course the grouchy worker's attitude made all of us feel bad for even being there in the first place. The guy from London piped in and said, "We're all tired, we just want our things." Grouchy worker said, "We had a blizzard sir, we are doing the best we can." The London guy said, "Yeah, well we have blizzards in London and we just get on with life. You're being a jerk, and your short temper isn't making any of us feel any better." At that point everyone started in with their own opinions...I looked at Jeremy and told him that I was going to wait somewhere else. He agreed and dealt with filing the claim, while I wait in the luggage carousal area. We got into NYC, mind you, at 12:30pm....by the time Jeremy was finished it was nearly 2am. We were told that our luggage would be on a flight to NYC, and be to us by 10am. Yea! We thought. We were supposed to have a shuttle take us from the airport to our hotel. We called to tell them we were ready to be picked up, and we were informed that they were "done" for the day. At that point, we were on a "losing" streak. We ended up having to hail a cab, and go that route. It was about a 20 minute ride to the hotel. Soon enough we were approaching the hotel. Tons and tons of lights....then Time Square. It was surreal. Unlike anything I have personally seen. We were plastered to the windows like little kids. We made it to the hotel. It was really nice. We stayed at the Westin New York Time Square. We literally had nothing in our carry on, the hotel hooked us up with all our bathroom needs, like toothbrushes and stuff. We stayed on the 12th floor and had huge windows that overlooked Time Square. The view was amazing. It was so busy down below. The hot dog vendors were out, large crowds were crossing the roads, and taxis were honking in all directions. It was a sight. We were pretty tired...so very tired. We finally called it a day.

Day 3: We woke up early, probably about 6:30am....let me rephrase that. I woke up early. I walked over to Starbucks, came back to the hotel, and told Jeremy to wake up. I wanted to start our day already! We were promised our luggage by 10am, it was 10:30, still not there. We didn't want to wait around for it, and figured we'd get started on the day. Since we had lost 2 days of our trip, we had to reorganize our itinerary...We decided that we would go to the wax museum first. It is called, Madame Tussuad's. We were a little bummed, since we didn't have our cameras with us yet. We decided that we couldn't go to the wax museum without a camera, so we went to Duane Reade's and got a disposable. (I still have to bring that camera to get developed!) The museum was packed, and there was a line that was pretty long. We had our NYC passes, so we got to skip that long line, head to the front and get our tickets. As with everything touristy in NYC...there are long lines and then lines to get on the elevator. The wax museum was pretty good. Jeremy had been to one in California, he said this one, in NYC, was much better. We took some pictures with various "stars." Hannah Montana, Jonas Brothers, for Emma. The Osbournes, Bob Marley, Jimi Hendrix and The Beatles for Ara and Tolkien. It was weird how lifelike some of these wax figures looked. While others didn't look a thing like who they were supposed to look like. It also had an odd smell in the museum. The Museum was very close to our hotel, so after that, we decided to go back to the hotel, and see if our luggage had arrived. It was still not there. We walked to the Manhattan Mall, which was really tiny. The valley mall, in Spokane, is much bigger! It was cold over in NYC, well like anywhere between 32 and 40 degrees. But the wind, was blowing on this particular day. Jeremy somehow thought that he would be okay on our vacation, with just his hoodie. WRONG! :) We ended up at JC Penny so that Jeremy could buy a coat. The JC Penny looks very fancy. It reminded me more of a Macy's. Anyway, after the Manhattan Mall, we walked over to Macy's. I was shocked. This is by far the biggest Macy's I have ever been too! I have heard that it is the world's largest, then I have heard other stories that it is the world's second largest. Regardless...it was huge. As you imagine, it was packed! There was so much to look at, and I could hardly absorb it all. Initially we didn't have a clue as to how many floor there were. We took the escalators all the way to the top. 9 floors later, we could not go up any farther. Not only was there 9 floors, but under the 1st floor was the basement area, called "The Cellar." This store also took up a full block. So you would start at one side of the store, and just when you thought it couldn't be any longer in length, you could see another entry way leading to more store. The shoe department....was amazing. I love shoes, so for me, it was almost too much to look at. I spent a good 2 hours browsing the shoes. Their shoe department is the same size as the entire 1st floor of the Macy's here, in Spokane. They have a few places to eat in this Macy's too. This is great for anyone that wants to spend the day shopping. I saw McDonald's, Starbucks, Annie's Pretzels, a pizza place too. Jeremy and I were tired from all our shopping around, so we made a stop on the 8th floor, and sat in the comfy couches that were on display. We actually saw a lot of people doing this same thing. We were getting hungry too, so we went to the first place we saw on the way home. TGI Fridays, yeah boring, but it was the only place that wasn't busy, and we wanted somewhere we could sit down. After dinner we went home. I did something really dumb. I put all my medication in the luggage that we checked in. Since we arrived in NYC nearly 24 hours before our luggage, I was way overdue for my medication. I was now really starting to feel the withdrawals. It sucked. I was getting extremely dizzy and getting nauseous. We went back to our hotel, and guess what? Our luggage was still not there. It was 6pm already, we called the airport to find out what the hold up was. They told that the luggage was in the city, and that it was going to be another few hours. They said it would be to us by 9. We explained to them that we needed the luggage expedited, as we left important medication in there, and we were starting to get sick. The airline said they would put the word in to the delivery person. Well 9:45pm came and went. At this point I couldn't even walk around. I was "bedridden" so to speak. Jeremy called the airline again and this time, he was told that it would be ANOTHER COUPLE OF HOURS before they could deliver it. He was upset, so was I, but he told them that he would come and get the luggage from the airport, if that is what he needed to do. We finally gave up on waiting...and decided to go to bed. It was almost 1am at this point. 30 minutes into sleeping, our phone rang, and it was the hotel, notifying us that our luggage was downstairs, and had just arrived. I was so annoyed with United, but I can take responsibility and blame for my part. I will never pack my meds in my checked baggage. I didn't realize that I could take them on my carry on. Lesson learned. We got the luggage, I took my meds, we went to bed.....

Day 4: We woke up very early and decided that we would look for some place to eat. We went to the front desk, and asked for directions to a diner type place. We ended up falling in love with a diner called The Westway. It was awesome. We ate hallah french toast. I love hallah. We figured we better eat well, so that we could walk for miles and miles. I can't believe how much we walked around. We decided to visit Bodies the Exhibition. I thought it was very interesting.....Jeremy on the other hand was not as fascinated with it. They have actual human specimens in this museum. I am very much interested in the human body, and how it works. It is so amazing. This museum was very detailed....to say the least. Jeremy rushed through the museum, while I stopped at every display, and stared in wonder. There are whole human bodies, along with individual organs. Each "system" is on display, via dissection and preservation. Really the only thing that shocked me was when I accidentally bumped into the glass case that housed the remains of a woman's vagina. It caught me off guard, and I didn't expect to see the vagina in such detail......

After the Bodies trip, we decided to take the subway, to Battery Park, and visit The Statue of Liberty, and Ellis Island. What an exciting trip to Battery Park. The subway.....I was scared, I will admit it. Jeremy was a little nervous about it too. I say this because he didn't want me taking the camera out and taking a bunch of pictures. I guess he too, assumed that I'd get robbed. We got out metro cards and while Jeremy was paying for the metro cards, I was watching to see how people were getting though the revolving doors to the subway. We went through the metal doors and found our way to the right loading area. As we waited for our subway, other subways were screaming by. The subways are dark, wet and filled with various type of people. I think we only had to wait about 15 minutes for our subway to get to us. When the subway came to a stop, we noticed that it was packed! Most people came out, but there were a lot of us waiting to get in. We were like some of the last ones to get in...therefore it was standing car only for us. I had some knitted gloves on, and holding onto the pole was kind of hard to do. When the subway took off, I lost my footing and almost fell. It was funny, but I felt kind of dumb at the same time. Once the subway let a few people off, we were able to sit down. I then took a couple pictures of Jeremy, on the subway. Also, at that point there were a few people that were also tourists. We arrived at Battery Park, and walked to the water. We snapped some more pictures, and you could see the Statue of Liberty in the background. Since we were near the water, it was much more windy and FREEZING! Brrrr! We got our tickets and waited in line, to get to the ferry. A lot of the main attractions in NYC require you to go through airport style security. When you are wearing several layers of clothes, its quite the trick trying to take everything off quickly and get it back on quickly. Once we got onto the ferry, we found a good spot to take pictures. The ride over to the Statue of Liberty was very nice. It was a really clear day. The views were amazing. We got to see the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, which is the largest suspension bridge in the US. The views of the city, were also very breathtaking. So many buildings! As we got closer to the Ms. Liberty, both Jeremy and I stared in amazement. We could not believe we were actually staring at her, in real life. Its amazing. We took so many pictures of her. I was so glad that we went on a clear day. It was perfect!! After our trip to the statue, we traveled over to Ellis Island. We actually did not get off of the ferry. We did take pictures of Ellis, but we still had a lot of other places that we wanted to cover, and remember...we were cheated 2 days of our original trip. After our beautiful ferry ride, we decided to run around Battery Park, take some pictures and walk to Century 21 Department Store. I had heard all these great things about it, and I saw tons of people carrying bags around from the store. Well once we got there, it was nothing like I had expected at all. It was actually very stressful, and it was like a big Ross or TJ Max. Don't get me wrong, I love Ross and TJ Max, but I guess I didn't think Century 21 would be exactly like that. It was so packed, and there were clothes, and other random things all over the floor. It was insane!!! We tried to get past all the stress, but it just finally got to the point where we had to leave....So, I bought a few I love NYC cups, and we left.
Since we were in the area, we decided to go eat. We found a sandwich/soup place. Also, since we were in the area I looked up the Betsey Johnson store, and we walked over there to take a look. I thought that it was going to be closed, but it was not! Awwwhhhh, unfortunately for me I did not find anything that I wanted. I didn't want to get anything that I didn't feel strongly about. I didn't find a thing. Oh well, it was fun to look around. Jeremy, of course was bored out of his mind, but he was so gracious and waited patiently for me to look around.
After our trip to Betsey Johnson, we walked over to ground zero. We actually stayed near ground zero for about an hour. They are still working on the memorial. I just kept thinking of where I was standing. Thinking about how much devastation was in the same spot, that I was standing. I looked up in the sky, imagining the twin towers. I pictured those poor people, scared, confused, and even those that chose to jump out of the building. It was very surreal, for me at least. Just being there, spending time there, made me really appreciate life a whole lot more. Sometimes I forget just how lucky I am.

We were so far from our hotel. We thought about taking the subway back, but we actually walked most of the way back to our hotel. My feet were killing me, but I also wanted to absorb as much of New York as I could. As we walked back to our hotel we saw so many different stores. We saw so many little stores that were the size of a closet, seriously. These closet stores were filled floor to ceiling with electronics. Inside the middle of the closet was one person, the person that ran the "store." These were so tiny. Of course the streets were filled with the hot dog vendors, people willing to draw your picture, people selling purses, gloves, hats, scarves, gloves. And when it rains....people come out of nowhere selling umbrellas. There is always something going on, people moving here and there. At times we were part of the wall of people crossing roads, and times we were nearly swallowed up in these walls of people. It was unlike anything I have ever been a part of.

The next day we decided we were going to hit the Museum of Natural History and do the NBC behind the scences tour. It worked out best for us to hit NBC first. We were not allowed to take pictures here. It was "forbidden." We had to wait a little bit before the tour. We walked around the store. Jeremy got some stuff. When it was time to get in line for the tour, we noticed that our group was not very big at all. It was nice. Our tour guides were pretty nice too. The studio was cool. I kept my eyes peeled for anyone in the middle of taping, but we didn't see any of that. We toured Jimmy Fallon's studio, its so much smaller than I thought. They mic the audience, so that it sounds much larger than it actually is. We toured the Saturday Night Live studio, and it too is really small. We toured the stage where NBC news is filmed, and then they had a studio, which allowed us to interact with a camera and pretend we were a news anchor. It was a lot of fun. We learned a lot about the history of NBC.

After our NBC tour, we decided to go over the Museusm of Natural History. The museum is huge! There are so many things to look at. Honestly in the beginning we were interested in seeing everything...towards the end, we were like, "lets see the dinosaurs. We did take a lot of pictures at the museum. I think my favorite part was the dinosaurs, though. I've always wanted to see them, and I have always loved them. The sea creatures were also pretty cool. I did tell Jeremy that if we found butterflies, we'd have to take pictures for Ara. Ara hates butterflies. She does not think they are beautiful at all. We did find some, of course took photos, and of course Ara did not like them at all. We were in the museum for about 3 hours. It was a long day for us.
After the musuem we decided to go home. Jeremy went out and got pizza. We ate pizza in bed and ordered in room service. They brought in a lava cake for us. It was so delicious! It was really nice being in the hotel. We were so close to everything. I loved waking up in the mornings and walking to Starbucks to get my morning lattae. We'd walk to bakery and get muffins, cookies, yeah lots of bad stuff. Oh well we were on vacation and it was fun. Fun to eat bad....plus we didn't feel real guilty, because we were walking everywhere.

Eesh...before I forget, we did take a helicopter ride over the city. It was awesome! We had to wait a while before we got on the helicopter. We got the safety breifing. They let four of us on the helicopter. I got to sit up front, Jeremy sat in back with some other people. I thought that I was going to be really scared, but I wasn't. I was very excited. Seeing the city from above like that was so cool. I tried taking pictures, at that point we only had the disposable, and they didn't turn out....boo! Oh well. It was dusk out, so a lot of the lights were beginning to show. By the time we finished the tour, and were headed back to the landing pad, it was dark. All the lights, were so beautiful. I had a lot of fun on the helicopter tour. It was well worth it! We also visited Central Park, which is huge by the way. Enormous. I loved the park, and all its trails. The trees were all twisty and snow covered. It was not flat, it was sort of hilly and there are small bodies of water, randomly sprinked throughout the park. It was worth the visit.

Christmas Day: Ah Christmas in New York....what a dream, at least for me! We woke up and walked to our favorite diner, The Westway. We had a wonderful breakfast. We saved The Empire State Building and Top of the Rock, and Rockafeller Plaza for today. I can't remember if I mentioned that we got the New York Pass. When we got to the line, to pay, they told us that we had already used our passes to visit the Empire State Building. We were surprised. I mean, its not like we were trying to steal a visit to the Empire State Building. Luckily the guy took down our card numbers, and let us go anyway. We took the elevator to the observation deck. It was cold up there, so cold. The views were really breathtaking. I was scared of being up so high. Jeremy took many pictures that shot straight down. In fact looking at some of them make me queasy still. There were a lot of people up there that day. I guess we weren't the only ones that thought it would be cool to visit the Empire State Building. It was cool, and we got a lot of really good shots.

After we got down from the Empire State Building, we headed over to Top of the Rock. It was another 360 degree view. I liked this, because we were able to stare directly across at the Empire State Building. We had great views of Central Park too. I took this opportunity to take pictures of the city during dusk. It was my favorite time of day, because all the lights in the building start coming on. Also it was a bit foggy and misty which made for even cooler pictures. However, it was incredibley windy up there and we could hardley stand being that cold. We took pictures, then left.

We walked down to Rockafeller Plaza to check out the giant tree and the skating rink. I got right up next to the tree, well as close as they would allow. I actually thought this too, would be a lot taller. The skating rink too...wow, much smaller than I thought. It was like the size that we have here at home. Small, but amazing none the less. I kept saying to myself, "Wow you are really here, seeing this all in person, enjoy each moment to its fullest. I spent a good 45 mintues down by the tree watching people skate and have fun. There was a bit of snow falling from the sky, just as I always imagined it. I met up with Jeremy, and we ate our last meal of the trip.....hotdogs. It was so good. We were so cold and they hit the spot.

We walked back to the hotel, got changed and exchanged presents with one another. Jeremy got a bunch of Nebraska stuff. I got him a stocking, key ring, licence plate frame, banner and beanie cap. He also got a new lens for the camera. Jeremy got me a white fossil watch. Which I love. Its so white and clean looking. He also let me go shopping at Macy's by myself and spend money on clothes. It was so fun. I even hailed and rode in a cab all by myself!

We decided the best way to end the night, was to take a trip to Time Square. It was raining a lot, but we wanted to get pictures, so we didn't give up. We took a ton of pictures and walked to the M&M store, which was surprisingly open! Of course we had to go in. I got a pair of cool socks, naturally. We walked around and headed back to the hotel. I was sad that we had to pack and get ready for home....but we did.

The next morning we had to leave pretty early. We got to the airport a few hours ahead of schedule. I slept in the chairs, while Jeremy played with his Itouch. Getting home was an adventure all in itself. Oh, we missed many flights, had flight delays, stood in 2 hour lines. By the time we got home, we were exhausted.

Overall if you take out the frustration we had with the flights and luggage, we had a wonderful time. I would defintely go back in a heart beat. I wish we lived over there. I think about what I would be doing over there right now. We'd be in the park, walking the dogs, playing with the kids. Mind you, in my imagination we'd have money to live there, and do whatever we wanted....

It was a dream come true. I am so glad that my husband and I were able to make this trip. We waited so long for it to happen. I think about our trip all the time.....It was so wonderful.

I love NYC.

If you want to see our pictures, please follow the link below. You will have to sign in to see the pictures, sorry, Jeremy and I do care somewhat about the privacy of our pictures. Hope you enjoy!

http://picasaweb.google.com/mnqhoward/HoneyMoonInNewYorkCity?locked=true#