DAY 4: 6/26
We left DC, heading in the general direction of New York City.
First, however, we stopped in Hershey, PA, so I could achieve my
life-long dream of visiting Chocolate World! It was such a happy
place. Before we even got inside, I got my picture taken with
a
giant Reese's peanut butter cup! I had to fight off some of the
three- and four-year-olds, but it was worth it. =) We went
on
inside to the tour showing how chocolate was made, which was pretty
interesting. Then it was time for lunch, so we ate at (where
else?)
Chocolatetown Cafe. Before we left, we went to the store there
and I
bought two cookies--one chocolate cookie with chocolate chips, and
one chocolate cookie with Reese's peanut butter chips. I was
too
full to eat them at the time, so I put them in the cooler for later.
After Hershey, we thought we'd take a brief drive through
Philadelphia and maybe see the Liberty Bell and do a tour through
Independence Hall or something. HAHAHAHA! How silly of
us to think
we could do ANY of those things! I don't know if it was because
it
was so close to Independence Day, or just post-9/11 fears, but the
whole area there was blocked off. We parked a couple buildings
down
and walked over there. The Liberty Bell is encased in some kind
of
pavilion--there is a small area where you can get close enough to the
window to see it. Of course that's where everyone was, so we
looked
at it through the window and walked on toward Independence Hall.
This was roped off as well, but we went around to the back where you
could at least SEE the building. We saw a sign saying that you
could
see the Liberty Bell and get a tour of Independence Hall by
appointment only. OH. Well, we didn't know, and there were
no more
appointments for the day, so we just went on towards NYC.
By the way, may I say that Philadelphia drivers are CRAZY. In
some
of those old downtown side streets, there were no lines of any kind,
and they were one-way. So you would assume that those were one-lane
streets, right? WRONG. The streets have as many lanes as
the
Philadelphia drivers want them to have--only limited by the number
of
cars that could actually fit. Even if they couldn't fit next
to me, they would
honk at me in an attempt to get me to move over. Also, they would
occasionally just stop in the middle of the road for no apparent reason.
I just
ignored the honking and made my way to the highway as quickly as possible.
So on to NYC. The craziness here started when we tried to enter
the
Lincoln Tunnel. After the toll booths, about ten lanes had to
merge
into 3. On the highway, this is not a problem. But for
some reason,
entering the Lincoln Tunnel, it WAS a problem. People were honking
at EVERYTHING. It was awesome. We made it to the other
side and
this is where my skills came in handy. Of course I am referring
to
my ability to make any turn from any lane and cut in front of people
when necessary. But the cool thing about New York was that everyone
else was doing the same thing. So I fit right in!
=)
Well, when we got to our hotel, the first thing we discovered is that
the hotel parking is $20 a day, or anytime you want to move your car,
whichever is more. We pulled up to this place, and they said
we had
to get all of our stuff out of the car right then. I asked if
we
would be able to come back to the car in case we forgot something or
couldn't get it all in one trip, and they said no. They pointed
to
an elevator where the cars ride up to the deck, and said that anytime
I wanted my car to come down that elevator it was $20. Well,
Aliece
and I went into high gear and started getting out all of our stuff,
since other people were waiting.
We get up to the hotel room, and what should we find but that the air
conditioning is out? Remember, it is VERY HOT and humid.
They said
they were going to work on it, so we decided to take a walk.
We went
down to Times Square (we were only six or seven blocks away) and
looked around there. It was about 9 or 10 at night and
the place
was hopping. Like they say, the city never sleeps! I thought
the
life and the vibrancy were fantastic. Anyway, when we got back
to
our room it was still just as hot. So I made a call to the front
desk and
found out that they were not going to be able to fix it. To which
I replied
that they needed to get us another room. The clerk tried to say
there
wasn't another room, but I told her I had every confidence that she
could
find one. And guess what--she did! It was actually a nicer
room too.
DAY 5: 6/27
We had decided this would be our "walking" day. And walk we did.
(I
started my day by getting a chocolate croissant from the French place
next door and a mocha frappucino from the Starbucks across the
street...yum!) Our hotel was on 49th and 8th. We walked
up to 59th
street, which borders the south end of Central Park, and walked
through there for a little bit. We went to Barney's New York
on 61st
and Madison. We didn't buy anything--we just wanted to see it.
=)
We then walked back to 5th Avenue and walked down there. We stopped
in a few stores and I got a hot dog from a street vendor for lunch.
We walked all the way down to 34th street and went to the Empire
State building. We went up to the top and enjoyed the view from
what
is once again New York's tallest building. We then walked back
to
our hotel and took a nap. (Hey, we walked about 40 blocks all
in all
that day--we were tired!) We got up about 8 and went to dinner.
We
had thought about going to the Brazilian grill across the street, but
it was too expensive, so we ended up going to the Italian trattoria
across the street instead. It was very good.
DAY 6: 6/28
This was to be our "subway" day. So (after I did the same routine
for breakfast, except this time I got a white chocolate mocha) we
went to the station by our hotel and rode down to Battery Park.
From
there we caught a ferry that went to Liberty Island and Ellis Island.
We had determined ahead of time that we would not attempt to do
anything with the Statue of Liberty other than take her picture as
we
rode by. It ended up being a good thing too, because we were
informed that the statue was closed that day. We got off at Ellis
Island as planned and hit the Immigration Museum. That place
was
wonderful. We spent about three hours in there. Just to
stand in
the same place where so many people had stood before with nothing but
their hopes and dreams was quite awe-inspiring. It made me wonder
if
I would have had the courage to do what they did. (Can you tell
yet
that I'm something of a history buff?)
Afterwards, we walked around downtown and tried to go to a penguin
store that was supposed to be in this certain shopping center.
(I am also
a penguin buff.) It took us forever to find the shopping center
(so long
that we stopped for lunch at a little deli on the way), and once we
did,
there was no penguin store! I guess they had moved or gone out
of
business and neglected to mention it on their website. =(
We then got back on the subway and rode to the St. Mark's Square
neighborhood, which had some eclectic shops that Aliece wanted to
visit. But we had an interesting encounter in the subway.
For some
reason I still had my Washington DC Metro card in my purse and I
accidentally grabbed that one instead of my card for the NYC subway.
Do you know that it didn't work there? Yeah, I couldn't believe
it
either. I kept scanning it and scanning it and wondering why
it
wasn't working. Now follow me here--the next few events all took
place in the space of two or three seconds: a guy behind me grabbed
my wrist to try to help me scan it in correctly, at the same time a
guy leaving the station scanned his in for me, and just as I went
through the turnstile, the guy who had grabbed my wrist realized I
had the wrong card and tried to restrain me! Right then I realized
that I had the wrong card too, but I went through the turnstile
anyway and yanked my hand away from the guy behind me. Was I
scared?
Nah. I was in too much of a hurry! =) Besides, he
was just doing
his part to keep people from cheating the transit authorities, and
I
would have produced the correct card if anyone had asked me.
Anyway, as we were making our way to our subway line, someone stopped
us for directions just like in DC. She was going the same direction
we were and was just confused which line to take and in which
direction. So I told her just to follow us.
After visiting the shops in St. Mark's square, we got back onto the
subway and headed toward the World Trade Center site. The WTC
station itself was actually open, so we just rode all the way down.
We went to the place where the city had set up a viewing area.
It
was so strange--just a big hole in the ground where two huge
buildings bustling with people had once stood. The steel girders
in
the shape of a cross were still there, with a flag next to the cross.
Across the street there was a fence with some memorials hung on it
which were very moving. We walked down the street a little ways.
The shopping center directly across from the WTC was still open, but
a lot of the little shops around the area looked to be out of
business, or at least closed for renovation.
We rode back up to our hotel and took another nap. We got up at
about 8:00 again and rode up to Central Park to look for a place to
eat. We walked around a bit and settled on a bagel and sandwich
place. It was pretty good. When we went in there, we were
the only
customers. Once we got our food and sat down, people started
coming
in non-stop! What can I say--we're trendsetters! After
that, we
decided just to walk back to the hotel.
DAY 7: 6/29
We checked out of the hotel and went to get my car. When we opened
up the cooler to set some stuff in there, do you know what we found?
My special cookies from Hershey, all dissolved! DOH!
I had
forgotten they were in there in the rush to get our stuff out of the
car. I was SO looking forward to eating them too!
So yes, NYC ended on a somewhat sad note with the loss of my cookies,
but better days were coming for us. Stick around for Part 3,
which
will hopefully include everything between NYC and Minnesota (our next
big stop).