New York, Day 4

The rains came Friday night and stayed through Saturday. I am so thankful for my friend, Jen, who lent me the bright, warm rain jacket you see me wearing.

Here I was feeling a tad bit goofy and flirty, so I decided to show my love to Brad by sticking a camera in his face while he was looking at a map.

Yep, still trying to figure out the selfie stick. I'm telling you, Androids were not meant to be hassled with such vanity.

There we go.

Oh my goodness, it was cold. I think it was in the low 30's, which is cold! Maybe I've lived in Southern California for too long.

The new Freedom Tower.

I was enamored by the little historic buildings by the port.

There was something about the concrete jungle in Downtown which made me excited. Maybe it was the powerful stance of buildings tall enough to block out the sun.

I don't get modern art. If ever you want some statement statue outside your building, please pay me and my kids millions to do this "art". I'm sure we could come up with something.

The Freedom Tower up close.

Rows of apartment buildings.

Somehow me living in an apartment building in Torrance isn't very cool, but I think if I lived in an apartment building in New York City I would be super cool.

The very impressive post office.

The Chrysler Building. 

The Empire State Building.

We were thoroughly overwhelmed by the seeming acreage of Eatly.

This is half of my lunch. It's basically a salad stacked between two pieces of bread. It was enormous and I felt so very virtuous eating it!

The Flat Iron. Should you need a dozen more pictures of this one building, ask Brad. He's got them.

At my first sighting of the Statue of Liberty I cried. I couldn't believe I was really seeing the picture of freedom that America is so well known for and I was so thankful for the experience. 

I had no idea New York City had so much history. I wasn't expecting to see...

Alexander Hamilton's grave...

 the original foundation of the fort that protected the budding city...

or the spot George Washington was signed into presidency.

And still the history is entombed within the towering walls of the present.

I considered myself to have fully lived the New York experience when we shared the subway with a man carrying joint in one hand and reading Galactic Pot Healer in the other.

That night we took a very windy bus ride through to Brooklyn.

This not-so-virtuous plate of food was our super late, super expensive, dinner at the hotel lobby. Another twelve hours out on the town.

New York, Day 3

Meanwhile, back in California...

The kids thoroughly enjoyed their vacation with good friends. They got to do novel things, like walk a dog, pick up the poop from the backyard, and eat Lucky Charms.

In New York we had an early morning breakfast scheduled with my cousin Kristian who lives in New Jersey. Having not slept for nearly forty-eight hours I missed my first alarm and woke up twenty minutes before we were supposed to meet up! However, it turns out that when you don't have kids to get ready and you're not cooking breakfast, you don't need all that much time, and we got to the restaurant, which was a block away from the hotel, even before Kris and his girlfriend got there!

The place was swanky! 

There is my beloved cousin who was the annoying little brother I never wanted. I love him. Now last time I posted something about him on the blog three women texted me asking if he was single. No, ladies, he is not single. Sorry.

After our fancy breakfast, Brad and I jumped on our first of three bus tours. Our first destination was Uptown. I always have to ask Brad where we went, because keeping the Uptown and Midtown and Downtown was all a little too much for me.

It took us some troubleshooting to figure out the selfie stick.

This was their YMCA. I was highly impressed.

My favorite tour guide on the Big Bus Tours.

Which church this is and what it's known for I can't remember. We saw nearly a dozen different cathedrals of different denominations and since I can't even keep the districts straight you don't really expect me to remember all the different beautiful churches, do you?

We got off the bus at Museum Mile with every intention of going into The Met, but after realizing that it was Saturday so every other tourist in the city was also going into The Met we decided to come back on a rainy day. We never did make it into the museum.

After sharing halal food on the steps of the museum we walked into Central Park.

We walked...

and we walked...

and we walked...

and we probably saw a fourth of the park.

I admit I went a little nuts when I saw robin redbreasts all over the park. The kids and I have been learning about birds for the past month, so seeing an iconic bird not in our local area was super exciting to me. We also spotted blue jays, another bird too-good for the constant-spring weather of Los Angeles.

We walked up to this garden right after a man proposed to his girlfriend! She was wiping tears off her face and admiring her new ring.

I made Brad take a picture of me in front of this statue honoring Frances Hodgson Burnett, because I knew what she was knew who she was and I was super impressed with myself. No one else cared.

With the three-day bus tour Brad scored we got free entry into the Museum of the City of New York.

Mom and Dad, why didn't my childhood dollhouse look like this?

The rain came that evening. We ate on the balcony of a pub called the Pig N' Whistle.

Twelve hours later we were back in the hotel room and our feet thanked us.