Queen of New York City

Location: New York, New York, USA

I. Am. Exhausted.

Today began SUPER early as we had to pick up our new traveling companion, Mr. Brian Lee at JFK airport. After taking as many pictures as possible of Van Wyck and Queens Boulevard, we snatched up Brian with an authentic cardboard sign with his name on it and headed back to Brooklyn to get ready for the day.

We decided to start by taking the free Staten Island Ferry across the water so we could get some good panorama views of the Statue of Liberty and downtown Manhattan. I remembered from the last time I did liberty, that the best views in the city were from the boat that drove us to the island. Unfortunately, we had neither the time, nor money to go visit the statue, so Dan had the genius idea of taking the free ferry across and back (about an hour round trip and completely FREE! Obviously). Today, we’ve seen the first cloudy day the whole trip, but it’s somewhat fitting for the city. The views of the statue were great and the views of Manhattan were wonderful as well, although I will admit, it still never settles right to see the skyline without those two important towers.

After the ferry, we headed up to the old trade center site to see the construction of the WTC Memorial which was relatively uneventful. There were some great pictures of what it is going to look like and some good views of the construction site, but other than that, not too exciting. We did stop in this great deli though which was hit hard by the fall of the towers and had some amazing pictures of firefighters taking refuge when the air outside was too thick. Not to mention, the food was amazing and very quick.

From there we headed to Wall Street and the financial district, uptown to the Empire State Building (which for some reason I keep calling the Eiffel Tower, even just now when I typed it the first time) and ended in Rockefeller Center to watch some ice skaters and sip on some much needed caramel apple cider. About this time, it was ready to go back to JFK to pick up Dan’s parents who were flying in from Sydney for the holidays. Brian and I waited at the station in Queens while Dan took the shuttle to the airport and then we all rode the train back to the Upper West Side where the family was staying. They were such a hoot and we had such a great chat on the way. I wish we had more time to hang out, but we had promised to meet up with Miss Emma for drinks down in Gramercy so we had to depart (don’t worry, Dan will see them soon as they’re coming up to Canada for X-mas).

We stopped at Time Square on the way to Gramercy so that Brian and Dan could see the area at night (really the only time to see it) and then we met Em at a German restaurant called Rolf’s. It was so great to catch up and she joined us for dinner at a nearby pub called Barfly before we had to head back to Brooklyn for karaoke. Only… we didn’t really make it. On the way to the train station after hanging out with Emma, I got a phone call from Mary who lived in between where we were and where we were going, so we decided to meet up for just one more drink. As it usually goes with Mary, we had so much to talk about that our one drink lasted about an hour, so we just got back to Brooklyn. We’re going to go downstairs and grab some drinks here, and I’m keeping the boys waiting, so this is me stopping typing!

XOXO

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