New York City

Monday morning Jon and I headed to back to Albany to catch a train to the city. We had a rental car and were going to return it at the airport and then catch a cab to the train station.....until we realized it would cost us $40 to do that. So Jon's dad kindly let us take his truck to park at the train station so we could then drive ourselves back to their house after our trip to the City. We left Hadley at the house, much to her chagrin. She kept saying, "I wanna go!" like she was being left out. It was kind of sad.

We made it on the right train!

I drove the truck and Jon drove the rental car in front of me with the GPS system. Well we were in Albany, on toll roads which are totally foreign to me, when the GPS decided to take forever to update. As soon as it did Jon saw we needed to be exiting right that second. So in the little rental car he zipped over to the exit and I kept driving on since the truck can't really just zip over two lanes to an exit. Thus I became lost in Albany with about an hour and half to get to the train. After several frustrating attempts to get myself to the airport I was starting to give up and to stop and ask for directions. I didn't have any cash on my for toll roads and so I was nervous about getting on the highway only to find out I had to pay. Finally I saw a sign for the highway and decided I'd just get on and see where it took me. Luckily, it took me to the airport without having to pay any tolls. I picked up Jon and we made it to the train station with time to spare.

It was our first time on a commuter train and we had no idea what we were doing.  They wait until 10 minutes before the train departs to announce which gate to go to. We were nervous we would miss it but we made it. The seats had so much space it made airplanes look like miniature toys. The train followed the Hudson river south to New York city and we got to see a lot of the country. We even saw a Bald Eagle with a fish in its talons about 20 yards from the train, it was pretty cool. Two and a half hours later we arrived in Penn Station.

From Penn Station we started our adventure. We stopped at Eataly for lunch because we were STARVING. We had no idea what the place was like so when we sat down at the first table we could find it happened to be a menu of only seafood and vegetarian plates. Ummm what? We then figured out this place was a farmer's market with several little restaurants in it. We got up from the table and headed over to the Pizza and Panini's restaurant which had a 30 minute wait. Go figure. We were going to walk around while we waited and discovered a fancy restaurant that had immediate seating so we just went with that. Probably not the best decision either as we couldn't really decipher the menu and I ended up ordering raw beef. It didn't taste bad, it was sliced thin like prosciutto, but not filling at all and not what I wanted. Jon traded with me and we ended up mostly sharing his dish which was some sort of Gnocchi. It was good but not great.

From Eataly we went to the Subway and purchased our Metro Card and headed over to 5th Ave to FAO Schwarz. The subway took some getting used to. We quickly learned to check we were going in the right direction before swiping our metro card. The weather was cold and dark but not raining yet. As we headed in to FAO Schwarz we saw two guys not trying to hide they were dressed and acting like women. Only in New York. We enjoyed walking around looking at all the toys, giant candy, lego statues, and of course the big piano. We decided to get Hadley a souvenir from there and ended up buying her a sequin covered coin purse in the shape of an M&M (her favorite candy) and an FAO Schwarz shirt.

Our first subway ride

Playing on the big piano

We headed from there down to Rockefeller Plaza, seeing all the famous 5th Ave shops on the way. Once in Rockefeller Plaza we visited the Lego Store and took a lot of pictures of the area. We then walked to our hotel to check in. On the way we saw a store strictly devoted to M&M's right down the street from our hotel. We stopped in but saw nothing of worth to buy.

Rockefeller Plaza

Making my own mini-lego man

We checked in to the Belvedere Hotel near Times Square and rested for about an hour before heading back out. On our way to dinner it started to rain so we had to stop for an umbrella. We had quite the ride and walk to dinner down in Brooklyn but the dinner at Grimaldi's Pizza was FANTASTIC! It was a small hole in the wall that didn't accept checks or credit cards and made their own mozzarella cheese. It rained the whole time we ate dinner and then stopped as we were about to walk to the Brooklyn Bridge.

Delicious Pizza

The Brooklyn Bridge was a great place to be at night with all the lights of the city. Part of the bridge was under construction so it obscured our view somewhat but still nice. Jon took a lot of great pictures and got the chance to yell back at a cyclist who called him stupid. A great New York experience. We decided it was time to head to Times Square and on the way we stopped at Grand Central Station.

Brooklyn Bridge

There wasn't anything exciting at Grand Central Station, it was just a big, beautiful building to look at.

Grand Central Station

We hit up Times Square with all it's flashing lights. Nothing real special. We bought a few souvenirs and headed back to our hotel. We were beat! Our feet hurt and our legs were tired.

Day 2 in another post.....