Navigating New York (part 1)

Our adventure started Thursday October 12, 2008 at around 11:30 am. Miranda who was nice enough to drive, picked Michelle and I up at our house. We drove to Las Vegas pretty uneventfully arriving a little before the scheduled time. We stopped at In and Out Burger for a quick bite to eat before continuing on to her brothers house. He drove us to the airport and dropped us off. We checked in and got rid of our bags, proceed through our first of many security lines, and met Christina at our gate. The airline we flew on was Jet Blue. This being my first experience on this airline, I was quite excited. We boarded the plane and took off up into the air. The plane ride was nice but long.

When we arrived at JFK we gathered our bags at baggage claim and began to walk to the airtrain which would take us to our final destination of Manhattan. A shuttle bus guy named John stopped us telling us it wasn't good to take the subway and he would take us on a tour on the way to our hotel. We asked how much and the price was named at $20. Miranda being the amazing person she is ended up negotiating the price down to $12. Considering the subway would have been $7 and we didn't know exactly where we were going we decided on that. The shuttle was a large van that had 3 bench seats and 2 buckets up front. 3 people were already inside. We jumped in stopped on other place checking for people needing rides, then stopped for gas which was kind of weird because he only put 5 gallons in and I would have thought he should have done it before. Anyway then began the adventure of New York traffic.
For those who have never had the experience, its pretty exhilarating and a little okay a lot scary. Every bump we went over also caused us to bounce up into the air, there were a lot of bumps. We ended up with some pretty good laughs. So New York Traffic. Even at 11:30 at night, Crazy. There was a few times when I didn't know if we would make it, but we survived arriving at our first destination the Big Apple Hostel.

We unloaded our bags and made our way inside. This place was nothing spectacular, but I wasn't expecting much just a place to sleep for a few hours. We checked in. Our room was on the 6th floor. The elevator opened being quite small. We decided to take turns Miranda and Christina going first.

They got in with their stuff and the elevator moved. I decided the stairs were my best choice. Turning around, Michelle and I hiked up the 6 flights of stairs carrying our bags. It was an interesting experience reminding me of England all over again.
Our room it turned out was a small space with 2 sets of bunk beds in it. By this time it was about 12:15 am and we were a block away from Time Square.

After the exhilarating ride from the airport I knew there was no way I was sleeping anytime soon. So Miranda wanted to go see Times Square and I was all for it because its the best at night when its all lit up.

So all 4 of us walked the block to Time Square. New York absolutely never sleeps at least not when I was there. There is always something going on and Times Square was no difference. We were out there for an hour or so taking pictures and just walking around. Very eye opening for this small town girl.
We returned to the hostel to get some sleep. Michelle and I were planning on going to the Today Show in the morning. We probably got to sleep around 3:00 am. I should say attempted to sleep. I have this problem if there is light, I pretty much can't sleep. The blinds on the window really didn't do their job and between the lights and the noise of people working on the street, there wasn't much of a chance for sleep. Finally at 5:30 I gave up trying and got up and got ready. I woke Michelle up at 6:00 and then we walked over to the Today Show. One of my favorite things about New York (and I loved this about London also) is the fact that you can navigate around so easy and walk or take the subway everywhere.

We got there and found a space in the crowd where we could be seen if the camera happened to come our way. It was kind of cold but fun just being there. About 45 mins into the show Al Roker came out and started shaking peoples hands. A little while later Meredith Vieira and Matt Lauer came out also.

Al Roker made it around to us about 8:00 and shook my hand. Its was pretty cool. Then he stopped a little away from Michelle and did the weather and you could see me for a second and Michelle almost the whole time. It was so fun. We stayed for a few minutes more and then went back to the hostel to meet up with Miranda and Christina. The Grand Hyatt where we were spending the rest of our trip told us that we could check around 9 and if a room was available we could check in and if not we could leave our luggage there. So we stopped by a little shop by our hostel and ate breakfast. I had egg and sausage on a croissant with orange juice. It was quite good. We then walked to the Hyatt.

Checking at the front desk we found a room to be available. We were told to take 1 of the 5 last elevators. There were a lot of elevators. By the end of the trip, I ended up not minding them quite a much as before because everything is so tall, you pretty much have to take the elevator some time.

We got to our room and appreciated it so much more after what we had before. We dropped off our luggage and decided to go to the Statue of Liberty.

Our hotel is hooked onto Grand Central Station so we found our way to the subway and bought week long metro tickets. I had been warned about the subways there but I found them quite easy to maneuver and didn't mind them at all. The tunnels were a little hot though but the ride itself not bad. When we got down to our exit we got out and found the sports museum where we were to pick up our New York passes we had already bought. We then proceeded to the ferry line. It was huge. We probably waited 45 mins to an hour just waiting inline to get in a building. There a lot of people on the streets either playing music, singing, selling, all kinds of things. Once we got in the building we had to go through security. Metal detectors and all that fun stuff. Again the first of many. The water looked really choppy because the wind was blowing. I was a little afraid of getting motion sickness so Michelle let me have a Bonnie which is the less drowsing version of dramamine. Well combining an already sleepless night and motion sickness medicine (even the none drowsy form) makes for a very tired Emily. I absolutely loved it though.



The whole ferry ride. Seeing the New York skyline and the Statue was amazing. I just kept thinking of all those who came before me looking for something good and a sense of freedom and the vision they must have had after a long time on the sea. When the statue first came into view.

Wow. We got off on Liberty Island and walked around for awhile taking picture and enjoying it.





We then stood inline to get back on the ferry which would take us over to Ellis Island.


It was a pretty humbling experience to be there also.





When we got back to the docks of Manhattan, we decided since we were this close to go see ground zero.
We walked up the street and it was weird because it seems familiar. Then I realized this was probably the same street and had seen footage so many times before from when 9 11 happened.

It was pretty crazy. The area is pretty closed off but across the street they have a place where you can look out and view what is going on. While we were up there, a tour was going on so we eavesdropped in on the conversation. From what I take it the people who give tours there volunteer as a remembrance to fallen family members who lost their life on 9 11. She said I think it was her brother had the day off and was on his way to the beach when he heard what had happened and rushed back to help. She said everyone who went into the building knew they probably wouldn't make it back out alive but they did it anyway. That is how they were. He died there. It was very touching.

Then downstairs is a memorial to the American Express workers who died there. Its got all their names in a circle and a little thing their families wrote about them and then there are drops of water coming from the ceiling that look like tear drops. Its really neat.
We then decided we should probably head back up to get ready for the play. We rode the subway to Grand Central then went up to our room. I changed clothes and then tried to take a quick nap before heading out again. We walked up to Broadway stopping for a piece of pizza on the way. We had bought tickets for The Little Mermaid before leaving and were picking them up at will call.

The play was so neat even if I kind of fell asleep a couple of times. Some of the effects were so cool. The part where Eric is drowning the Ariel saves him, I still can't figure out how they got back to the bottom. Amazing.
After the play we went back to the hotel. After everyone got ready for bed I showered and got ready and fell asleep and slept a nice long sleep until Miranda woke me up at 9. I couldn't believe I had slept so long.
TO BE CONTINUED.......