NYC Day 1 1/2

I say "Day 1 and a half" because we got there kinda late in the evening. Nothing exciting happened, so I'll just group it together with the next day, which was our complete first day, thus DAY 1.

And my other beginning disclaimer: these New York posts will be HUGE. Sorry! I am trying to hard to cut the pictures down and keep it brief, but sometimes I just can't help myself. Prepare for overload.

Soooo.... having said that, here's my cute little TV screen on the airplane. Look, I'm in the middle of the country!

Little did we know, that a few minutes after I took that picture of the GPS, our flight had to divert and land in Detroit because a passenger on our plane had an urgent health problem. Of course they never give out a bunch of details, but you can't help but feel really sorry for the person who has to land all alone in a strange city, have all the paramedics come on the plane and wheel her away in the tiny narrowest wheelchair I've ever seen. How sad! That was definitely a first for me. Cities I've now been to: add to the list - Detroit!

Here's our group of 8 (the 9th person joining us later on Day 1) at dinner right after arriving. This restaurant was recommended to us by a stranger on the street - turned out pretty good. Massive side salads, but other than that, a success.

The next morning, we set out and bought our double-decker tour bus tickets. This is me and Janice, my old BYU pal. Well... she's not old, but my time at BYU now is.

Gotta love the streets and traffic in the big city. The equal aggressiveness between drivers AND pedestrians is quite the experience.

Our first stop on the bus tour was the Empire State Building! Always a favorite of mine. The skies were a little hazy this day, but the view was still amazing.

Looking straight dooooowwwwwwnnnnnnn. EEEEK!

And wouldn't ya know, King Kong was there that day! He gave me a very smelly kiss. With one leg up and everything. (sorry it's blurry)

After a quick lunch and potty breaks, next stop: Chinatown! Now, speaking for myself, this is one of the MAIN reasons I go to NYC. Oh boy we love the knock-off purses. It's a sneaky business, this purse shopping. Now we know JUST where to look and JUST how to ask to get the big names, and then you have to bargain the price down. Fun fun!

Here is my mom in her natural habitat.

Janalee, Me, Mom (Sherida), and Lori with some of our loot! (And that wasn't all of it, not by a long-shot.) Yah, those bags were HEAVY and we had to truck them all around the rest of the day.

Next stop, Ground Zero. This is basically just a huge construction area right now. It's all fenced and blocked off, so there's not much to see. We did find some nice memorials on the building next door. In particular, I liked this engraving of some sort that stretched MANY feet down a long brick wall. It reads "Dedicated to those who fell, and to those who carry on." Pictured are all the firefighters and the bottom has all the names of those who were lost. There were lots and LOTS of names, way more than I could get in the picture. And that's JUST the firefighters. It's hard to describe, but I'm sure you've felt it anywhere in the country. Horrified. Staggering. Sobering.

Across the street from the WTC site is St. Paul's Chapel. It's small but beautiful. Apparently there was not a single bit of damage to this church from the fall of the towers. Buildings 12 blocks away had their windows blown out, but this was right across the street and left unscathed. It was then used as a makeshift resting place for emergency workers as they battled in the rubble and rescue efforts.

The grounds of the chapel are a very old cemetery. It's one of the oldest in the whole city. The headstones are all crumbled and unreadable, and it's quite creepy! The contrast with these bright spring tulips was a little striking.

Next it was back to the hotel to drop off those horrendous shopping bags. We had a nice dinner all together. Then a few of us made plans to try a little dessert bar I had heard about on the Martha Stewart show. They serve a 3-course dessert for only $12, and it's all very exquisite and fancy stuff. How could I pass that up???

Diana and I riding the subway on the search to find this place.

Diana, Lindsey, MIL (Jeri) and Me squished at our little table.

Here's our 2nd course. I simply CANNOT describe how YUMMY this place was! What a fun experience that I've never done before. Definitely one of my top 5 things of the whole trip.

And on the subway back home late that night... who could forget Subway Steve? He sang, played the trumpet, and played the keyboard all at the same time. And he was pretty good! TOO FUNNY!