New York, New York

I've had this desire to see New York for years. I've seen almost every other place in this country, but never the northeast. I just wanted to be able to picture what the place was like.

Our hotel was in Jersey City conveniently located right next to PATH train to NY. We were starving so we walked over to the mall for dinner, also conveniently located next to the hotel. We had our one and only celebrity siting there. After dinner, J noticed a man getting a lot of attention and recognized him as a Joe Jackson.

After dinner we took the kids into the pool/hot tub at the hotel. I wish we had remembered Loofa's arm floaties. Fefe had to learn she wasn't invincible. In the past she has pretty much always had some kind of flotation device. While we were sitting in the hottub, she insisted on jumping and running around without me holding her. I decided there was only one way for her to learn so I just let her go for it. She predictably jumped in and I fished her out. She seemed a little wiser after that. I need to get her into swimming lessons.

We woke up early so we would have sufficient time to navigate the subway system. We had 11am tickets for the statue of liberty. They only allow 240 people up to the crown each day. I had bought our tickets several months in advance. It was fun feeling like we had all access passes. We were able to pass everyone in the will call line. Of course there was the old security screening process. J stayed down on the pedestal with Loofa and Fefe because they were too small to climb to the crown. Those stairs were intense. It was a spiral staircase that just went up and up.

Inside the crown.

A very windy pedestal.

That's a big foot.

The things kids come up with.

We jumped back on the ferry right when we got down and ate our lunch there. Our next stop was the Museum of National History. One of my favorite book series, starting with Relic is mostly based in that museum. The kids were intrigued by the Night at the Museum aspect. We got in pretty cheaply. They had a suggested price, but apparently you could make your own offer. I told them I'd pay $10/adult and $4/kid, meaning $36. I thought that was a steal compared to the $70 they suggested. Later I realized she misunderstood me and charged us $14 total. Nice!

We didn't get a whole ton of pics inside because the lighting was atrocious.

The fabled jackelope. Oh wait, maybe not.

Watch out for the horns.

Never thought I'd get a chance to see the Star of India. Beautiful.

Dum dum.

The kids were tired and hungry by the time we finished the museum. We had one more stop before dinner, Times Square! That was hilarious. We arrived after some slight troubles figuring out which direction was north. All those tall buildings make it impossible to see the sun. When we got there I thought we were facing the famous ball drop billboard, but realized after taking our first picture that it was the wrong one. Oops. So we turned around and took another. By that point, the kids grumpiness was on overdrive.

Our final stop for the night was Gray's Papaya, another dream of mine. When I was pregnant with Fefe and feeling so morning sick I was watching a show on Food Network about the 10 most famous hot dog places in the country. It actually looked appetizing to me so it made a big impression, particularly Gray's Papaya.

While we were waiting for our food, a homeless guy came in and started begging for money. The staff behind the counter started yelling at him to leave. He came over to us and asked us. I told him no, but he wouldn't leave. He moved over to J and started on him. Then he started giving the kids fist bumps. When he got to Ephant he grabbed her hand and started to stroking. At that point I yelled at him and told him to stop and leave. He was completely unintelligible and wouldn't budge. The staff finally dragged him out. Ephant was somewhat freaked out. Boy was the food good though. They had a mango drink that was even better than the mango lassis I've had before. On our way back to the subway we saw an authentic New York protest march against the police, escorted by the police. Ironic, huh? NYPD, KKK!

Our second night in the hotel was fabulous. I stayed up late to read. Big mistake. We forgot to put a pullup on Fefe and when I climbed into bed it was sopping. We stripped everything off and managed to get comfortable. Fefe decided to wake up sobbing every hour or so after that. I stayed up till 3:30am to wash her blankie since she peed on that too. I was hoping when it was done she would calm down, but no such luck. I wish we had had ibuprofen.

We had no set schedule the next morning so we could sleep in a little. Our first destination was pizza. I had gotten a recommendation for a place in the Bronx. We took a subway from Grand Central to ride up to the Bronx. It turned into the ride from (*&%. J tried to convince me to turn around after 1 hour, but I was determined to eat at this pizza place. When we got there there was no place to sit. We were exhausted and decided to go all the way back to New York to find a place we could sit down and eat. So, what started at 11:30am ended at 3:30pm in a very subpar pizza place.

On our way back to the subway we walked by the empire state building. I had considered going up, but decided nay after seeing how much it cost just to go up. Ridiculous. I had had my fill of expenses at that point.

We took our final subway ride back to New Jersey and got into our car to drive down to Philadelphia. It cost $4 just to drive over one bridge. Bleh. The cost alone was making me homesick, but we still had a couple more days to spend in Philly.