I love New York in the spring!

My sister, Holly, and I just returned from our trip to New York last Friday night, pretty late. It was the first time either of us had been to the Big Apple, so we did EVERYTHING. Well, everything we could. We saw a lot of stuff. We basically divided Manhattan into regions and tackled one each day. Here's how it looked:

Tuesday, May 15: Midtown, Time's Square
~ Arrive at LGA about 2:30 or so. Get yelled at by taxi driver for not tipping him for our "tour".
~ Wander around Times Square, buy tix for "Rent".
~ Saw 5th Avenue, NY Public Library, Empire State Building, Macy's, Sephora on Time's Square, Hershey's Store, Dave Letterman Studio
~ Saw "Rent" at Nederlander, 3rd row from front, got spit on by main character.
(Saw lots of skin today - 4 teenage guys in towels in Time's Square as well as the Naked Cowgirl. Yikes. We also watched her get arrested.)

Wednesday, May 16: Central park and Upper-Midtown
~ Breakfast at deli across street from hotel
~ Walked up 5th to Bloomingdales, St. Patrick's Cathedral, Barney's, Dean and Deluca, Rockefeller Center and Plaza, H&M, FAO Schwartz
~ Lunch at Serendipity (that was delicious! Frozen Hot Chocolate a new favorite.)
~ Central Park: Belvedere Castle, Children's Zoo, Metropolitan Museum of Art
~ Subway down to Time's Square to buy tix for "Legally Blonde" when it started raining
~ Dinner at the "Pig and Whistle", and Irish Pub across the street from our hotel. (There were 2 Irish Pubs on our street , and it was unusual for me to find them both filled with actual Irish people. Everyone who worked in them was Irish, and half the patrons were Irish. This was especially fun during soccer games as we could hear them from our hotel room.)
~ Our hotel was next to an Episcopalian Church, so we dropped in for the Solemn Evensong assembly, the service to prepare for the Day of Ascension on Thursday. There were only about 20-30 people in the crowd, so the rector and one of the other priests came up to meet us afterward. Interesting reflection on the churches in New York followed, particularly ones in the middle of the theater district.
~ "Legally Blonde" at 8. Highly recommend this one if you will be there soon. It was really funny - the music was great.
~ Late dinner at Ray's Pizza - what is it about New York pizza? Is there some special ingedient? It doesn't seem like rocket science but no other pizza tastes like it. Yum.

Thursday, May 17: Little Italy, China Town, Greenwich Village, SoHo
~ Went down to China Town and bartered all morning. Don't really like bartering because it feels like someone is getting ripped off.
~ Up to Little italy after that where they were filming a movie or something, and lunch at Angelo's which was delicious (Thanks, Lance and Melissa, for the tip!)
~ Wandered up to Greenwich and SoHo, looked at NYU and surrounding shops, got a haircut, had dessert at Max Brenner even though we were nowhere near hungry yet.
~ Subway back up to St. Patrick's again, then back to H&M again to shop.
~ Saw "Spring Awakening"
~ Dinner at Maxie's on Time's Square and had New York cheesecake - also delicious.

Friday, May 18th: Financial District
~ Breakfast at diner across from hotel, big debate on whether or not guy at neighboring table was Mickey Rourke or not.
~ Subway down to WTC memorial, talk to local cop about how it used to look and what 9/11 felt like
~ Walked around Battery Park and saw Statue of Liberty and Statten Island Ferry
~ Subway back to hotel, head back to airport after lunch at street hot dog vendor (tasted like hot dog...)
~ Cabby drove through Harlem to get to LGA, which seems like the best way to view Harlem - very interesting.
~ Flew out of New York about 6:30 or so.

I had a great time in New York. We wore ourselves out walking! Next time maybe we will actually go into more museums, or out to the Statue of Liberty. There was just so much to do. I've been trying to pick my favorite part but I just don't know what it could be. I loved going to the shows, and seeing lots of stuff that had been on TV and in movies, and the food was great all the way around, especially Serendipity. The one question all the tourists asked each other was, "Could you live here?" We had a long conversation with a woman from Kentucky about that on the subway, and we decided that if you had lots of money, and got to pick the area, it would be fun to live in New York. I will definitely go back out to visit though. Thank you so much to those of you who sent me - it was strange to see all of these young, professional, wealthy people who are only connected to this earth through their work, and realizing how rare it is to be so loved by a big group like you guys, and having a family that goes beyond blood. That was probably the biggest lesson from my trip, and might have been my favorite part after all. Maybe the best part of a trip to a place like New York is coming back home and realizing you prefer what you already had.