New York Friday

Friday was the day that we had reserved for walking around and exploring, although we still had a few places we definitely wanted to be sure and see. To begin, here's the view from the front of our apartment in Chelsea - P.S. 11. I loved the mural on the side of the building! And here's the entrance to our apartment. Unfortunately I completely forgot to take pictures of the interior, but it was a great place to stay.

We walked a few blocks south to the Chelsea Market to begin our day. It's in an old warehouse that has been renovated - not what I expected but very cool.

I was especially impressed by the bakery. I even took a video of them working but this post is long enough with only pictures!

The sweet shop was great too. This is where I bought my breakfast, a chocolate mousse torte. Yum!!

Here we are enjoying our treats. Jessica had a caramel eclair and Becky enjoyed various flavors of rugelach, a traditional Jewish treat.

After the Chelsea Market we took the subway to Greenwich Village. We just happened to walk down Perry Street (apparently one of the prettiest in the village) and saw the apartment where Sex and the City was filmed.

We then headed toward Washington Square Park and New York University's campus. Here is the dorm where Erik lived during the summer he was in New York, Goddard Hall.

The famous arch in Washington Square Park with a view of the Empire State Building in the background.

Hayden Hall - the dorm where Megan stayed the summer before Erik was there.

Erik's only request was that we got some pizza from Ben's...

... and ate it in the fountain in the park.

It was a really fun experience, especially with all the street musicians, artists, photographers, kids and tourists we were able to watch.

After the park we spent some time in the NYU bookstore and when we came out it was raining. Again. But, with it being our last day in the city, we had to brave the weather and enjoy what we could. Here's Broadway in Soho.

Although we were able to stand the drizzle for quite a while, eventually we gave in and found a restaurant for an early dinner. We settled on the Blaue Gans, a German restaurant in Soho or Tribeca - I can't remember which.

We shared liptauer and spätzle for appetizers and I had wiener schnitzel with potato salad for my entree.

The waitress was very persistant and insisted we try a dessert. We ended up with Salzburger nöckerl and didn't regret it for a second!

After dinner we realized we were very close to the Brooklyn Bridge, so we decided to walk over it as long as we were able to stand the cold. We had a great view of the city and it was a great way to end our adventure!

Thank you so much to Becky who treated Jessica and me to such a fun and memorable trip. I had an amazing time with both of you and am so thankful we were able to spend the entire week together!

New York Thursday

Our late nights and early mornings caught up with us a bit on Thursday when we all slept until almost 9:00! After having breakfast at Cafe Champignon in Chelsea, seeing the police rush in as we walked out of the building and meeting a few Lady Gagas on the subway we arrived at Battery Park to take the ferry to see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. We had to wait in line for a total of two hours (what a waste of time!!), but luckily we had entertainment...

...and met some friends! This is Dr. A. Ravi Kanth, a cardiologist from India and his brother, Athuluri Murali, a software engineer who lives in New Hampshire. It was fun to talk to them and it definitely helped pass the time.

We finally arrived at the Statue of Liberty. We didn't have tickets to go inside so we just walked around the base.

Another ferry ride to Ellis Island.

Ellis Island was full of interesting history, stories and pictures. There was even a new exhibit about immigration to Texas!

The view of lower Manhattan from the return ferry. After getting off the ferry we walked a few blocks north to Ground Zero.

I had seen this area when Erik and I were in New York in October 2002, and it was incredible to see how much has changed since then, yet it is still a huge construction site. We also visited a small museum about the rebuilding of the area which had pictures and models of what the site will eventually look like.

Wall Street is only a few blocks away so that was our next stop.

We had a little more trouble locating the bull, but we eventually found our way.

By this time I was ready for dinner and Pellegrino's in Little Italy definitely hit the spot. I had the gnocchi alla Roma which was delicious.

What better way to end another fun day than to head straight to the top of the Empire State Building? This view is looking south and you can see Broadway and 5th Avenue.

On our way back to the apartment we had our first mishap with the subway, not too bad considering we made it to Thursday evening before that happened! Luckily we weren't too far away and we knew exactly where we were going so the taxi ride wasn't outrageously expensive!

New York Wednesday

Wednesday morning started early for us because we wanted to catch at least a little of the taping of the Today Show. If you look at the (blurry) picture below you can see Al Roker and Matt Lauer in between the heads of the camera crew and others standing around. We only stayed for one segment...we had places to go and things to see! Next up we headed to the top of the Rockefeller Center, otherwise known as Top of the Rock. We had a pretty good view of the city in spite of a little lingering fog, or maybe smog? This view is looking north and shows just how big Central Park is.

We captured this picture quickly before Becky had to go back inside. I must admit it was pretty cold all the way up there!

A great view of the Empire State Building:

The city looking south:

We had to pass through this "intelligent light room" to get to the lookout at Top of the Rock. Each person that entered was assigned a color and that color of light followed the person around the room.

After we finished at Rockefeller Center we tried to take a tour of the NBC studios, only to find out they were sold out for the day. Instead we headed to our next destination - the Museum of Modern Art. This is my favorite piece, Monet's Water Lilies. The picture does not even begin to do it justice!

We were exhausted and starving after three hours at MoMA so we had a yummy lunch at a sandwich place called Toasties. We didn't have many other plans for the day so we spent the next three hours sitting in the window seats in a cafe near Times Square. It was fun to have some relaxing down time to chat and people watch.

This was the only reason we visited Times Square again: to see the play "Good People" at the Friedman Theater. The play was great!

After the play we had almost settled on having pizza for a snack until we noticed Sangria 46, a tapas restaurant. We ordered patatas aioli (fried potatoes with garlic/paprika mayo), tortilla espanola con chorizo (Spanish omelet with chorizo), gambas al ajillo (garlic shrimp) and churros con chocolate (churros, which are donut sticks, with chocolate). Yum, yum, yum! I loved eating some food that reminded me of Spain and being able to practice my Spanish a bit too!

New York Tuesday

Tuesday dawned bright and beautiful for us in New York and we started our day by having breakfast at New Venus, a local diner in Chelsea. After breakfast we took the subway uptown to 72nd Street so that we could walk through Central Park. The Dakota, where John Lennon lived, was right on the corner when we came up from the subway and that section of the park is called Strawberry Fields.

More interesting to me personally was this little gazebo:

That is the very gazebo where Erik asked me to marry him! It was neat to see it again and be able to show it to Becky and Jessica. I must admit I got a little misty eyed remembering that special day!

After my reminiscing we kept walking through the park.

We ended up right where we had planned - the Metropolitan Museum of Art!Check out all the taxis!We spent a few hours in the museum and when we came out it was cold and rainy. Yuck! We took the bus downtown to the Museum of Modern Art only to figure out they were closed on Tuesdays. Ugh! So, we put our hoods back on and went back to the Guggenheim Museum - which happens to be right across the street from the Met, where we were originally!After walking through museums for so long we were in need of a little snack so we thought afternoon tea at the Plaza Hotel (below) would be fun. Unfortunately we arrived 5 minutes after serving ended and the waiters would not even acknowledge our presence!After we rested and had our snack (at another cafe that would serve us!) we walked down 5th Avenue and stopped to see St. Patrick's Cathedral.Next we checked out the New York Public Library.Finally we ended up at Grand Central Station where we were able to catch the subway to our next destination.Chinatown! Thankfully we have connections to people who know things (Megan's friend Jon, whose grandmother lives in Chinatown) and we found the best restaurant in the neighborhood - Joe's Shanghai.We sat at a table with a Japanese woman named Aiko Otake who helped us order and figure out how we were supposed to eat the specialty dish, Shew Lung Bao (Soup Dumplings). They were a delicious starter to the rest of our meal.By the time our bellies were full we were exhausted so we headed back to our apartment in Chelsea and called it a night!

New York Monday

For all of you who have been getting on me about the lack of updates, this week is going to be exciting in the world of the Allsops blog! To start things off, here's what happened last Monday when I travelled to New York City to spend the week with Becky and Jessica. Enjoy!

After we met up at Penn Station and walked to our apartment in Chelsea to drop off our bags, we headed straight to the middle of all the activity (or at least the middle of all the tourist activity!) - Times Square.

What's Times Square without the Naked Cowboy? I took this picture for Malachi - there's a ferris wheel inside the Toys-R-Us store! Wow!

We got tired of Times Square pretty quickly and decided to walk uptown a little and ended up at Radio City Music Hall.Rockefeller Center is right behind Radio City so we got to experience that too. They even still have the ice rink open!

In spite of that, there were also signs of spring.

The three of us - so excited for this experience!

By this time we were getting a little hungry so we headed back downtown to Playwright's Pub. I had the fish and chips - yum!

On our way to the theater from dinner we saw a new TV show "Smash" being filmed. Check out the camera contraption!

To finish the first day of our adventure we saw Phantom of the Opera. It was an amazing show and a great way to begin our vacation.