With our bodies aching and feet a-hurting, we get up again to face the grand city of New York. Today, we decided to do the mega-touristy tour-bus thing. We decided that our bodies hurt too much to walk around again, and we wanted to sit and see everything. We take the subway to the bus stop where we can buy tickets, but get distracted by a really big H&M. We head in and find tons and tons of clothes. I ended up in the changing room (this is British for fitting room) with 38 items of clothing. After trying all of them on, I end up aching as much I had done the night before after walking around New York for 12 hours straight. I was very glad that we were going to be bussing it the rest of the day!
After buying way less than 38 items, we head to the bus stop, and start our tour of the city. We only did the downtown loop which surprisingly covered almost everything we wanted to see anyway. We go past the Empire State Building, quickly zip through the Flatiron district then decide to eat lunch in Greenwich Village where there was a Gray’s Papaya on the corner by the bus stop (a hot dog place that had been recommended to me). We get the “Recession Special”, two hot dogs and a yummy juice drink for $4.75. We sit outside on the curb and enjoy our lunch!
We head back on the bus and take it south, towards Lower Manhattan and the financial district. We barely make out the Statue of Liberty through the trees, but we see lots of other sights on the way. We then head east, going right past the neighbourhood our apartment is located, and get to see a lot of the tenement buildings that now house young up and coming Manhattanites, but formerly housed thousands and thousands of immigrants. We eventually head further north, seeing the Trump Tower, the Waldorf Astoria among other sights. Once we hit Fifth Ave and Central Park, we decide we’ve had enough of the bus and we want to explore Fifth Ave.
We head into Apple – the coolest Apple store, actually the coolest store I’ve ever been to, then pop into FAO Schwarz (as seen in “Big”). We then walk about 15 miles (at least that’s what it feels like) to get to a Best Buy to purchase another card for our camera (our current one was only letting us take 150 pictures at a time), then we make our way all the way back uptown to the Guggenheim. We were surprised by a really long line that snaked all the way around the building and to the side, but fortunately we went through it quite quickly! The museum was showcasing a lot of Frank Lloyd Wright’s designs and scale models for buildings that had and hadn’t been constructed. Being in there was really cool, but after seeing the third floor of architect drawings and an increasing back and foot ache, we decide to head on to dinner.
We catch the final tour bus down to Times Square where we find a pizza place that had been started by an Albanian family, and now has multiple chains across the USA. We decide we’re tired enough, and head home to our lovely apartment with its comfortable and gorgeous shower, to wash off all the humidity from our bodies! Day 2 done with and we’re loving it!
Sounds like so much fun! It's good you're doing this before you had kids cause they just aren't as into the all day touring affairs. We saw pretty much everything we wanted to see in Copenhagen but one whole day was spent just hanging in a park chasing ducks and playing on the playground. They would not be budged. Fortunately the park was actually on our list of things to see because it was the converted grounds of one of the palaces and incredibly beautiful, but all they cared about was the play area:) Was Gray's Papaya in the movie with Salma hayak and Matthew Perry? Something about rushing in or something?
ReplyDeleteIt's so fun to hear all this!! And we are going to NYC for the first time in early July, so we'll be taking notes on where we should be sure where to go!! Sweet!!
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