Only in New York

It had been 6 years of debating whether to go back or not, but my husband decided he wanted to go home for his birthday weekend, which also happened to be Labor Day weekend.

Home is New York City.

A few days in New York City can stay with you for a lifetime.

Entering New Jersey, you can see the NYC skyline. A little surreal!

He found a hotel in New Jersey that provided bus service to NYC in as little time as 20 minutes.No crossing the George Washington bridge, waiting for 2 hours to get into the city. We did have to go through the Lincoln Tunnel everyday though, which kinda freaked me out.

I survived.

Our hotel had the prettiest flowers on the walkway. Anyone know what these are?

And this was a sight for weary, cold bodies after walking the city all day......Free!

The night we arrived we drove into Hoboken, NJ for dinner and a stroll along the pier there.

The skyline from across the Hudson River was fabulous.

We were excited to find Carlo's Bake Shop, of Cake Boss fame. We loved the show, but not the baked goods in this shop so much.

Actually they were tasteless and stale.

The next day we were in Times Square with a lot of familiar and some unfamiliar sights. The NYPD barricades on the sidewalks are new, due to the recent tragedies of pedestrians being run over by wayward cars.

The police were all over and were ready, in full riot gear, hands on rifles.

One of my favorite shows to watch in the morning....

My husband got tickets to Madame Tussauds Wax Museum. Kind of a creepy thought to me, to see life size wax figures of celebrities and other famous people. Only a few looked like themselves to me.

Like Pharrell Williams, minus a hat.

Trump looked pretty good too (the picture came out too blurry). And how can you miss with ET? My husband, always clowning around....

Woody Allen....eh

Just to show you the size of the Hulk.....he was not made of wax.

We had time before our next adventure, The Ride, so we went to Chelsea Market which is in an old meat packing warehouse in the meat packing district.

I saw a few pairs of these feet around the market....not sure what they represent. Not sure I want to know.

The Ride is a sightseeing tour on a bus that is like a theatre with one side all windows that face out to the street.  

We had two girls doing the narrative on the sights and they made it so much fun with their banter back and forth and their theatrical antics. To add more fun, every now and then on the street, a person would start singing or dancing (all part of the tour) and interact with the people on the bus. The picture below shows a saxophonist with a guy that came along and started singing to the music. 

At Columbus Circle, a ballerina with a lit up tutu was dancing and bumped into a man walking. He took her in his arms and they both danced ballet in front of the fountain.

I won't give anymore of that away. It was a lot of fun.

One of the highlights of my trip was to meet Amy, who blogs at Ms Toody Goo Shoes, in person. We met in a cute coffee shop, Le Pain Quotidien across from Bryant Park.

My desire and goal is to meet as many blog friends as possible and Amy was the first! We had a nice chat over coffee and high calorie treats!

Another highlight happened that same day when we went to see the Broadway musical, Beautiful. I just love Carole King and have listened to her album Tapestry faithfully since it came out. Also, recently I saw Carole King: Tapestry – Captured Live at Hyde Park London at the movie theatre. She is in her early 70's and boy, she's still got it!!

The musical was fabulous!

Some random pictures from walking around the city.

"Give me your tired, your poor, your bananas....."

My son will take one of each please.....

No comment.

So at the beginning of this post I mentioned that a trip to NYC can impress you for a lifetime.

Our visit to the National September 11 Memorial and Museum is one of those that will play back over and over in my mind.

We've all seen the pictures the media put out at the time, of the engraved names, and heard the playback of that fateful day many times. 

But to walk into that museum with hundreds of other people and have no one speaking, surrounded by pictures and soundtracks and actual pieces of the buildings, was a sobering event. It was a dreary, rainy day outside and it was dark and somber inside.

The pictures are just to give an idea of the magnitude of the museum and the events that happened on that very ground.

Ground Zero

Most striking to me were the names engraved around the reflection pool.

Todd Beamer, a hero known for trying to avert the terrorists.

I saw a few of these.......and her unborn child......so sad

and a few of these.....

But there is always hope and this tree is a symbol of that. It is called the Survivor Tree, found in all the rubble, still alive and was nursed back to health and brought back here.

These are just a few of the many things you can do and see in New York City. There are links if you want to check any of them out.

If it's spectacular, weird or unbelievable, it may just fit in the category of "only in New York".

AnnMarie xoxo

I am linking up with these blog parties:

Share Your Cup
No Rules Weekend Blog Party
Best of the Weekend
Anything Goes Pink Saturday
Tuesdays with a Twist