Let's hear it for New York!
11:25AM - Flight Departed from MSP to LaGuardia in New York.
Our flight was great, despite the turbulant take-off and landing. :-) Either our pilot was new, or really needed to retire! We had aisle seats, so we were across from each other instead of being next to one another. It only became a nuisance a couple of times when we were talking or trying to share music / games with each other. We enjoyed the company of our row-mates, though.
3:10PM - Flight landed at LaGuardia!!! The views of the city from the plane (from what I could see) were spectacular! The buildings are huge, and never ending! We picked up our baggage, and were kindly greeted by a ride service, offering to take us (and the other 4) to our hotel for $75. Our driver's name was Carlos, and he had a Lincoln Navigator to haul the 6 of us across the city. It only took about 30 minutes to get to the hotel. Traffic was surprisingly light, considering that President Obama was coming in today. (Yippee! I hope you can sense my sarcasm)
We arrived at the Hotel St. James on 45th and The Avenue of the America's. 1 block from Times Square!! We were greeted by very friendly front desk staff (Joey) and his co-worker... and they were glad to help us check in and give us our water that we had shipped to the hotel. Thank you Jesus for Perfect Water!! It is great to have something good to drink and have with us, without spending a million $$ on water. The hotel is VERY old and historic. Let's just say that it has a lot of 'charm.' The elevators hold a max of 6 people each, and there are only 12 floors. The room is very basic, and I'm glad we brought our own sheets to put between the existing bed sheets / blankets. You just never know who or what may have been on these sheets and beds... I must say that the front desk staff does a great job with security. They ask for your room # and verify your name before giving out the key. OH - the key! Let me explain that. There is 1 key for each room. They are REAL keys and they must be turned in to the desk when you leave, and picked up when you return. They do a great job being efficient with this, but it is a little different than any other hotel I have stayed in. It meets our needs, though. Just a place to sleep and keep our things during the day. I would stay here again.
Ok - Now the fun part!
We unpacked our things and headed out on the town! We decided to stay around Time's Square and take in all that it had to offer.
First things first - We had to get a 'hot dog' from the street vendor. YUM! This is unlike any hot dog I have ever had!! Spicy hot dog, spicy brown mustard, and onions in thier own tomato sauce. DELICIOUS! I never thought I could be impressed by a hot dog, especially from a street vendor!! Yes, I was happy with that purchase. I believe the rest of us were as well. We continued down the street to find the Amsterdam theatre and the Victory theatre where our upcoming shows will take place. They are literally across the street from each other, and only 3 blocks from our hotel! WONDERFUL!! Tomorrow is our first show - Pagagnini. I'll update on that tomorrow night.
We continued wandering around, and visiting almost every tourist shop along the way. I bought a few postcards, but that's all for now. I have to find my Christmas ornament (as is tradition) before we head home on Tuesday. I don't think I'll have a problem with that.
After walking for a while we decided to check out the Hershey's store and then headed across the street to the M&M's show. Chocolate!! YUM! You can never go wrong with that. We were hungry again at that point, so decided to walk to Carnegie Deli. Along our way, we found Ray's Pizza, and decided to stop in and grab a slice. Carnegie Deli will have to wait. The pizza was tremendous! HUGE slices, and so many great and interesting flavors to choose from. We all enjoyed it!
We headed back out to Times Square to take in the bright lights and the craziness of NY nightlife. It's simply amazing how there are constantly people EVERYWHERE! I was impressed by the number of police officers as well. I actually feel quite safe here, seeing the NYPD on foot, bike, horse, van, truck, sky box, etc. They are all over the place and very friendly. (Back up a few hours - I even got to pet a police horse. ;) The animal lover in me came out for a minute.) We took some fun picture on the red, illuminated stairs in Times Square. That was a lot of fun!!
Dessert started calling, so we stopped into Roxy's Deli for some real New York Cheesecake. DELISH! This was honestly the BEST cheesecake I have ever had!! I ordered the chocolate brownie cheesecake. Emily had oreo cheesecake. Mike had blueberry. Darek & Jerry had strawberry, and LuAnn had a whipped White Chocolate Raspberry. We spent $65 on cheesecake and we couldn't even finish it! Haha! It was very worth it!
After we rolled oursleves out of Roxy's, we decided to head back to the hotel. It was still a bit early (9:00) or so, but we want to get rested up for tomorrow and all of the fun we plan to have. Here I am, updating my blog with our fun adventures. Tune in tomorrow for a continuation of this fun NYC experience.
Signing Off!
~Steph
Our flight was great, despite the turbulant take-off and landing. :-) Either our pilot was new, or really needed to retire! We had aisle seats, so we were across from each other instead of being next to one another. It only became a nuisance a couple of times when we were talking or trying to share music / games with each other. We enjoyed the company of our row-mates, though.
3:10PM - Flight landed at LaGuardia!!! The views of the city from the plane (from what I could see) were spectacular! The buildings are huge, and never ending! We picked up our baggage, and were kindly greeted by a ride service, offering to take us (and the other 4) to our hotel for $75. Our driver's name was Carlos, and he had a Lincoln Navigator to haul the 6 of us across the city. It only took about 30 minutes to get to the hotel. Traffic was surprisingly light, considering that President Obama was coming in today. (Yippee! I hope you can sense my sarcasm)
We arrived at the Hotel St. James on 45th and The Avenue of the America's. 1 block from Times Square!! We were greeted by very friendly front desk staff (Joey) and his co-worker... and they were glad to help us check in and give us our water that we had shipped to the hotel. Thank you Jesus for Perfect Water!! It is great to have something good to drink and have with us, without spending a million $$ on water. The hotel is VERY old and historic. Let's just say that it has a lot of 'charm.' The elevators hold a max of 6 people each, and there are only 12 floors. The room is very basic, and I'm glad we brought our own sheets to put between the existing bed sheets / blankets. You just never know who or what may have been on these sheets and beds... I must say that the front desk staff does a great job with security. They ask for your room # and verify your name before giving out the key. OH - the key! Let me explain that. There is 1 key for each room. They are REAL keys and they must be turned in to the desk when you leave, and picked up when you return. They do a great job being efficient with this, but it is a little different than any other hotel I have stayed in. It meets our needs, though. Just a place to sleep and keep our things during the day. I would stay here again.
Ok - Now the fun part!
We unpacked our things and headed out on the town! We decided to stay around Time's Square and take in all that it had to offer.
First things first - We had to get a 'hot dog' from the street vendor. YUM! This is unlike any hot dog I have ever had!! Spicy hot dog, spicy brown mustard, and onions in thier own tomato sauce. DELICIOUS! I never thought I could be impressed by a hot dog, especially from a street vendor!! Yes, I was happy with that purchase. I believe the rest of us were as well. We continued down the street to find the Amsterdam theatre and the Victory theatre where our upcoming shows will take place. They are literally across the street from each other, and only 3 blocks from our hotel! WONDERFUL!! Tomorrow is our first show - Pagagnini. I'll update on that tomorrow night.
We continued wandering around, and visiting almost every tourist shop along the way. I bought a few postcards, but that's all for now. I have to find my Christmas ornament (as is tradition) before we head home on Tuesday. I don't think I'll have a problem with that.
After walking for a while we decided to check out the Hershey's store and then headed across the street to the M&M's show. Chocolate!! YUM! You can never go wrong with that. We were hungry again at that point, so decided to walk to Carnegie Deli. Along our way, we found Ray's Pizza, and decided to stop in and grab a slice. Carnegie Deli will have to wait. The pizza was tremendous! HUGE slices, and so many great and interesting flavors to choose from. We all enjoyed it!
We headed back out to Times Square to take in the bright lights and the craziness of NY nightlife. It's simply amazing how there are constantly people EVERYWHERE! I was impressed by the number of police officers as well. I actually feel quite safe here, seeing the NYPD on foot, bike, horse, van, truck, sky box, etc. They are all over the place and very friendly. (Back up a few hours - I even got to pet a police horse. ;) The animal lover in me came out for a minute.) We took some fun picture on the red, illuminated stairs in Times Square. That was a lot of fun!!
Dessert started calling, so we stopped into Roxy's Deli for some real New York Cheesecake. DELISH! This was honestly the BEST cheesecake I have ever had!! I ordered the chocolate brownie cheesecake. Emily had oreo cheesecake. Mike had blueberry. Darek & Jerry had strawberry, and LuAnn had a whipped White Chocolate Raspberry. We spent $65 on cheesecake and we couldn't even finish it! Haha! It was very worth it!
After we rolled oursleves out of Roxy's, we decided to head back to the hotel. It was still a bit early (9:00) or so, but we want to get rested up for tomorrow and all of the fun we plan to have. Here I am, updating my blog with our fun adventures. Tune in tomorrow for a continuation of this fun NYC experience.
Signing Off!
~Steph
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