A few glitches, but all is well!!

A few glitches, but all is well!!

We have survived our first day! We got to NYC just fine, but only to find that our luggage did not fare so well! But they assured us that it was on the next flight and would be delivered to our hotel tonight…we’ll see!!!

Ok, we are way too cheap to ride the “Air Train” from the airport to the subway stations (costs $5/person) so we decided to take a bus!! It was definitely an INTERESTING bus ride….nobody on the bus looked quite like us---we were in a side of New York I never thought I’d see!! But it was fine, and though it took awhile, Blu was really glad that we got to experience Jamaica, New York.

Ok so by the time we get to the subway stations from the bus it’s like 1:30pm and we are starving! We didn’t eat breakfast (did I mention we RAN to our gate due to long lines in security for Spring Break) and all they gave us on the plane was a small bag of chips. So we find a Subway, only to realize that there’s no chairs to sit down!! And it was COLD and RAINY outside! So we load up our stuff and head back to the subway station. We finally get to our hotel 3 hours after we landed!!

Blu had warned me that our hotel might not be in a great area, but it is! It looks like a random brick building on the outside that someone superglued a La Quinta sign to, but surprisingly on the inside it is quite nice!! We have a view of the NYC skyline, a continental breakfast, and a McDonalds and The Grind coffee shop next door!!

So after dropping off our carry-ons, we headed on another bus to downtown Manhattan. It’s kinda weird—I printed off all the directions we will need on hopstop.com (which works great!), so we’re not looking at maps, just my directions. So we have no concept of like where we are in the city or anything like that! But anyway, we hop on a bus and I get more and more excited as we pass 2nd Avenue, 3rd Avenue, Lexington Avenue, Park Avenue, and then arrive at 5th Avenue!! The first place we headed was to the Empire State Building. Did we go up? NO WAY!! $21/person! A picture does it justice!!


Then, we decided to just hike our way up 5th Avenue. It was so amazing…all the people, the taxis, it is just like the movies—there is no way to describe it! London and South Africa aren’t even in the vicinity of describing the craziness, and today was SUNDAY! So we found a souvenir shop that sold CHEAP tshirts, so we got most of our souvenirs taken care of 


Let’s see…a few other cool things we did—visited the New York City Public Library, visited St. Thomas Episcopal Church for their 4pm service, and visited FAO Schwarz toy store!! It was so cool to see the big piano from the movie Big!!


Blu enjoyed the roasted peanuts on the street!


I didn't really go in!


We finished off our evening with a HUGE slice of New York City pizza from Sbarro. It was great!!


We headed back to our hotel after stopping for some cocoa—it’s COLD!!! We called the luggage people, and they said our suitcase was on the truck to be delivered, so hopefully it’ll be here soon!!

Ok, the funniest story of the day is when we were standing beside two girls wearing the same jacket at a crosswalk. Blu whispered, "Look! It's the Olsen twins!" So he held up his camera to take a picture. Well, as we crossed, a girl saw him and stopped and said "Excuse me!!! Do you know who those girls are?!" She was so excited because she thought they were really famous!! Blu is so mean! :)


More adventures to come tomorrow!! Oh yeah—there are SOOOO many different cultures/races here!! It’s amazing to walk down the road and hear the different languages and accents!!