TJ had a track meet in New York at the beginning of February, and this time I went with him! It was a blast. Wednesday and Sunday were our travel days, so we had 3 days to play in New York! Oh ya, and go to the track meet :)
Feature song of the weekend - Empire State Of Mind by Jay-Z feat. Alicia Keys. The chorus was stuck in my head the entire time...let's hear it for New York, New York, New York!! Click here to hear the song on youtube :)
It's true this city never sleeps...it's crazy. This is the view from our hotel room on the 19th floor, around 6am.
We got in to our hotel about 12:30 am and then went to a street vendor for some food, then went to bed around 2 am. We got up at 6 am so we could go to the 8 am session in the Manhattan temple. Totally worth it! If you're ever in New York, I would most definitely recommend taking the time to visit this temple, it's amazing!
The temple is right on the corner of a super busy street in downtown Manhattan. You don't even really notice the angel Moroni until you're almost right next to the temple. There are tons of people walking the streets, cars honking, and just lots of noise everywhere. As soon as you step inside the temple, you don't even know you're in New York. It's amazing. It's such a unique temple, and so beautiful. Definitely among the top favs of temples I've been to.
As you can see we were wearing our winter jackets because it was supposed to be freezing cold! It was cold, but not as cold as I anticipated. There was snow on the ground when we got there, but nothing much. The winds were chilly, that was true, and it was cold, but not as cold as expected :)
Our main mode of transportation was the subway. It was fun to experience all these fun new things. It's pretty amazing how there's a whole system underneath the craziness going on in the streets.
A lot of what we did in New York was eating...which was awesome :) Emily's dad had given Chris a map for Christmas that he had dotted with great places to eat - his own little 'food tour' for New York. I must say that all the places we went to did not disappoint. We ate great food, and it was all very affordable!
After we got back from the temple we got ready and went out with a bunch of the pole vaulters and ate at Bleeker Street Pizza. Very yummy Italian style thin crust pizza.
Yummy pizza!
After pizza we wanted to go see the Bodies Exhibit, and it turned out to be closed until the next day. Seriously people?! The next day?! Oh well. It was quite a ways away from where we were staying, so we hung out around the Brooklyn Bridge for a while and walked around some streets. This is us by the Brooklyn Bridge. Couldn't help but sing some Newsies songs in my head :)
The only thing I wanted to do in New York was see Wicked. That's it. I would have been completely content and not cared what we did the rest of the weekend if I could just see Wicked. And WE DID!! Dreams do come true :) Now I just wish I could go see it a thousand more times.
Wicked was a-MAZing, to say the least. I was freaking out inside the whole time because it was so awesome. TJ was a trooper and sat through it with me, and said it was pretty good :)
After Wicked we walked around Times Square for a while. It is so bright because of the many, many huge screens and lights.
This is what I really looked like the whole time...it was freezing that night.
Friday we hung out with Chris and Emily the whole day and we had a blast. We went down to China Town and Little Italy. The only thing that wasn't great was that it was Chinese New Year, which meant most things were closed! Bummer. One place I'm glad was open in China Town was a little hole in the wall dumpling place called Vanessa's Dumpling House {on the food tour, of course :)} and it was delicious! Super yummy dumplings, and very cheap. 4 dumplings for $1. Can't beat that.
The pork and chives dumplings (top) were my favorite, but the chicken and basil ones were really good too.
Oh so good!
We also had to try a sesame pancake, just to see what it was like. It's basically an Asian bread, and they use it to make a sandwich type thing. The guy in front of us in line recommended we get the one with the peking duck in it, so we decided we'd try. It was fun to try something new, and it was yummy, just nothing compared to those dumplings!
One mission I had in NY was to look for a purse for my sister in law, so I bought one for myself, too :) I have only owned one purse in my life before this one, so it's kind of a big deal for me. I'm just not a purse person. I don't like having something else to carry around, but the idea has grown on me over time. It's kind of fun having a bigger purse that I can carry around now. I think it's such a cute purse! And we got a pretty good deal on it, too.
We stopped in Little Italy and got some gelato. They even have sorbet gelatos that I can eat :) It was really yummy, and the tart was pretty good too.
Then we headed down to the Bodies Exhibit because we really wanted to go, and it was open that day! It was SUCH a cool exhibit. I was fascinated the whole time. Our bodies are amazing. We spent an hour and a half in there, but we could have easily stayed in there a lot longer.
Friday night we went and watched the girls pole vault (oh ya, we came for a track meet...I remember :)) and then went out to eat at the Shake Shack, (burger and shake place) which was also delicious! That one wasn't on the food tour, but it was recommended by someone so we decided we'd try it, and it was really good. It was right by Central Park, too, so I got to at least see that.
Saturday morning we went out to breakfast with Chris and Emily at a little Cafe right around the corner from our hotel called Cafe Metro. I got some really yummy chocolate chip pancakes.
Saturday was probably the warmest day, and also rainy. In the morning while the boys were warming up at the track Emily and I went to H&M to shop. We got soaked walking there!
And then we went and watched the guys pole vault! This is TJ getting ready to jump! He didn't have the greatest meet, but he still jumped 16' 7". I just love getting to watch :) It's so fun.
After the track meet we came back to the hotel, changed, and then tried to find a place for dinner. Note to self, do NOT try to eat out at dinner time on a Saturday night in Manhattan! It was crazy trying to get in anywhere. We ended up going down to Soho to a Cuban restaurant called Cafe Habana which was on the food tour, and pretty highly recommended for their corn on the cob. We waited for over an hour to be seated! That part was not worth it. The food was very good though. I really liked the pulled pork and rice I got. Super yummy!! Maybe not worth waiting an hour for, but I would definitely stop by there again if I was in the area and it wasn't Saturday night.
This is a little face that Chris made out of the beans I didn't eat (I don't like beans) and the leftover rice I couldn't finish. I had a huge plate of food.
You can kind of see the painting on the wall with Cafe Habana on the bottom. At this point we were so tired. We had been going all day, hadn't slept too much in a few days, and we hadn't got our food until 10 pm. But still happy to be in NYC :)
And that was pretty much our weekend in New York! Thank you Chris and Emily for being such great friends and hanging out with us all the time!! We had so much fun! And thanks for the food tour especially. So yummy.
Looking back I can't believe we did so many things in 3 days, with a track meet among it all. It was so much fun, I'm so glad I got to go! Maybe someday we'll get to go back again...there's just so much to see and do there!
Have you been to New York? Want to go to New York? What are some of your favorite things or things you're wanting to do??
