Jen wanted a photo of this street in New York City because, as she said, "It looked like the scene from the Cosby Show!"Hello, blog-world!
So time to update our blog with the last part of our East Coast trip before catching everyone up with the general updates and the goings-on in Utah.
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Jen's conference ended Wednesday, and rather than fly home that day, we decided to extend the stay through Sunday. So, on Thursday we checked out of Philadelphia and drove up to Newark, NJ, where we stayed right across the street from New York City. Neither of us had ever been to New York, so we were really looking forward to it. After checking into the hotel, we decided to drive into the city, and Jen thought it was best to see the World Trade Center first.
It was a very somber and moving place to visit. While we walked the perimeter of the construction, it was warm, but when we looked through the fence, we could feel a chill on the other side. There were lots of people out walking, even though it was starting to get dark.
This is a photo of one of the WTC buildings, and the first to be operational. After 9/11, the seven buildings had to be reconstructed, and this one, 7 WTC, is the first one that was completed and operational. It was interesting and right by the PATH station we took later on to get into the city.----------------------------
One of the main attractions we wanted to see was the Harry Potter exhibit. We are both huge fans of the movies, and the exhibit had a lot of the props, costumes and set items from the movie. It has toured North America for the past few years, and New York is the last stop here, but as of this posting, we don't know where it's going next.
Although we couldn't take any photos inside of the exhibit, we did get quite a few inside the gift shop. Sounds kind of silly, but they had some awesome stuff for sale, like wands and toy props and replicas of the set items. Jen also bought a book that showed everything from the exhibit, so if anyone wants to borrow it, give her a call!
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After the Potter exhibit, we decided to walk around the city. The exhibit was not far from Times Square, so we got to look around at the mayhem that was there. It was incredibly crowded, since we happened to be there for Fleet Week. There were quite a few men and women in uniform around the city, and there were a few exhibitions of them displaying things like how their military dogs were trained. Hard to get photos of this, since there were too many people to get a good shot, but it was pretty cool to see so many great people.
We actually had to come back to Times Square later in the trip, to do some shopping for souvenirs and to get a feel for it when it was slightly cooler and less crowded! We did see quite a few crews recording what we guessed were movies and TV shows but couldn't figure out what they were filming throughout the city. The one we DID figure out, however, we got a few good photos of. The Travel Channel puts on a television show, Sand Masters, and while we were in NYC, we stumbled upon them doing their sand castles in the middle of the city. As you can see, they are incredibly detailed, and while we were taking photos, one of their crews took photos of us, so we will see if we end up on TV!
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After our first trip to Times Square, we decided to go visit Dylan's Candy Bar. Dylan's is owned by Dylan Lauren, Ralph Lauren's daughter, and is the world's largest candy store. It was a ton of fun going around the candy store, looking at all the great candy (and bringing home a few treats for ourselves)! Jeff bought some house-made fudge, and we split a SlushPuppy after we got there because it was pretty warm outside. We got a lot of little trinkets from there, and could have spent hours looking around, because each time we went back to a spot, we found something new. Highly recommended to anyone who wants to go visit something fun and different in NYC.
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The last place we visited was Central Park, and Jen wanted to see The Dakota and Strawberry Fields. For those who do not know, The Dakota was the residence of John Lennon, and he was killed just outside. Strawberry Fields was the memorial Yoko Ono dedicated across the street from The Dakota in Central Park. In fact, the photo of the building was taken from Strawberry Fields. Again, lots of tourists there, but it was such a beautiful park, with flowers around the Imagine marker in the middle.
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Well, that is pretty much this vacation in a nutshell. We had tons of fun, and wish we could go back tomorrow, but we will have to wait before going back. There are a ton of places we want to see, and our traveling experiences are just continuing. Although we are down to one more trip (Jen's trip to Denver in July) we are already planning on more vacations, including going back to New York.
Hope all is well with you all, and we hope you enjoyed our adventures!
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