New York - Day 2

After our magical night on Broadway, we returned to the big apple (later in the morning) with Bruce and Eliza to see what other mishaps we might find ourselves in.  

I forgot to mention in my last post that when we were headed back to our hotel, we found a subway stop directly below the Mary Poppins theater.  Had we known, we could have avoided the crazy rush through the streets of NY to get there on time.  Unfortunately, I am still not very good at directions, so we ended up getting on the subway headed for the Bronx.  Not exactly where I want to be around 1:00 in the morning.  Once we realized it, we got off the subway before we actually made it to the Bronx.  We had to ask a subway attendant where to go, but we eventually made it back to the train station in Secacus where my car was parked. 


The next morning, which was July 13, we headed towards the other side of the city to see the Empire State Building.  We didn't pay to go to the top, but settled for some pictures by the sign. 

 

 

 

This is me standing in front of it. 

 

After visiting a few tourists shops to get T-shirts and sunglasses, we headed to Central Park for some lunch. 

 

Eliza had a couple bites of a turkey sandwich and half a hot dog.  She was pretty distracted by the squirrels and people.

 I am still in awe at how big Central Park is.  I've been there before, but this time we walked around a completely different area than last time.  We saw some beautiful scenery. 

In one of the tunnel bridges, a man was playing a saxophone.  Eliza couldn't help but dance to his music.  After each song, she clapped and cheered for him.  When he saw who his audience was, he quickly changed from playing Jazz and the Blues to playing children's songs like The Itsy Bitsy Spider.  I had to throw some money in his hat just because he did such a good job entertaining my little girl. 

 Bruce and I in front of the love bridge

 

We stopped at the huge playground to the pure delight of Eliza.  We were fortunate to be able to find a open baby swing.  We weren't sure we would since there were so many people there.  Close to the swings was a splash park.  Most of the other children were either in swimsuits or underwear.  We started by just putting Eliza's feet in.  

 

With more bravery, she put her hands in. 

 By the time we decided to move on 20 minutes later, she was pretty wet - HAPPY!, but wet. 
After hours of strolling through the center of central park, and witnessing part of a lesbian wedding (my sister jumped in close enough to snap a picture), we headed towards the 9-11 memorial and ground zero. 

These are the best pictures we got.  We didn't know that you have to schedule a specific tour time and get tickets in advance to get into the 9-11 memorial.  Tickets are free, but you can only get them online a couple of days before you want to go in.  Next time we will know, and hopefully we'll get to see it.  We did go into the visitors center where they have some cool artifacts from some of the people who were in the tower when the planes went through.  There are also some neat stories to read. 

From what I understand, they are rebuilding the twin towers.  One of them is finished already. 

We walked down a few more streets before we decided to call our visit to the big apple complete and head back to Pennsylvania.  After all, Eliza's birthday was the next day, and I still had to get some things ready. 

As I've mentioned before, New York is a fun city to visit every once in while, but I wouldn't ever want to live there. 

On the other hand, where else would you find a giant skunk and chicken playing the cello and xylophone????   Only in a New York subway station.