NYC Trip - Day 1

And finally, here is a little recap of our New York trip from a couple of weekends ago. We packed a lot into the trip and took way too many pictures, so to keep from stressing myself out, I'll recap in multiple installments.

We flew in on a Thursday morning and arrived right around lunch time. We figured out how to take a New Jersey Transit train to Manhattan and arrived at Penn Station, where we bought our subway cards and navigated the way to our hotel. We stayed in midtown Manhattan at Lexington and 49th. Luckily our hotel was just a couple of blocks away from the subway station, so we were able to get there without having to haul our suitcases for miles and miles.

Once checked in, the next order of business was lunch. Derek wanted pizza and the concierge recommended a little restaurant right around the corner. It wasn't bad, but wasn't exactly what we had in mind for New York pizza. But at least we weren't starving anymore.

We had tickets to see Letterman that afternoon. On Thursdays they do 2 tapings of the show, one for Thursday night and one for Friday. We had tickets to see the Friday night taping. The process of reporting to the theater to get your tickets, then waiting an hour until you're supposed to go back, then waiting some more to get inside, was a little much, but once we were in the studio it was really cool, and seeing the show live was a lot of fun. Luke Wilson was the guest, and was actually really funny, and Imagine Dragons were the musical guest.

After the Letterman show we walked down a few blocks to Times Square. Times Square is quite the spectacle, and while it's cool to see, all of the people and traffic and everything is a little overwhelming to me. Plus, I'm not really sure what there is to do in Times Square besides eat and shop. And go to Broadway plays of course, but you need to have tickets for those, which luckily we did, just not for Thursday night.

We grabbed a quick dinner in Times Square and then hopped on the subway over to Serendipity to try their famous frozen hot chocolate.

We didn't quite realize how big it was going to be, so we also ordered an ice cream sundae. We had our hands full between the two, and while the frozen hot chocolate was good, we the sundae was both our favorite. Of course they also had really fun decor.

After Serendipity we decided to call it a night and head back to the hotel. And just to prove that it's not a myth, rats really do live in the subway tunnels. Awesome.

Overall, Day 1 was successful, although I could have gone without the rats in the subway (this was not the only time we saw them either) but other than that we had a pretty good time.

One thing I will note that stuck out to us almost immediately was the disparity in wealth. Also, as we ate our first dinner in Times Square in the midst of all of the lights and advertisements, it was crazy to think how much we are being sold that we can buy happiness. And it's not that we don't do this where we live also, but when you're surrounded by so much world class entertainment, it became evident how easy it is to just entertain ourselves to death, and again, how we are being sold that as another place to find true life. Just our initial thoughts, although those didn't stop us from enjoying the city and all it had to offer, just something to keep in mind, that all of those things in bright shiny lights are not where true life is found.