First view of the city coming out of Penn Station around 7:30pm
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
First day in NYC
We were out the door by 8:15am, first stop: Central Park on the way to the Metropolitan Museum! Central Park was beautiful, and massive...lots of joggers and bikers. Saw some squirrels (squirrels are kind of a big deal for me, since i've only seen about 2 in my lifetime...). We were definitely still tired from last night, lugging around our bags and frantically trying to catch taxis and find the correct subway...our first adventure in NYC! haha. Anyway so we made it to the Met at around 10ish. We checked out their great Egyptian section, Medieval art section, Sculptures, Musical Instruments...theres TONS to look at. It was great, some beautiful pieces of artwork, I especially loved Monet's work (the French impressionist). We left there after about 4-5 hours and had lunch somewhere. It is an interesting experience here in NYC; people dont really want to be helpful at all. The main focus is to get the customer in and out as fast as possible, without a smile or a greeting. Definitely different. Also, its so multicultural. At the Met we barely heard anyone speaking English! mainly european languages, since of course there are a lot of tourists. But even just going around town among locals, there is a lot of people speaking spanish, and a lot of middle eastern and indian people. Definitely an interesting thing to observe. Anyway! So after we ate we meandered down 5th Avenue...I went into a 5 story Forever 21 which was ridiculous...so anyway we looked at a few more shops and made it to Times Square, which was totally full of people (tourists). That was pretty fantastic :) Hung around there, went to some more stores, (starbucks gave us a much needed energy boost, there's literally one on every corner). Then it was getting late so we went back to Penn station to pick up our bags, caught the subway home, and just hung out. Need less to say we a tuckered out, and have a full day tomorrow....just wanna sleep....but first, pictures :-)
4th of July
Wow! So we made it to NYC last night, the 4th of July! My trusty little iPhone told me where to go and watch the fireworks :) Macy's sponsors a fireworks thing every year at the Hudson river. It's televised nationwide. Anway so we managed to figure out how to store bags at the train station (that place is huge and complicated)..after much wandering around and getting lost, we ended up at the right place and the guy let us store our bags for 24 hours. We then followed the directions on foot to the fireworks, about a mile and a half away. Unforunately we werent able to store all of our bags, so we still had a fairly heavy load, but who cares cuz THE SHOW WAS AWESOME!! It was a huge wide stretch of fireworks and thousands of people. We should have left early though - the amount of people...wow....it was crazy. We tried to hail a taxi to where we are staying but no luck, had to ask a local where the subway station was. We finally make it and a cop strikes up a conversation with us. We then asked if we were at the right stop - and he was like, no, this train is going downtown to Brooklyn! He's like u gotta go across the street. Tell them my name so u won't have to pay again. So we walked across the street, tell the security guy the cops name, and he let's us through. We walk down the stairs...and come face to face with the same guy! He's like what are u guys doing here again!!! you drunk too much kool-aid! LOL so confusing. We crossed the wrong street apparently. So we get to the right place - MASS CHAOS. We literally had to swim through a massive crowd to get to the front so we could get on when it arrived. Felt like we were in a can of sardines. Just gotta push your way in! Haha. The subway itself was packed, hot...but awesome.
They shut off the road. Theres way more people on our other side, and further down in this direction also
Amazing sunset
Monday, July 4, 2011
NYC bound!
On the train once again, destination: New York City!!! Had a great day in Chicago yesterday, went up the sears tower (now renamed the Willis tower, wtf??) so that was quite the ordeal! Endless lines before you actually get to the top, it's insane. I think it took 2 hours at least! But the view was stupendous! Chicago definitely has some beautiful architecture. Afterwards we had true, authentic Chicago deep dish pizza. WOW it truly is a pizza PIE! so yummy. I dont know if i can go back to regular pizza!!
There are a lot of interesting people that we ran into on the street. One well dressed man in a spiffy suit was a street preacher, who ended every sentence "you're going to hell" but sounded more like hay-ell haha. If you don't stop smokin dem druuugz den you goin to hay-ell :D he made some good points, too bad he was crazy. We gave a yogi bar to a young guy sitting on the corner, singing his heart out, obviously just making up verses on the spot, with a sign that said "stranded". He was singing something about getting all his shit in the car...he was very passionate too lol. And of course my favorite, the obnoxious saxophone player on the corner...he only knows one song and he plays it all day extremely loudly!!!
We don't like this new train as much as the old one. I take back all the bad things i said about it! There's less leg room, only one floor (which means we can't take over the unused cafe downstairs with the long benches like we did last time) and the lounge is way smaller. AND we left 25 mins late and everyone says that trains never leave Chicago late if they can help it! Although we left 6 hours late in Sacramento and 2 hours late in Salt Lake City...much improved.
We had an eventful night nevertheless. Shani slept in the overheard luggage compartment! It was empty so I said it would be a great place to sleep since you can stretch out. So that's where she went haha and I got both seats :) the conducters seem more strict on this train then the others but they didn't notice her up there. Anyway we arrive in about 7 hours and will hopefully see a great fireworks show in NYC!
There are a lot of interesting people that we ran into on the street. One well dressed man in a spiffy suit was a street preacher, who ended every sentence "you're going to hell" but sounded more like hay-ell haha. If you don't stop smokin dem druuugz den you goin to hay-ell :D he made some good points, too bad he was crazy. We gave a yogi bar to a young guy sitting on the corner, singing his heart out, obviously just making up verses on the spot, with a sign that said "stranded". He was singing something about getting all his shit in the car...he was very passionate too lol. And of course my favorite, the obnoxious saxophone player on the corner...he only knows one song and he plays it all day extremely loudly!!!
We don't like this new train as much as the old one. I take back all the bad things i said about it! There's less leg room, only one floor (which means we can't take over the unused cafe downstairs with the long benches like we did last time) and the lounge is way smaller. AND we left 25 mins late and everyone says that trains never leave Chicago late if they can help it! Although we left 6 hours late in Sacramento and 2 hours late in Salt Lake City...much improved.
We had an eventful night nevertheless. Shani slept in the overheard luggage compartment! It was empty so I said it would be a great place to sleep since you can stretch out. So that's where she went haha and I got both seats :) the conducters seem more strict on this train then the others but they didn't notice her up there. Anyway we arrive in about 7 hours and will hopefully see a great fireworks show in NYC!
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Chicago Picture Post
Saw Lake Michigan today, downtown Chicago (Michigan ave), and ended the day with pizza! haha. we were going to go up the Sears Tower but we were going to have to wait an hour and a half! we are going to go back tomorrow morning and hopefully it will be less of a wait :P
was an EXTREMELY hot day - super muggy, i think it was around 90 degrees. we so wanted to jump in the lake but didnt bring our bathings suits with us, so we waded for about 15 mins. then we caught the bus downtown.
was an EXTREMELY hot day - super muggy, i think it was around 90 degrees. we so wanted to jump in the lake but didnt bring our bathings suits with us, so we waded for about 15 mins. then we caught the bus downtown.
Click for pics!
Friday, July 1, 2011
Finally arrived and rested!
We're in Chicago!!! Staying with a friend and its so nice. Something about sleeping on a train and waking up...you never ever feel rested. But we got to her place at around 2am and got up at noon and feeling fantastic! Not the nicest day though...cloudy and windy. Who cares, we are finally off the train! haha.
The train last night was crazy...they ran out of food sometime in the afternoon, so they announced over the PA system that they would have "snack packs" for everyone...and promptly ran out before even getting to half of the people (over 300 of us). And then they apologized for the unseen circumstances and hoped they would see us again on future Amtrak trains (that last part was said very quietly and awkwardly hahahha). Anyway, next on our list is Chicago Deep Dish pizza!
Here's some pictures of our California trip:
The train last night was crazy...they ran out of food sometime in the afternoon, so they announced over the PA system that they would have "snack packs" for everyone...and promptly ran out before even getting to half of the people (over 300 of us). And then they apologized for the unseen circumstances and hoped they would see us again on future Amtrak trains (that last part was said very quietly and awkwardly hahahha). Anyway, next on our list is Chicago Deep Dish pizza!
Here's some pictures of our California trip:
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