New Jersey & NYC Trip

Sunday morning at 5am Britt and I loaded my car and headed to the DFW Airport . We were taking a trip to New York City!

After a two hour flight we landed in Charlotte.

We had a short layover where we ordered some Chinese food! It was very yummy.

We hopped back on a plane to Newark Airport and we both had to sit in between some interesting people...and when I say interesting, that is an understatement....

We decided to stay in New Jersey since it was so much cheaper and just take the train into the City and this way we could also go to Atlantic City.
 

Once we arrived around 1:30pm we got lost, found baggage claim, got lost again and eventually found the rental car area....to only find out that our rental car reservation got messed up...so we were without a car! Finally around 4pm we were able to get a driver to take us to our hotel (about 25 miles from the airport).

This is our hotel

Once we arrived we were exhausted! We unpacked and got settled in. Then we decided to get out of the room, so we headed downstairs to the hotel restaurant. We had fried calamari for an appetizer. The marinara they give you is extremely watery here, so we asked for ranch and after the waitress gave us a weird look she went to get it. The ranch was so different and was definitely not homemade or Hidden Valley. For dinner I ordered a cheddar burger and Britt ordered a turkey club, we split both. The fries here at the hotel are beyond amazing, words cannot explain how delicious they were!

After an early dinner we headed back to the room and watched movies for the rest of the night.

Monday- Unfortunately today our rental car situation still was not figured out so we just hung out in our hotel....we were really disappointed! For lunch we ordered room service.

Chicken strips and a huge plate of fries! The BBQ here is also very different

After lunch and a few movies we walked over to a Starbucks. While there we planned the next day in New York City!

We left Starbucks and went back to our hotel restaurant for dinner. Our meals came with salads and they made Britt and I laugh because her's was so small and mine was HUGE!

We both ordered pasta plates...they were both so yummy.

Britt had the penne pasta with marinara and mozzarella cheese!

I ordered a 5 cheese stuffed tortellini with artichoke and spinach in a white wine sauce!

Tuesday - today Britt and I took the train from New Jersey to New York City! We were so excited. Neither one of us had ever been before. The trains weren't that bad...although it did kind of make me car sick because they jerk you all around.

The train ride took a little over 30 minutes with one layover in Summit, New Jersey.

We took the New Jersey transit to Madison Square Gardens.

 

From there we walked through Chelsea....

 

Through Greenwich...

 

Through Tribeca...

 

Until we finally reached our destination....CHINATOWN!

 

In Chinatown I bought an "I love NY" shot glass

A Chanel watch

 

A Dolce & Gabbana black purse

A Prada purse

And Britt bought a LV and matching clutch wallet

Shopping in Chinatown was such an adventure! You would walk by a store front and people

would start whispering to you, "Prada, Louis Vuitton, Dolce & Gabbana, Chanel" and so of course we had to check out their products! On one instance the guy convinced us to go in his shop, we walked through the back door.....down some stairs....(it was starting to get creepy at this point)....and into a room where he hit this secret button on top of a bookshelf and a door that blended in with the wall opened up...when it did I felt like light was shining out of it and music started playing....I was right where I wanted to be, in designer heaven! Every where you looked it was like magic. Designer handbags were basically begging me to look at them and try them on! "Look at me", "Try me on", they all said...I ended up purchasing two...the black D&G and the silver Prada! My watch was bought off the street from a guy who was hiding it in his pocket. And Britt ordered her purse from a laminated sheet with a bunch of pictures of designer bags on it, the guy disappeared into a shop and brought it back out!

After we bought what we needed we headed to Little Italy!

This is the cute restaurant that we had lunch at.

The food was to die for! The bread and oil dip were probably the most amazing things I've ever eaten in my life...what I would do for that recipe.

Meat Lasagna and Chicken Parmigiana!!

 

After lunch we jumped on the subway so we could get to 5th Avenue quickly since we were trying to make it to the Kardashian signing at Barnes & Noble at noon...unfortunately the line was so far down the street we weren't able to make it before they cut the line off :(

A few people who had been waiting since 6:30am weren't even able to see them!

These are just a few random pictures we took while on 5th Avenue...and the weather wasn't that great. It started sprinkling while we were walking so we had to buy an umbrella for $5....I'm sure you can imagine what kind of umbrella $5 buys you + the New York City wind = a lot of damp hair!

This is definitely the coolest Apple store I have ever seen! When you walk in you take the stairs to get down to the store.

Juicy Couture!

New York Public Library where Carrie Bradshaw got married on Sex in the City!

Wish we were spending New Years in NYC watching the ball drop!

We left 5th Avenue and walked towards Times Square...this area is unexplainable. It's beyond amazing and being a Marketing major, I was just in awe!

Broadway is down here too!

 

In Times Square they have the best Toys R Us I've ever seen. Inside they had a huge Willy Wonka candy area...thats where this picture was taken...obviously.

They also have a HUGE ferris wheel that all the kids can ride...it was just adorable!

Brittney and I on the big red stairs in Times Square...with our sad puny umbrella.

While in New York we were told to get a cannoli. So while in Time Square we went to Roxy's

My opinion of cannoli's.....not so good :( I was definitely disappointed!

We are hoping we will be able to see a Broadway show during our next trip to the city (Saturday)

CHOCOLATE! Need I say more?!?!

After Times Square we headed down to SoHo to do a little sight seeing, shopping and eating.

We stopped by a few stores, one in particular was Coach and I bought the new Poppy perfume.

After shopping we went to Ben's Pizzeria for some of the most amazing pizza I have ever had in my life!

After dinner we headed down to Rockefeller Center.

This is the tree that is being transferred to Rockefeller Center.

This year’s tree is a 74-foot Norway Spruce. It’s decorated with some 30 thousand lights, stretching roughly five miles, and powered by solar panels.

Jessica Simpson did an amazing job this year! She sang My Only Wish

Kylie Minogue and Jessica Simpson

The tree before the lights came on

Josh Groban performed Bells of New York City. He was extra excited to perform because he just recently moved to New York and has never been to the tree lighting before!

Boys II Men did an awesome job singing This Christmas.....but is that because they were caught lip synching?!?!

This is the most amazing little 10 year old I have ever heard in my life...YouTube her right now!

Her name is Jackie Evacho and she has the voice of an angel.

Kylie Minogue also did a fantastic job singing Let it Snow!!!

 

Sheryl Crow looked amazing. And did a fabulous job performing Blue Christmas!

Susan Boyle sounded great as well while singing Away in the Manger

Even though Mariah Carey is pregnant...and possibly with twins....she still did an amazing job and of course hit every high note while singing Merry Christmas II you

She stayed right by the microphone, literally didn't move at all since she is preggers! So I think they wanted something a little exciting to happen on stage, so her back-up dancers were little kids...they were doing enough bouncing around for everyone!

At the very end, Jessica Simpson, who has always been a strong supporter of the U.S. troops, gave a performance of I'll Be Home For Christmas alongside Officer John Britt, who won this chance to perform tonight during a contest while away on active duty.

After their performance 500,000 people counted down...5...4....3...2...1.... and there it was...the most beautiful tree in all of the US!

After we hung out there for a little bit just looking at the tree, we walked back towards Penn Station to get on the Subway to go back home. While we were walking we passed the 11 story Macy's and these are just a few pictures from outside.

Thursday - Atlantic City!
It only took about 2 hours to get there and we had a blast singing and talking the entire way.

This is the view when your coming up to the city

This is a sign just before you get into AC

Once we got there we decided to start our luck with Caesar's Palace!!

We took pictures of us by "our" slots....we called them our slots because they were the only ones in there that liked us! Every other machine just ate our money :(

After about an hour playing at Caesar's we went across the street to Trump Plaza.....Trump Plaza wasn't so kind to us! The machines ate our money right up within seconds of sitting down, so we decided to grab some dinner and hold off on the gambling. We ate at a Chinese restaurant in Trump Plaza over looking the ocean, it was very yummy! After dinner we decided to try the slots one more time....while sitting there Brittney Googled Trump Plaza in Atlantic City and read somewhere on the internet, so you know it has to be true!, that 8 out 10 "gamblers" said that Caesar's was the place to gamble! That being said...we ran back to Caesar's!

At the end of the night we didn't do that bad! We were both down but less than about $15 each! So all in all I would say it was a fun and exciting trip.

Saturday - We woke up early Saturday morning since we now know that it gets dark in the city by 4pm during this time of year. We did the same thing as last, took the train into the city, we arrived at Penn Station in Madison Square Gardens and we felt like pro's this time. We knew exactly where to go this time...straight over to the Metro card machine, purchased an all day unlimited pass for $8.50 and went down a million hallways, took a bunch of turns and poof...there we were on the streets of New York City! Everyone was running around everywhere. I wish I could zoom out of the city and just watch everyone....it would look like a little kid stomped on an ant bed and the little ants are just going crazy...that's New York City!

While walking through financial district we got to see New York City Hall and ground zero where 9/11 took place. It was the strangest feeling....while everyone around was rushing to where they needed to get, for me time just stood still. I was just standing there on the sidewalk looking into a

book of pictures from that day of people running down that exact same street that I'm standing by today and they are completely covered in a light grey ash...and I'm just in shock. Everything around just freezes and I wanted to cry. It was the weirdest feeling I've ever had in my life. But at the same time it was the most amazing experience I've ever had.

Mychal Judge, Roman Catholic Priest at St. Paul's Cathedral directly across the street from the World Trade Towers.

Upon hearing the news that the World Trade Center had been hit, Mychal Judge ru

shed to the site. He was met by the Mayor of New York, Rudolph Guilliani, who asked him to pray for the city and its victims. Judge administered last rites to some lying on the streets, then entered the lobby of the World Trade Center North Tower, where an emergency command post was organized. There he continued offering aid and prayers for the rescuers, the injured and dead.

When the South Tower collapsed at 9:59 AM, debris went flying through the North Tower lobby, killing many inside, including Judge. At the moment he was struck in the head and killed, Judge was repeatedly praying aloud, "Jesus, please end this right now! God please end this!", according to Judge biographer andNew York Daily News columnist Michael Daly.

Shortly after his death, firefighters found Judge's body and carried it out of the North Tower lobby. This event was captured in the documentary film 9/11, shot by Jules and Gedeon Naudet. Shannon Stapleton, photographer from Reuters, photographed Judge's body being carried out of the rubble by five men. It became one of the most famous images related to 9/11. The Philadelphia Weekly reports the photograph is considered an American Pieta.

Judge's body was formally identified by NYPD Detective Steven McDonald, a longtime friend of Judge. The coroner found that Judge died of "blunt force trauma to the head."

Here is a picture of this amazing man:

There is so much construction taking place right now down there, it's incredible.

At a press conference, architects Norman Foster, Richard Rogers, and Fumihiko Maki unveiled designs for three towers that will rise along the eastern edge of the World Trade Center site. Following a clockwise spiral from the Freedom Tower, each of the buildings steps down in height, gradually descending to the WTC memorial.

For Tower 2, Foster designed a 78-story skyscraper that peaks with a slanted diamond-shaped top, acknowledging the memorial below. “It is generated by that tragic event of the past. But optimistically, in terms of the future, it’s an iconic, distinct, unique shape on the skyline,” Foster said. Organized around a cruciform core, deep channels slice the tower into four vertical volumes, which also break the summit in

to four smaller diamond forms. The unique roofline will be illuminated at night.

Further south, Rogers’ 71-story Tower 3 features a slender glass box encased in an exterior steel frame of diagonal braces. The tower has two shoulder volumes of different heights and straddles a long, low “podium building” near the ground. “We made it as slim as possible, like many of

the older [towers] of a 100 years ago, to give it a stronger feel of reaching upwards,” Rogers explained.

Maki introduced a 61-story minimalist tower clad in glass lined with perforated metal, which is intended to deliver a unique luminosity. “Tower 4 embraces an abstract quality: minimal, light, cool in color and ephemeral, changing with the light of the day,” Maki said. The tower’s crown is also angled toward the memorial, and vertical indentations along the southwest and northeast corners sharpen the building’s edges.

All three towers will seek LEED gold ratings, and are scheduled for completion by 2012.

 

After this we walked over to a map to figure out how to get down to the Statue of Liberty. Here we ran into two other women who were looking at the map and they asked us if we knew how to get to the Statue of Liberty.....what was that? It sounded like heaven to our ears....A SOUTHERN ACCENT! We asked the ladies where they were from, of course said like this: "Where are yall from?" They immediately looked away from the map and to us and said Texas, yall? "We are from Texas too!" They were sisters here with their children who were about our age, and one lives in Huntsville and the other Coppell. The four of us walked down to the ferry together to Battery Park and we exchanged NYC stories. It was their first time here as well. Their children were off doing their own thing today so they were just walking around sightseeing. They told us about this ferry that is free that goes right by the Statue of Liberty, but it does not stop on the island. FREE?!?! We love free and wanted to go on it. So the 4 of us walked down to the Staten Island ferry and jumped on....along with 105 other people. This ferry carries 60,000 passengers a day, not including weekends and we rode it on a Saturday so I'm sure there were more than 105, so that's 20 million people a year!

 

This was a picture I took while on the ferry

I didn't realize you had to hold down the flash button on the disposable camera (the battery to the digital camera died)

And here she is....she doesn't look small because we are far away...she is just really small!!

Apparently Britt didn't know you had to hold down the flash either, but this is supposed to be of me and the Statue of Liberty off in the distance behind me

By the time we got off the ferry it was already dark! We took the Subway to SoHo so we could stop by Dash- the Kardashian's store and eat pizza at our new favorite hole in the wall, Ben's Pizza!

This is out front. The store is at 119 Spring Street.

And inside the store they have these pictures

After Ben's Pizza we went to Times Square to see it at night...what a difference it is compared to day time!

We went into Ripley's Believe It or Not.

Now that I have figured out how to use the flash....I had my fingers in the way!

 

We see a big crowd gathering and can hear someone playing the guitar...so of course we had to get right up to the front to check it out.! What is it? None other than the infamous Naked Cowboy!!

 

This picture looks like we took it during the day, but it's really at night....thank you photo shop!

 

And of course the back side! haha

After watching him freeze we went inside to the M&M store....chocolate paradise!

What you would do here is grab a bag and make your way down the walls, picking which m&m's you wanted. They had so many to chose from!

Now that we have warmed up and we're ready to go back outside, we continued walking through Times Square where we found a Forever 21.

And Britt even managed to find herself a new South African boy. He told us all about his travels around the world, he was a working traveling something. He was only 19 and for about a year now he has been going from place to place all over the world to work for a month or two. After this he planned on going to Bermuda to be a bartender. You can purchase these worldwide plane tickets and can choose so many destinations and pay for it all in advance and that's what he did. So I asked him, "What happens if you get to a place (since it's all planned and paid for in advance) and you can't find a place to live or work?" His response- "I'm clearly not legal to work in many of the places I go to, but you would be shocked to see how fast you can find a job, especially if it's physical labor!" He said his family helps him out as well...sounds like a tough life!

After Times Square we were exhausted, and freezing.

This is a picture I took down in the Subway...yes I forgot to use the flash and....*MOM STOP READING AND SCROLL DOWN TO THE NEXT PICTURE*.....yes we did see mice in the Subway. They were so gross! Brittney saw a rat, she said it was HUGE and had a long tail. But by the time I got the courage to look it was gone, so I only saw a few mice here and there. One mouse squeezed into a hole that my finger wouldn't even be able to fit through...he just ran right in.

Me waiting for the Subway

Britt and I in the Subway waiting for the train to come

These gold men were everywhere. They would be completely still...frozen! He didn't even blink and the air is rushing through the Subways because the trains are flying in and out....I can only imagine how dry his eyes were. When you gave them money they would dance around and it was really funny. I want to say there was even a gold man in London when my mom went...I would have to look back at my blog, but I want to say there was.