Once, in January...

Despite my best efforts, I haven't taken the time to update my blog in a fairly long time. Often I'll take a picture or do something cool and then say to myself "this'll be an swesome thing to add to the blog," and then it'll be three months later and I won't have done anything with it. I suppose the silver lining to it all is that I've spent my time out doing interesting things rather than sitting at my computer. Yeah, life!

So way back in January, Mike and I decided that we'd rather spend his week(s) off from work going places rather than have him just come back to Vancouver and have not much to do. Our first adventure was to New York City!

Spent our first day in Central Park. Look! I found Alice!

....Mike found a dry place to nap...

This was our view from the top of the Empire State building. That tall building is the new World Trade Centre, which apparently has another 1/3 of the height of the tower left to build. Frankly, I thought it was a big 'old "F-U" to decide to build a tower that's so much taller thant he original

We took a boat ride towards Lady Liberty - the closest we could get since the island wasn't yet prepared for visitors following hurricane Sandy

NYC was really, really cold. Also windy. Mike was acclimatized, what with his living in Sudbury. Not me, though! On this chilly day, we took refuge in the Public Library for a while. It's massive!

Mike wanted to make sure we went for a walk on the Hi-Line, a reinvented old elevated railway line that runs through the city. This was the day I'm positive I got frostbitten, but the experience was neat!

No trip to NYC is complete without a visit to a broadway show! Although there were some very traditional musicals playing, I opted for Once, a musical based on the film of the same name. Last year it won a bazillion Tony Awards, and I thought Mike would like it. A highlight: The set (a bar) was open pre-show and at intermission ro buy beer! I didn't care that it cost me an arm. It was awesome. The next evening, we saw Avenue Q off Broadway, too!

Another really cold day in NYC, but because I was headed towards the Plaza for tea I just had to dress up. We stopped at Tiffany's on the way...

We also stopped at the Big Piano!

I'd originally bookde tea at the Ritz, but after seeing that the tea room wasn'y much more than the lobby lounge, we decided to relocate to the Plaza. It was at this time that Mike noted that we were going to all of the places Kevin visited in Home Alone: Lost in New York. Mike thought he would try eating the garnish. Trés classy.

We visited the Bull of Wall Street

I was trampled!

We skated at theWoolman rink in Central Park

At the Metropolitan Museum of Art, we found yet another example of a baby choking a goose. We saw this theme several times over when we were in Europe. It's just so....weird!

We visited the WTC memorial, and the location of the new tower. Note to travellers; there's a helluva lot of lines and security if you're going to visit this place....

At the Met, this was easily one of my favourite pieces. It's a mosaic fountain created by Tiffany!

While I was not prepared for the cold weather, I absolutely reccomend visiting the city outside of high tourist times. We hardly ever had to wait for things! I coudn't imagine the wait times for some of the attractions (like the Empire State Building, which had so much velvet rope I imagined waiting for hours and hours! Also, we had out pick of whichever last minute Broadway show we wanted) Plus, there was the bonus of getting to do off-season activities, like skating!

A few little nuggets of this adventure: I had my wallet pick-pocketed while we were on the subway a few days into the trip. A minor hitch, since Mike still had plenty of cabbage and I still had my passport safely stowed in the hotel room. Mostly, I was sad that I had my shoppers card stolen with 91000 of 95000 points on it! (FYI, I just got those points back!). We also had fun trying out plenty of new foods! Of course we had a slice of greasy pizza, but we also ate mexican and Afghani food, too. mmmm. So much food in that city!