NYC Day 1 - Diane's Birthday

For the past couple months I have been wondering what I was going to do for Diane’s 50^th birthday. I had mentioned going to New York to her a few months back and she liked the idea but then we backed off after our trip through the south at the end of July. Then about 3 weeks before her birthday she texted me and said," How about going to NYC for my birthday?" I said, “That’s a great idea, let me look into flights”. I had already been looking at them about once a week just in case. I found some reasonable flights and booked them. I also had priority points built up from working in Green Bay, so I used those for 2 free nights at the Holiday Inn Wall St.

We flew out from Detroit, Saturday at 6 a.m. and arrived at LaGuardia about 7:30 a.m.. When we got to the airport exit we bought MTA (Subway and Bus) tickets. We bought the 7 day unlimited pass for $29. Even though we would only be there for 2.5 days, it would still work out if we used them a lot (and we did). We hopped on the M60 bus and transferred to the downtown N train. I had my camera bag, Diane had a big bag, plus we had one carry-on. We probably could have gotten away without the carry-on, but we decided to just go ahead and take it this time. We got off one stop too early (Canal St.) but should have gotten off at Wall St. When I looked at the map it seemed like our hotel was closer to the Canal stop, but I was wrong (it happens ever once in a while haha). So we had a little bit of a walk. It wouldn't have been that bad if we didn't have the carry-on, but we made it.

We couldn't check in until 3 p.m., so we dropped off the bags and decided to head to the Staten Island Ferry. I had been on it a couple years ago, so I knew it gives you a great view of the city and Statue of Liberty for free. Neither one of us cared about going to the Statue, plus I don’t think you can go inside right now, I've heard it’s closed for repair.

It’s a half hour ride each way. We got lucky and caught the ferry back to Manhattan as soon as we arrived in Staten Island (the last time I was there we had to wait a half hour for the next one).

Once back in Manhattan we decided we were both hungry so we took the 1 train to Times Square and get a couple slices of pizza at Ray’s and relaxed for a bit.

After lunch we walked around Times Square, took some photos, and did some people watching. By this time we were able to check into our hotel, so we headed back downtown and got checked in.

We originally planned on going to Maze (Gordon Ramsey) restaurant. I had made 5:15 reservations, but once we both took our shoes off and hit the bed it was very apparent neither one of us wanted to jump in the shower, get ready to just head straight back uptown. We decided to rest for a little while and then go to Central Park for sunset.

We took the train to 86th Street. As we walked the couple blocks to the park, we crossed Park Ave when two cars almost hit each other at the corner. One guy got out of the car and started yelling at the other car (Cab) and then started to kick the door. It was pretty entertaining.

We entered the park at the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir, and strolled the south end of the water. That took us across the park, and then we continued through most of the park heading towards 59^th street, stopping at various points to take in the sights.

Then we walked the 10 blocks to Times Square, got a quick bite and got Diane a piece of Strawberry Cheesecake for her birthday, before spending some more time in Times Square people watching. There really is nothing like seeing it at night, especially on a Saturday night.

After that long day that started at 2:30 a.m. driving to Detroit to catch the flight, we decided to call it a night. We got a Town Car to drive us downtown back to our hotel and got those shoes off again!