Take me out to the ballpark. . . : New York, New York, I want to wake up in a city that never sleeps. . .

Beautiful, iconic, Brooklyn Bridge

Just to prove we were there!

Oh, that’s right, I AM waking up in New York! For five days! The weather the first day was warm and humid but clear but from there on out it is supposed to be fabulous. And in fact the second day, the 13^th, was beyond awesomely fabulous! 70⁰ and dry and not a cloud in the sky!

We had an easy drive from Baltimore to New York; about three hours. TO New York was the end of “easy.” We spent a lot of energy and snide comments to each other trying to correlate the map with what the GPS was telling us. We feel the GPS has it in for us, especially by having us do U-turns. A LOT of U-turns. Apparently unnecessary U-turns. Multiple unnecessary U-turns. After doing battle with maps that need a room the size of a ballroom to unfold and with a GPS that is determined to confuse us we finally found our haven, our salvation—oh, yeah, it’s just a hotel. Nevertheless, the concierge remembered us from four days ago. Plus we had learned that they actually have a ~~parking~~ stopping spot for people checking in to the hotel. Believe me, a “stopping spot” is extremely valuable in a city like New York.

Nobody who has never driven in Manhattan can really imagine the difficulty of maneuvering around traffic (of course, it IS Manhattan), construction (of course, it IS summer), pedestrians, taxis, busses, limos, did I mention trucks, busses, and pedestrians? So we have ditched the car and bought a week-long card for the subway. We will go EVERYWHERE on the subway! Tourist stuff, baseball game on Friday, Symphony on Saturday. Everything!

Do you think we like the Brooklyn Bridge?

Manhattan Bridge and the Empire State Building in the background and a lucky (and probably very rich) sailor in the foreground.

Manhattan Bridge; from Manhattan to DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass [in Brooklyn])

Some of the famous structures in NY: Brooklyn Bridge, World Trade Center, City Hall (I think)

We started by subway-ing to the Brooklyn Bridge and we walked about to the first tower. Hot and humid are not conditions we like to walk in. Well, maybe “we” is not the operative word. So we came back and got ready for our anniversary dinner at the Capital Grille. Excellent! Both service and food. They even strewed little plastic hearts all over the tablecloth!

Only in New York would they have a restaurant called Burgers and Cupcakes. Excellent if small hamburgers. But I should eat that small a hamburger all the time!

Wednesday we bought tickets on the Hop-On-Hop-Off bus and ferry and did three loops of the bus: Downtown, Uptown, and the Bronx. Thursday we took a ferry to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island plus the HOHO ferry that went around the south end of Manhattan Island. Ellis Island was particularly interesting for Randy because his grandfather came through that immigration facility. The only bad thing was that my zoom lens failed so that it could only zoom from 18mm – 35mm (supposed to be 18mm – 270mm). We went to B&H Photo, a store devoted to all things photographic whether video or still, film or digital, cameras or lenses, professional or amateur. An absolutely amazing place! They sent me to their repair shop who said they would have to send it out and it would be $200 or more. So I’m going to buy a new one tomorrow. After my feet recover from the many many steps they took on Thursday.

First thing on Friday (today), we went back to B&H to get my new lens. After Randy picked himself up off the floor from the price, we got him a new SD card for his camera and then went exploring a bit. Found a wonderful shopping center. Wonderful not for the stuff you can buy there—although there is an infinite amount of THAT for sure!—but for the wonderful food court. Unfortunately we had too big a breakfast and just couldn’t face actually eating anything so we just had a beer. We’ll be back; we still have two more days in New York.

Tonight is the Mets game (they didn’t fare well in Chicago against the Cubs—hope Cubby Bear doesn’t get mugged!—losing all four games in Chicago for the first time since 1992!) so I have to rest up for that!

No real need to tell you what this is!

Ellis Island where so many had their dreams realized and a lot had their dreams dashed.

The view from Liberty Island back to Manhattan.

Had a beer or two in this Irish Pub

Chrysler Building in the distance

Neither Randy nor I can look at the Met Life Building and not remember when it was the PanAm building with a heliport on top for the rich and famous to fly to where ever they wanted.