NY baby!

Last time on my blog I took you through the riveting trip to DC and the events that transpired there. Buckle up, we're on our way to NY!

 I got to the bus station plenty early and got the best seat in the bus- front seat on the top deck. Extra legroom and a clear view the whole ride? Yes please! The white-ish blob you see between "North" and "New York" is a rock chip in the windshield. How in the world did a they get a rock chip in the middle of the second level windshield? That's one high flyin rock!

This is a sample of the view you get of Manhatten as you drive up the New Jersey coast. This is a shot of midtown from the bus. Note the Empire State Building on the right side. I have a puzzle hanging in my room with a night view of this view, only much better since the shot on my puzzle wasn't taken by a point-click camera from a moving bus.

Once I got into Manhattan I had a little over an hour before my next bus left. I got off the bus and realized that, while they do have a grid system, and I did have the address, it's a lot harder to figure out where you're going when you can't tell what direction is which. No mountains. No open space to look for the sun. Just tall buildings. Fortunately there was a Starbucks across the street so I enjoyed some apple cider while I google mapped my destination. How did people travel before google maps?
I still had some time after I figured out how to get to my bus so I took the metro up for a look at Times Square

Pretty much I got off the subway, took a picture, walked a block, got back on the subway, and went to my bus. But it was fun. I was by a bunch of theaters and saw the big adds for shows like The Lion King, and Wicked! I wish I had the time and resources to go watch them!

The bus ride up to Albany was pretty unexciting. I got the front seat again and slept/ read/ watched movies the whole way up. I got picked up by Sandi and family then went home and hung out for the night.

Peter, Saturne, and Zippi having fun posing for pictures.
Well, at least I know the kids were having fun...

Each day in Albany we'd go out in the mornings and do fun stuff, then we'd have to come home so Sandi could get the kids off the school bus and then we'd hang out at home. I got to meet a bunch of Sandi's friends and played with Peter, Miri, Zippi, and Alex a lot... at least when they weren't watching/playing legos. They looooove the ninja legos. It's always nice to get to kick back and relax a bit when on vacation. It's easy to get carried away with doing fun stuff.

Wednesday, after the 3 oldest kids went to school and Rob went to work, Sandi, Alex, and I went to see some stuff in town. We went to the New York State Museum. It's a pretty cool museum. It has a wigwam, some stuff from Sesame Street, a subway car, and a carousel. Guess which were Alex's favorites? The subway car and carousel, of course! Mostly the carousel. He tried to drag us through the museum really fast so we could go ride it.

Hanging out with the coyotes!

Ridin' the carousel!

After we finished we went out to Denny's for lunch and then got home in time for the kids coming home from school.

Thursday Sandi dropped me off in town on her way to institute. I took the bus out to the campus of the State University of New York in Albany. I took a campus tour and talked to one of the professors on campus. It's a pretty nice campus. They connected all the buildings (except the dorms) to each other by way of underground hallways, kinda UVU style but cooler. It was a nice visit, but I won't be going to school there any time soon. I had fun riding the busses too. It turned out that the bus I'd planned on taking back into town had a 2 hour break right when I wanted to go back, so I eventually found out which other bus would take me back to town and hopped on the next bus with that number... but I forgot to check if it was going into town or out of town...oops. I got a nice ride out to the mall though. I thought about browsing around the mall for a bit, but I was ready to get back home. It was getting close to dinner time! So I just got off the bus (end of the line, everyone off.) and then caught the next one a few minutes later. I think of all the bus systems and subways I've taken NY wins at most confusing. Both the subway in Manhattan and the buses in Albany were great, once you found out which one to get on... I forgot, I had some time before my tour at SUNY-Albany so I borrowed Sandi's ipod and did part of the walking tour of downtown Albany. It was really fun. As with most old towns, there were some really really neat buildings.  All with fun stories.

Friday we went to the NY State Capitol and took a tour. It's definitely one of a kind. They said it cost $25 million to build, which would be over a $1 billion in our day. It had 5 different architects and was never fully finished. Many of the carvings and such remain half done. It's a really interesting tour, but long. Alex had a rough time towards the end, but Sandi and I had fun.

A shot from the west side of the building. No dome on this capitol!

A very dark shot of some of the intricate carvings on the "Million Dollar Staircase".
Note Longfellow's face on the right and the smaller ones above and left.
The smaller ones were mostly faces of family and friends of the artisans.

Before, and after, our tour we went ice skating in Empire Plaza. Alex didn't quite get the hang of it, but he gave it a valiant effort. We ended up pushing him around on some buckets that he was supposed to be using to learn how to skate. Maybe next year he'll figure it out.

The fun ended a little unceremoniously when his buckets caught an edge and he went flying. Don't worry, he didn't get hurt. Just cold hands. So we packed it up, went home and watched the video of it a whole bunch of times = )

Then it was Saturday morning. I packed up, went out to the bus and got settled in. Sandi and kids were waiting to wave goodbye as we drove off, but we didn't drive off... for a long time. The battery had died and they had to call a service guy to come jump it. Sandi and kids took off, then came back an hour or so later and brought me lunch. While we were all enjoying our chicken McNuggets in the car the repair dude finally came and jumped the bus. Finally we were off. I even got the trip for free since so many people complained about the delay. The company just gave everyone a refund. Nice.

Once in NY I didn't have as much time as I had planned so I condensed my plans. I hopped on the subway and hopped off across the street from the temple. I've never seen such a wonderful sight coming out of a subway as that temple. It was actually a really nice part of town. I wish I'd had more time. I only did some sealings instead of an endowment session so I would have time for other stuff, but it was still nice. The temple part of the building is actually really small. It's only half of the building you see from the outside. The other half has family history and meeting rooms. There was a YSA regional conference going on in the other half that day. If I hadn't other plans I could've joined them.

However, I had made other plans. Remeber Fabian? From the bus down to DC? Well he gave me his card so I text him and we met up and he was my tour guide around NY. Plus with 2 bags, wandering around NY it was good to have someone else with me. We went down to Times Square again and he pointed out all the cool things to see. Did you know that they leave the new year crystal ball up all year long? They drop it, leave it all year, then replace it to be dropped for the next year.

Fabien and me on the Times Square Stairs. See, he's nice. Not a creeper.

That picture actually turned out perfectly. The screen behind me that's all lighted out was actually really skanky adds. Perfect! Only the good stuff in my picture!
From Times Square it was just a hop-skip-and a bit of a walk to Rockefeller Plaza. We watched people ice skate and saw the sign for the Radio City Music Hall. He knew a lot of interesting facts about the architecture and history of midtown. He was a great tour guide. We went up to the top of the Rockefeller building. The view was wonderful! It's a big rip off to pay $25 to take a really fast cool elevator up a really high building to see a really cool view, but it was worth it at least once. Plus Fabien found a coupon online and paid for my ticket anyway... so it was totally worth it = ) (Mom, no heart attack please. I was safe. I promise) So if you go to NY and are going to pay a lot to see the view, go to the "Top of the Rock" since you get to see this:

The Empire State Building

Which you don't get to see from The Empire State Building...
After that it was time for me to go, so we hopped on the subway to the Jamaica Station to catch the train to JFK... Wait, there are 2 Jamaica Stations? Wait, the one with the airplane next to it on the subway map isn't the one I wanted to go to? Oh, you take a bus from that one to the airport... and it only comes every half an hour... Taxi! Fabien got me settled in a taxi and I took off for the airport and made it with time to spare. The plane even left on time, and we got into SLC early! Good thing Michelle was already in SLC with a friend so she could come get me 45 minutes before she had planned.

It was such a fun trip. Thanks for reading my really long posts. I think I might have outdone Sandi for "longest posts ever" with this one. Thanks again to Christine and Sandi for all they did for me. It was great! Hopefully it won't be 5 years before the next time!