We started the day with breakfast at Effy's, a small breakfast place near Matt's apartment.
One of the things on Amanda's list of things to do was to eat at a cafe table on the sidewalk. Effy's was the perfect place to check this thing of the list.
After breakfast we headed for a walk through Central Park on our way to Times Square.
I had been to Times Square before, but it is always such an exciting place.
From Times Square we walked over to see NBC, Rockefeller Center, FoxNews, and some other things including Magnolia Bakery which we made a note of so we would remember to return later.
We headed back to Times Square where it had started to sprinkle.
We went into the Marriott at Times Square to ride the elevator to the top floor. The all glass elevator makes the ride to the 45th floor quite fun! As we left the Marriott we realized that it was no longer just sprinkling but had turn into a good solid rain.
Because it was a downpour and we really didn't want to walk anywhere at that point, we headed towards a tent in Times Square that was promoting the new show PanAm.
The deal was you would wait in line to go back and see a promo of the show. Six people were called back at a time. Of those six people, one would win a genuine leather flight attendant bag that they claimed was worth $250. So we waited quite a while. We were entertained by the police officers trying to prevent the rain collect in the tent, but we did not enjoy the taxis that drove by and splashed us.
The three of us are not big tv fans and the show they were promoting as "glamorous and gossipy" didn't really appeal to us. Especially after we saw they played the same preview over and over again in the tent that they showed once you got to go back. However, it was ALL worth is because Matt won the bag! This made me very excited because it was so random.
We grabbed grilled cheese sandwiches at a place in Times Square and the menu made it very clear that we were no longer in the South. Soda Pop? What is that? I also must say that people say that New York City is expensive. Of all the places we ate, this place was the most expensive but likely the least quality. I'm convinced it was the most expensive because it was in a tourist area.
After lunch, we headed over to check out Macy's and a few other stores.
We then headed over to Ground Zero for our reservation to see the 9/11 Memorial. First we checked out St. Paul's. It is amazing to think that the church is still standing because these trees took a good amount of the blow when the towers fell. Also, did you know that this is where George Washington prayed the night before he was inaugurated...
I had seen Ground Zero when I was in NYC in 2009. There has been so much growth in the area since then! Unfortunately it was too foggy to see the top of the tower they have rebuilt.
A mural outside the memorial. I am so curious to know the story behind the people who have left these flowers.
The Memorial was such a interesting, moving thing to experience. This was the first major event of our country that I specifically remember and can say, "I remember, I was doing..."
There were SO many names on the edges of the fountains. It really was baffling to me how they got all of the peoples names who died during the attacks. What especially made me think a lot was seeing Unborn Child. One, I thought how incredibly sad that was. and Two, I thought how much time they must have spent collecting these names to include unborn child.
I did love the fact that someone had put gerber daisies on some of the names.
This tree was the only tree left standing between the two towers. A few years later it was struck by lightning.
After the Memorial, we met Matt, who had been at the gym, at the Wall Street Bull.
Occupy Wall Street had just started and wasn't really in the news yet. We saw some people walking around protesting with signs but I couldn't really understand what they were saying. All I could here was, "blah da ha Wall Street." Really they were not very clear with their pronunciation! The bull was blocked off because of the protesters and there were tons of police officers in front of the NYSE. Traffic had been blocked as well.
After this we decided to take the ferry to Staten Island so we could see the Statue of Liberty. I got no good pictures. I must say that taking the ferry made realize how different it is to live in NYC. We were with tons of people coming home from work. I can NOT imagine taking a ferry home from work every day!
After we got back to Manhattan, we took a bus and ended up near our restaurant for the night. Matt picked the restaurant for us. Panna II is an Indian restaurant is THE most unique restaurants I have ever eaten. First, it was really good, reasonable priced food. But the atmosphere...
The whole restaurant is incredibly narrow with tables on both side. There is barely enough room for one person to slip between. The walls are covered in iridescent wrapping paper and there are Christmas light type lights hanging from the ceiling. If you are tall, you will definitely hit the lights! The best part is when it is someones birthday. The play Indian dance club music and start a disco ball. Such a fun place and I would recommend it!
By this time it was pretty late, but we new we needed banana pudding so we headed to Magnolia Bakery. If you ever go to NYC you HAVE to get banana pudding from here. It is SO good. We headed towards Grand Central Station and went to the whispering corners before catching the train back to Matt's apartment to eat our banana pudding.
We were able to check most of the things of our list of things to do... except going to New Jersey since it was so foggy. But to quote Matt, "Nobody comes to NYC to go to Jersey." Nobody, but me.
We were quite exhausted when we got back so we went to bed pretty quickly. Well not before we got directions from Matt on how to get to Brooklyn for out next day of adventure.
