NYC 1.5 (part 1)

Over spring break this past week, I flew out to Pittsburgh ("Hellloooooo, Pittsburrrrrggggghhh!" Ando, that's for you. Can anyone else name that movie?) to visit Erika and Kyle in their new home. During that time, Shorty and I made plans to road-trip to NYC. Because, why not? We passed the time in the car by re-living our childhood and singing along to High School Musical and Hillary Duff.

We arrived mid-afternoon in New Jersey, checked into our hotel, and headed for the city. We were pretty stoked! We had 1.5 days to see as much as we possibly could and we were READY!

When we stepped out of our bus stop, I saw this. Whoah. How does one get to be a journalist with the New York Times? Takes more intelligence and political savvy than I can claim, that's for sure.

Our first official stop was Central Park, and we passed the Museum of Natural History on the way.

Central Park, with the leftovers of winter snow melting and the spring sun shining, was gorgeous!

Walking through Central Park  made me want to burst into song and dance, but we had no time for that! We had a tight schedule and were off for Park Avenue.

As we walked by these buildings, I told Erika they reminded me of the ones in Paris. Sure enough, the little plaque on the wall said they were inspired by French Renaissance architecture. #proudfrenchteachermoment

These buildings, however...not so much...

 

 
Our next metro subway (do Americans say metro?) stop took us to Grand Central Station. (By the way, Erika was Miss Navigator, having been to NYC a couple of times before. She did an amazing job! #shoutouttoshorty )

We were on our way to Times Square when we passed the Sofitel!!!!! Shorty and I both got excited, as it was the hotel our family would stay in for vacation when we lived in Ouaga. I'll be honest, I had no idea they existed in New York.

As we walked, I couldn't help glancing up, hoping to see Spiderman.

Finally, we arrived in Times Square!

Still no Spiderman...

Right by Times Square is the M&M Store. I absolutely love m&m's. This place had walls of various colors and flavors! Fun fact: did you know m&m's were initially made exclusively for the military, so that the soldiers' chocolate wouldn't melt? (Erika and I did some research on our way home on the history behind m&m's.)

We had one last stop before heading back to our hotel for the night: Macy's. But first, we needed something to eat. Erika helped herself to a traditional New York hotdog and claims it was quite good.

I chose the gyro sandwich--partly because after watching Jimmy Fallon and Luke Bryan's music video, I felt empowered to order the delicious sandwich with confidence in my pronunciation of it. Somehow, though, I still got it wrong. But the sandwich still tasted delicious!

Did the rest of you grow up watching Miracle on 34th Street every Christmas?

The old wooden escalators are pretty neat!

Once we had ridden the historic escalators and searched for the Christmas section that did not exist, we decided maybe it was time to head back to the hotel.

This is as close as we got to the Empire State Building.

We grabbed some coffee (merci Dad!), took the wrong bus back to the hotel (rookie mistake), but an hour later (and completely safe, Mom), we crashed into our beds anticipating our 5AM wake-up call.