We left Monday morning, plane departed STL @ 6:35am, so we got to the airport about 5:45am, could've used more time. Who'd thought that early would be so busy, but I guess with Spring Break, lots of people were headed out of town.
We were to have a 2 hour layover in Chicago, that ended up being 3.5 hours! We had breakfast when we landed and before we took off for NYC we had lunch, both times at my favorite place, McDonalds (yuk!) But it's the airport, go figure.
We finally get into NYC and it takes one hour to get from airport to hotel, we were pretty tired by then, but knew we needed to go get some dinner. We got on the subway and headed up to Grand Central Station. They have a food court in the lower level, at Junior's and then headed back to hotel.
Tuesday:
We got up, ate breakfast at hotel, and then headed off to the Statue of Liberty. We were a little early, so we stopped by World Trade Center to see the construction. Then walked down to Statue of Liberty ferry. After going through airport type security, we finally go on the ferry and head over to Libery Island. Once there, we walk around the outside then got in line for more security to go up to the pedestal.
After we got done seeing Lady Liberty, we took the ferry to Ellis Island, where we attempted to find Bob's family from immigration records. He knows nothing about his family history, put we took pictures of it anyways.
Back to Battery Park, the ferry drops us off. My original plan was to go to Brooklyn and walk across the Brooklyn Bridge, weather did not want to cooperate so we decided to head back to the hotel to let Isabelle rest. No nap, but to be expected, the child thinks she will miss something so exciting.
Late Tuesday afternoon we decided to head to Rockefeller Center and then over to Times Square. Luckly, it had stopped raining, but it was still dreary outside. While we were in Rockefeller Center we saw our first celebrity: Hoda, one of the hosts from the 3rd hour of the Today Show. We were dumbfounded, at first we didn't know her name, knew what she did. All I could say was "You're like a normal person" I know, very star struck words to say.
We then walked to Times Square, which was very cool, I've been before but to see all the people and the buildings/screens lit up was cool. While in Times Square, we rode the ferris wheel inside Toys "R" Us, Isabelle liked that.
After that fun, we took the subway back to our hotel. We stopped by the Shake Shack to get a burger, fries, and a really good shake. Then Isabelle got sick, we're going to blame it on the greasy burger and sugarry shake. After that fun adventure, we went back to the hotel to get some shuteye, we were getting up early to go see the Today Show Wednesday morning.
Wednesday:
Got to Rockefeller Center, saw Al Roker, then we got on TV!! I was texting anyone I knew who was up and wasn't working. After we had our 5 seconds of fame we headed back to the financial district to go see the Gold Vault inside the New York Federal Reserve. As a personal finance teacher, I like that stuff, but Bob could've done without.
After the tour, we headed up to Central Park. Went to a deli to get some lunch, then took it back to Central Park to eat lunch in the park. We went to the playground to eat, of course Isabelle wouldn't eat because she was so excited to play. The carousel was closed, so we went to the zoo. Not much there, but the children's zoo was neat for Isabelle. She got to feed the sheep.
After all our fun at Central Park, we began to walk down 5th Ave. This is where all the shopping is at. We didn't do any shopping, we saw Trump Tower and St. Patrick's Caterdal, then walked down to Empire State Building (which was a pretty far walk), Isabelle fell asleep by the time we got to the Empire State Building, which was a good thing. We finally got to the top, which was very windy, so Bob and I took turns going outside. While we were there we saw our 2nd celebrity: George St. Pierre. I had no clue who he was, but took pictures like everyone else.
By the time we were done with Empire State Building, Isabelle had woken up. Bob wanted to walk back to our hotel, which was another 10 blocks, but my feet/back were killing me so I wanted to take the subway. Of course, Isabelle had to use the restroom, and public restrooms are not an option, so we walked over to Macys. After our restroom break, we go on the subway and headed back to our hotel.
Got back to our room, then decided we needed to eat some dinner. Luckly, we were very close to a major street with lots of resturants. We ate at RUBBBQ, pretty good.
Thursday: go home day
We knew we didn't have much time before we had to head to the airport, so we took Isabelle to the park so she could exert some energy before she would have to sit still on a plane. Got to the airport in plenty of time and for once our plane took off ON TIME!! Of course we get to Chicago and there are mechanical problems, what was to be an hour layover turned into 2.
Finally got home around 6:30. 4 days, really became 2 days of travel and 2 days of sightseeing.
