Wow, I can’t believe we’ve been back from our 12-day trip to the East Coast for two and a half weeks already. Yes, it has taken me this long to upload all the photos I took and write this entry because life has been so busy since we got back. This is gonna be a long one, but if you’d rather just look at the photos, skip down the end of this entry where I provide links.
9/22 – Saturday – Travel
We left around 8 am with the intention of driving as long as we could stand it before stopping for the night to find a hotel, so we ended up driving through all of Ohio (loved their rest stops or as they called them, Service Stations, by the way) and most of Pennsylvania before stopping. We had trouble finding a hotel with vacancies in Bloomsburg and the only available rooms were ridiculously priced. We finally found a Holiday Inn Express for $99 night in Whitehaven, PA. We learned from the very friendly manager that a motorcycle event was going on in the area that weekend which explained why so many of the hotels were booked solid.
9/23 – Sunday – New Jersey
Since we had kept driving east the night before we were only an hour and a half from New Jersey when we left in the morning. I spotted a baby black bear along the road who ran into traffic and luckily make it back into the woods without a scratch. Unfortunately that would be the only true wildlife we’d see during this trip, but it was pretty cool and unexpected because I had no idea black bears were indigenous to New Jersey.
Since we arrived too early to check into our hotel, we decided to visit Liberty State Park in Jersey City where we stumbled upon the ferry to Ellis Island and Liberty Island to see the outside of the Statue of Libertyy. It’s currently under renovation so we couldn’t go inside but it was really cool to see the statue up close. After reading that you have to climb 393 steps to reach the statue’s crown I’m fine with the fact that we only saw it from the outside. I get easily winded climbing stairs anyway.
After we returned to the mainland we had lunch at Hard Grove Cafe which was recommended in the Food Network app I had installed on my phone. I drank the best mango mojito ever and I don’t even like mojitos! And yes, I got “drunk” because I rarely drink so I’m a lightweight. Joe found it very amusing.
After lunch we checked into our spacious hotel room (Hyatt Place in Secaucus, New Jersey). We got at a great rate thanks to my connections at work which made the room even that more impressive. After checking in we walked around the plaza area and ended up grabbing drinks, appetizers and dessert from a restaurant called The Urban Plum which is located in the Holiday Inn Express near our hotel. It was deserted when we arrived seeing as though it was a Sunday night but I didn’t mind. The food and drinks were just ok, but the cheesecake we shared was pretty good.
9/24 – Monday – New York
We hopped on the bus outside our hotel in Jersey and which took us through the Lincoln Tunnel into the Port Authority Bus Terminal (PABT for short) in New York where all the train and bus lines seem to converge. From there we took the Red 2 subway train to the Bronx Zoo. It was a pretty big zoo, complete with a monorail. It reminded me a lot of Milwaukee Zoo in the way it was laid out. After what for us was a record three and half hours at the zoo (which didn’t open until 10 am, mind you, and we got there late because the bus/train ride took longer than I expected), we took the train back to Manhattan and visited the 9/11 Memorial.
Beforehand we stopped in a little hole in the wall place called It’s a Pizza that had good reviews on Yelp. We bought a few slices of pizza including one called mashed potato which was out of this world. I nearly choked to death on the wonderful stringy cheese, and unfortunately that’s about the 3rd time in my life that has happened. I had to pull the cheese out of my own throat (ew!) and then later Joe pointed out a paramedic was sitting right by us. Wonderful guy that was not even noticing someone choking to death. So that’s another vacation where I had a near death experience (the other being our honeymoon when I almost drowned at Discovery Cove when water went into my snorkel – someone keep me inside where I can’t hurt myself).
Something to note: You can’t just walk up to the 9/11 Memorial. First you have to go to a particular location to get tickets for an entry time (hence why we had time to get some pizza), then walk several blocks to the entry site, go through security, and then walk a few more blocks to the actual site which cannot be seen without doing all this as it’s surrounded by walls. Nonetheless it was a very moving site and brought tears to our eyes.
By the time we left the memorial it was around 7 pm and we were tired so we nixed our original plans to visit Coney Island or walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. There’s only so much you can do in New York in one day since the city is ginormous.
When we got back to the PABT, I thought we were going to be waiting in line for hours to get on a bus back to Jersey because the line was the longest one in the place but luckily they had several buses lined up waiting to take everyone across the river. They just cram people in like sardines too, including standing in the aisles of the bus which would freak me out since they are on so many elevated roads with ramps and whatnot. I think we made it back to the hotel within a half hour which wasn’t bad at all.
9/25 – Tuesday – New York
Once again we hopped on the bus to the PABT, but this time we rode the Yellow Q subway train to Central Park to visit the zoo. It’s really small but the polar bear was awesome and had to be the biggest one we’ve ever seen. His exhibit was cool because you could see him at all angles. The zoo also has red pandas which are the cutest little creatures ever.
After we tired of the zoo we took the subway to Times Square and marveled at the buildings and went inside the massive Toys R Us. Afterwards we walked around looking for somewhere to eat. The problem with New York is that we could not get our bearings and it felt like we were walking around in spirals most of the time. We’d look up a place on Yelp and try to pull up directions on the maps app but it wasn’t really helpful for walking (thanks for nothing, Apple, with your shitty iOS 6 maps update).
We finally ended up eating at an overpriced shitty cafe chain called Europa which I would not recommend to anyone (which is also why I’m not linking to it). I also got a stomach ache, which I’m not necessarily saying was related, but another problem with New York, like any big city, is that public restrooms are scarce. I finally found one at McDonalds in the nick of time and apparently caused quite the line to build up while everyone waited on me (there were two stalls but I guess a lot of people needed to go too because when I finally came out there were a good 10 people waiting).
From there we walked to 30 Rockefeller Plaza where we passed Jane Krakowski filming a scene from 30 Rock. We could have been on tv (they were lining tourists up behind the stage Jane was on so they could be “extras”) but skipped it as my stomach hurt. Once we made it inside the building we asked a security guy for directions to the nearest restroom and he was very helpful because my stomach was not letting up even after eating some Pepto-Bismal. I was really starting to worry we were not going to be able to make the Jimmy Fallon taping.
Once I finally emerged from the bathroom we high-tailed it upstairs to stand in line and it was looong. I started getting a sinking feeling that we wouldn’t get tickets but luckily we did. We were asked to come back in an hour and to make sure we had used the restroom by then as we would not be permitted to get up at any time during the taping. I returned to my post in the bathroom a few more times and slowly my stomach started feeling better (thank you sweet Jesus).
The taping of the Jimmy Fallon show was awesome! First a very funny comedian came out to warm up the crowd and give instructions. Then out came… Jerry Seinfeld! It was fun to hear them talk about stuff that never made it air (which is why they don’t allow anyone to take photos and they make you turn off your cell phone completely while pages stand in the aisles watching everyone like a hawk). The male cast from the new NBC show, Guys with Kids, came on next and did this awesome music skit of old theme songs with Jimmy which concluded with Jimmy coming up the aisle and standing about two rows in front of where we were sitting (my niece was able to get a very unflattering still image of us which I am NOT posting here – haha). We didn’t get a high fave from Mr. Fallon though even though he went down our aisle. I admire the amount of energy that man has (they ended up doing the musical number twice) but felt rather bummed not getting to interact with him at all when three different girls jumped on him and got hugs.
Overall impression of New York
No thank you! It is way too crowded and fast-paced but the people are all nice (save for one NYC police officer who yelled at Joe when we tried to walk down a street that was blocked off (it looked like the street was blocked; not the sidewalk)). I’m happy that we visited since everyone talks about New York and it’s featured in so many movies and TV shows but I was also happy to leave that hustle behind.
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