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Jake just got done spending a few days with
MPnA and
GnGT while Michele and I took a short trip. (Hint, click on the names to see some of their photos).
You may
recall that last year as we were waiting to depart for South Carolina, the person pulling the jetway away from the plane managed to clip the wing which caused us to miss a day down south. As compensation, we received free vouchers that had to be used within a year. Since we'd never been down to Philly to see Tiff and Francesco, we thought this would be a great opportunity. For some reason, the closest airport we could fly into to see them was La Guardia in New York. It's only about a two hour drive from there to their house, so we decided to go for it. We also decided that we'd leave Philly a day early to spend that time in NYC. Here's how our trip went.
SATURDAY, 2/9/2008After flying out of Metro around 7:00 am, we landed in New York, and then slowly made our way down through New Jersey to Philadelphia and arrived at Tiff and Francesco's (TnF from now on) house around noon.
After spending the afternoon catching up, Michele and I headed to a nearby Church thinking that would give us all of Sunday to do whatever we wanted. We found a church called Our Lady of Perpetual Help. It was gorgeous inside, and packed with people. It's definitely the type of Chuch we would join if we lived in the area.
After that, TnF took us downtown to a place called
Jones Restaurant. The atmosphere was very cool and the food was great. After that, we walked over to
Lucky Strike. After finding out that there'd be a 3 hour wait (minimum) for a bowling lane, we decided to shoot some pool. TnF destroyed us winning every game.
Sunday, 2/10/2008We headed downtown again Sunday afternoon to
The Franklin Institute. The museum was a hands-on science museum with a lot of cool displays. Besides seeing many of Benjamin Franklin's many inventions, there was also a giant heart display and an Identity display that spoke about personalities related to genetics and environment. Tiff's favorite part seemed to be watching the dissection of a cow's eye. I enjoyed it as well, and was surprised that Michele made it through the whole thing.
After the museum we grabbed our first official Cheese Steak from
Geno's. We ordered ours "whiz, with" which meant they had cheeze whiz (instead of provolone like we'd usually get up here) and onions. We both thought they were very good.
After that, we headed back to Lucky Strike where we were able to get a lane after about 30 minutes. Michele and I both made up for the previous night. Michele even exceeded her own goals on both of the games. That was even after deciding she should do better in the second game!
Monday, 2/11/2008On Monday, Francesco was back to work and Tiff decided to work from home. That left Michele and I alone to explore the city. When we went to the FI, we purchased a
City Pass which gave us admittance to many of the other museums and attractions in the city. Tiff dropped us off at the train station near their house, and we rode the train into the city.
Within the course of about 6 hours and after about 3 miles walked, we were able to accomplish all of the following
(MAP):
Then, after Francesco got home from work, we headed out to eat at their favorite Thai restaurant. Philly has very different liquor laws than Michigan, so much so that we were able to take a bottle of wine with us which they chilled and opened for us.
Tuesday, 2/12/2008With both TnF at work, Michele and I hopped in the rental car and headed to New Jersey to see the
Adventure Aquarium. Besides all the cool fish that we got to see, we also touched jelly fish, rays, and sharks! They also had a very cool Shark Tunnel which was the last exhibit that you'd pass through before leaving.
After leaving NJ and getting back to PA, we hit up
Pat's (which is across the street from Geno's) for our third and final Cheese Steak, again Whiz, without. Anyone reading this, probably figured that this was my doing. On the contrary, Michele is the one that decided that we wouldn't be happy unless we hit the "Big Three", and decided we should go there for lunch. After eating at all three, we decided that Geno's was probably our favorite. Rick's was a larger sandwich, but a bit fattier than Geno's. This might have just been bad luck, but it's how the steak fell. Pat's was as lean or leaner than Geno's, but they put the cheese on last meaning it got all over the place.
To add a bit of relaxation into our trip, we then headed to a movie theater where we were 2 of 3 people in the 2:00 showing of
Fools Gold. The movie was better than I expected, but definitely one that could be rented unless you need to see Matthew McConaughey shirtless on a BIG screen (I'm not sure if Michele blinked during the movie). On our way out of the theater, we found everything covered in ice! It was raining a bit when we went in, but by the time we got out, the parking lot looked like a winter wonderland. Impressively, most of the roads already showed signs of salting, and we made our way back to TnF's house without incident. Unfortunately, the same couldn't be said for their trip home from the city. Due to the conditions, it took them 2 hours to make it home where it would normally take between 20 and 30 minutes. Francesco still took the time to whip us up some dinner and we hung out in their house for the remainder of the night.
Now might be a good time to mention that their house is awesome! It's a two-story house with a stone front. They've done work to almost every room and the paint scheme they chose ended up all having a food in the name. They said it made it easier to choose between the 50 different shades of any given color. They are getting ready to remodel the kitchen, so Michele was able to give them plenty of nightmares about our experience and might have pushed them towards contracting the work out. They were great hosts, and we couldn't have had a better place to stay!
Wednesday, 2/13/2008By Wednesday morning, the temps had already warmed up enough to melt away most of the mess from the day before. Unfortunately, it was still raining which really put a damper on our site-seeing plans for New York. We ended up taking our time getting out of Philly. After getting stuck on the New Jersey Turn Pike for about 45 minutes, we made it to our hotel in Manhattan about 30 minutes before check-in. After fighting the traffic (I hope to never drive in that city again), we were able to park in a nearby garage and get checked into the
Roosevelt Hotel a bit early. We then embarked on our second whirl-wind tour which lasted about 9 hour and covered 8 miles
(MAP):
- We got hot dogs and papaya juice for lunch at Gray's Papaya which we had seen in Fools Rush In. The dogs and the drink were both delicious!
- We then saw the Empire State Building, or at least the part we could see through the overcast day.
- Next, we walked up to Times Square. This is one of the most amazing things I've ever seen, and you have to experience it to understand. The combination of architecture, technology, people, and cars is so incredible.
- From there, we walked around Rockefeller Center and visited the NBC store.
- Next, we headed up and over to Serendipity 3 where we had some hot chocolate (Michele wasn't up for their famous frozen hot chocolate) and cheese cake. Again, this was from a movie, Serendipity.
- Once we were full with our pre-dinner dessert, we walked to Central Park. We had hoped to ice skate there, but because of the rain, the rink was closed. We walked back by Rockefeller, but decided it was too pricey to skate there, and the ice really didn't seem to be in very good shape either.
- After a quick stop at the hotel to freshen up, we headed to the Oyster Bar at Grand Central station. We had a delicious dinner with a bottle of wine that we both enjoyed.
- At the suggestion of a friend, we headed back to Times Square to see it at night. As expected, it's even more amazing seeing all the bright lights against the dark sky.
Thursday, 2/14/2008After one more quick jog over to Times Square so Michele could see them taping Good Morning America, we grabbed some dinner and got the car to head back to the airport. Getting out of the city was about as crazy as getting in, but at least it had stopped raining. It only took us about 2 hours to make it from downtown to La Guardia, which gave us about 5 hours to kill in the airport. Still, it was better to be bored in the airport than stressed out if we had stayed in the city longer and hit any more delays trying to cut it close.
Our flight back was without incident. We landed, collected our luggage, and headed up to GB to see our son (and MPnA as well).
In all, it was an excellent trip. We were glad to hear Jake had a lot of fun back in Michigan. We wouldn't have gotten to see nearly as much if he had been with us, and probably wouldn't have been able to go out much in New York at all with the weather. If TnF insist on staying away, maybe next time, when he's a bit older, we'll take him down with us for a Cheese Steak or two, or three!
(Please click on the photo to see more pictures.)
