Air port Shuttle, Apartment, Empire State Building and Lion King

---

Welcome to New York City!!

This is where theory meets reality. The theory of New York City I have been working on for six months on and off. So here's how the story of today goes...it's a long one but it's a funny one!

Super Shuttle

I looked around at other shuttle services but for some reason I kept coming back to the SuperShuttle. No real reason. All the services were basically the same rate and had the same type of car options.

When our plane landed I received a text message from the SuperShuttle service with instructions on how to check in so after we got our baggage I went through the online check in process. It was real simple. I followed a link they texted me and then in received a confirmation text back. In 15 minutes a guy showed up, flashed my name on some electronic tablet and we were off.

Since it was a shared ride there were other people in van with us. I knew that since we were staying in Manhattan we were probably going to be the last to be dropped off so I told the boys to get comfortable.

I took a little over an hour. I used a map I had brought to follow along with the ride. I will say that actually worked out. Well, I need to purchase some reading glasses but I was able to figure out that we went through the Bronx, Harlem then followed along the Hudson River down to 42nd Street to our apartment.

When we arrived the driver got out and he said, 'Come with me, your place is across the street.' Uh, have you ever seen a New York driver? They are crazy and I am pretty sure they speed up when a pedestrian is in the street. So the driver takes a quick look left and right and quickly darts through the cars with my bag. I yell to the boys to come on and in some Frogger move we jump onto the sidewalk. Once on the sidewalk the driver looks at us tells us to have a good day and is back across the street like some ninja. We catch our breath and all look at each other with his blank stare like 'what just happened.'



Getting settled into the Apartment

As luck would have it our little non de script complex door is right between a Burger King and Dunkin Doughnuts. Praise the Lord! We have been traveling since 1am (it was now 10:30am) and all we had to eat was the snacks on the plane. We couldn't scurry into Burger King fast enough.

So we walk into Burger King and as we open the door you feel like everyone is staring at you and thinking 'tourists' as we try to wheel our 47 pounds bags of luggage into this tiny New York Burger King. Yeah, we look weird.

As we stand there like deer in a headlight this gentleman comes over and says, 'I have a place for those.' I give this guy a look that says something like, 'this is New York, do you think I'm going to let some guy take off with our bags.' I actually said, 'uuhh.' He looks back at Jeff and I and says, 'that's not this kind of place. Let me show you.' He wheels our bag into the little nook and secures them in the corner. He then says come this way and he places outr order into the self service kiosk.

Well, welcome to New York City!! The Burger King guys name is Chris and he is the security guard. Let me just tell you, he is the guy you want welcoming you to NYC.

We finished our lunch and about the time the assistant that going to show us to the apartment showed up. This fella was a fast talking New Yorker and before we knew it he had one of our luggage bags and was out the door.

We entered the 'complex' through the tiny door and started down the hallway. Guy says, 'they are painting so watch your luggage.' Easier said than done because they aren't painting the hallways they are painting the handrails. Oh, this should work out because who needs to hold onto a handrail when they are walking up a narrow staircase four flights of stairs while carrying a 47 pound (I know mine, Kirby's and Jeff's bag weight that much because we had to shuffle things around to get all the bags under weight) bag. Needless to say we all got paint on us. You know, brown paint that looks like poop. As we are walking up the stairs the painters are nicely saying, ' we can repaint just take your time.' In my head I'm thinking I bet your ass you can repainted' but I actually just smiled and said thank you.

We rented the apartment through AirBnb. My expectations weren't too high given the price and the description. I choose the apartment because of the location. The apartment is two blocks from Times Square. For $400 a night and it slept 8 people you really couldn't beat it. I did read the reviews so I did know there were stairs. I did not recall it being four flights of stairs so that was a bit of a shocker.

When the guy lets us into the apartment I take one look and in my head think, 'yep, this is a NYC apartment.'

It is not a glamorous apartment but it is neat and clean. You can tell they do care about the place but it's an older apartment. Jeff best describes it as 'this is how an apartment would look if he did renovations.' Ha!

Good news is there are plenty of plugs for all of the electronics and they have Wifi so I'll put that in the plus category.

Oh well, here we are and this is where we will lay our head the next couple of days.



Empire State Building

Cheryl, Carrah, Brooke and Nicole arrived shortly after we got settled. They had the same Frogger experience crossing the street and they were just as enamored by the painting of the stairs and the amount of stairs as we were.

After a lot of research I decided on the New York pass. After we decided the list of things we would like to do and see and adding up the cost of each activity the New York City Pass paid for itself and gave us additional options that we did not think about.

Since we were on 42nd Street we decided to walk to the Empire State Building instead of taking the subway. The Empire State Building was only a mile away and it was a nice way to get used to the neighborhood around us.

On our walk we accidentally found Times Square. They have a 'play area' right at the entrance and the kids loved playing on the round red chairs.

While walking you encounter these people trying to sell you every kind of your package that NYC has to offer. It gets pretty annoying. Kirby's kind heart just doesn't understand how we ignore all these folk. He keeps telling each person, 'No, thank you.'

We find the entrance to the Empire State Building and we stand in line to get our tickets to ride the elevator to the 80th floor.

I thought we were called to the next cashier but we actually weren't. I stand in front of the lady and she said that she wasn't ready yet so we go back to stand in line.
This starts to remind me of the time Jeff and I had gotten of a cruise ship and we hadn't filled out the customs form. The customs guy got so mad at us that he left his station and just went and stood in the back room for 15 mins. No really, one of his coworkers said he found him standing in the back and he was mad at us. So weird.
Now this lady was doing the same thing. Really, there were now customers being helped, all four cashiers were talking and we were just standing there waiting to be called. Oh boy. We finally got called and received our tickets to ride!

There are two elevators that take you up to the 80th floors. One goes slower than the other and one has a movie while the other one doesn't. As luck would have it get got the faster one that has a movie. How cool. It was like Disney World!

We roamed around the 80th floor which is just a room full of the history of the Empire State Building and some guy dressed up as King Kong.

The line to ride the elevator to the 86th floor was very long so we decided to walk the six flights of stairs. OMG!!! I am soooo out of shape! While Nicole and Timmy are skipping up the stairs I am looking around for a bench to sit on. Geez! I really got to get back to working out.

We took some pictures around the 86th floor. We were able to see the Statue of Liberty, Brooklyn Bridge, Rockefeller Center, Central Park and the Chrysler Building. It was cool to see the city from the 86th floor.

We walked back down to the 80th floor then rode the elevator back down.

By this time we were all a little tired and grumpy so we decided we needed a Starbucks pick me up. Oh yeah, that worked out!

Times Square
We had a couple of hours to kill so we walked back to Times Square so the kids could play around on the chairs again and we could people watch.

Today there was some sort of Science Fair so there were a bunch of performers at each corner demonstrating science stuff. There was this one lady and man that were swimming around in a water tank. Like a moth to the flames we couldn't take our eyes off of what she was doing. We must have watched her for 30 minutes swim around in the tank and we could never figure it out.

We found a food truck that had a seating area that sold wine and beer. Good job Carrah! Best $7.50 I've ever spent.

There are street performers everywhere and man do they hustle! We watched these guys dance and perform tricks. At the end one of the performers jumped over four guys that were standing in a line. It was amazing!

There are also these creepy costume characters that are walking around and asking you to take a picture with them. Half of their outfits look so worn out and dirty. There are signs in Times Square warning people that the costume characters will ask for tips. I saw one that had a vendor tag displayed. I think the worst thing is that the characters often take their heads off. I know it is hotter than anything but I think when the kids see that it takes away the mystery of the characters.

Enjoyed our time in Times Square it was a much needed break at the end of a long day.


Carmines

When I was looking for places to eat I kept coming across Carmine's. What attracted me to the place was that is serves family style dinners. A family style dinner is when you order the portions are big enough to feed 2-4 people.

We chose garlic bread with cheese, ravioli with meat sauce and spaghetti noodles with ragu.

There was a lot of hustle and bustle in the restaurant but you didn't notice because it really is a family atmosphere.

We really enjoyed dinner and would recommend you out that on your 'to do' list when in New York.

Lion King

This will be the first Broadway play for everyone except me.

Getting into the theatre and to our seats was very easy. We just rode the escalators up, got a few overpriced drinks and walked right to our seats.

When the curtain went down I kind of teared up a little bit.
It reminded me of when Jeff and I were on our honeymoon. On our way back from our cruise we stopped by Disney World. When we watched the afternoon parade I teared up because I knew one day we would take our kids to this same parade.
To be able to bring our kids to a Broadway show was outside of my wildest dreams.

To say the Lion King was amazing would be a gross understatement. The singing was out of this world, the props were awesome and the stage changes were mind blowing.

At the intermission the lights come on and and we look to the right and Kirby is passed out. I mean lounging with his legs stretched out, in the personal space of the guy next to him PASSED out!!!
After we could contain our laughter I tried to wake him up. The kid would not budge!

In his defense, instead of Kirby going to sleep Wednesday night Jeff said he could stay up and then just wake him up at 12:30am. When we headed to Jacksonville we thought he'd fall asleep but he didn't. So the kid had been up all day long. I don't know how he did it.

We finally were able to get him up and he looks at his daddy and says, 'Jeefff?' Oh, I about peed in my pants because he had NEVER called his daddy by his first name. The kid was so confused.
Jeff decided to take Kirby back to the apartment. We are pretty sure he slept walked there.

We all stayed and watched the rest of the show. It was so sad to see it end. We all jumped up and clapped and clapped and clapped!

-----

We had a fantastic time in NYC with a whole bunch of laughs and pretty awesome experiences.

Next stop Central Park!






We had a fantastic time in NYC with a whole bunch of laughs and pretty awesome experiences.

Next stop Central Park!

---