NYC sounds and sites - Top of Rock, Museum, Central Park and Wax Museum

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NYC sounds and sites - Top of Rock, Museum, Central Park and Wax Museum

How did we sleep the first night in the apartment? Well we all passed out. Timmy passed out in the weirdest position. There is a little couch in the master bedroom/living room and he was kneeling with his head on the couch. He was out! Jeff had to move him to the bed. Kirby of course was gone and slept in his clothes.
Jeff and I are sleeping in the bed that is closest to the street. We were lulled to sleep by the sounds of cars honking, ambulance sirens, police sirens and the hum of the backup beeper on a delivery truck. I really didn't care. After I hit my heads hit the pillow I was gone.

The apartment only has one bathroom. Sounds scary with eight people but believe it or not the morning went smooth. It took two hours but after yesterday we just took our time.

We had some doughnuts for breakfast and headed out the door to explore NYC on Day Two. We let the apartment right at 11am.



American Museum of Natural History

We were actually going to go to the Top of the Rock first we found out those tickets are timed tickets so we had to go back later.

To get to the museum we rode the subway. Since we were only going to ride the subway maybe 5 or 6 times we decided on the 'pay as you go' pass. This means we just put a dollar amount on the MetroCard. Each ride is $2.75. We only needed one card because up to 4 people can use it. You just swipe, hand it back, swipe, hand it back...you get the point.

We make it to the American Museum of Natural History, we get our tickets with our New York Pass and we start roaming around.

Well, I am not the most scholarly person on the planet and our time was limited to about an hour and 15 minutes so we really whizzed by most of the exhibits. Most of our time was spent between the Ocean Room and the Dinosaurs.

There were lots of fields trips when we were walking around. When I walked into one of the dinosaur exhibits this class of kindergarteners had just walked in. There were sawing 'wow', 'look', 'awesome' while pointing and just being so amazed by these big creatures. That was so cute to see.

Obviously I am not the one to review the museum but we did it and we can mark that off our list.

Back to Rockefeller Center via the Subway.



Rockefeller Center

The cool thing about getting off of the Subway at Rockefeller Center is that you walk into an underground city. Normally when you get off a subway you look for the exit sign and scurry up to the top to get where you want to go. Not here.

They have deli's, shoe shine place, pedicure place, couple of chain sandwich shops and gift places. It's like a mini mall. Sorry, I forgot to mention there is a Starbucks. Pretty sure there is a Starbucks every 200 feet in NYC. Oh and we did see a Chick-fil-a. The line was out the door.

We used the New York City Pass to get out tickets. When we showed up earlier that day we found out that they were timed tickets. The next available time was 2pm and when we got the tickets it was around noon. That why we did the museum first.

When we came back we just followed the signs to Top of the Rock Observation Deck, showed our tickets and headed to the top.

After you pass the initial line you are shuffled along to take a picture with your group. This has been common at most of the attractions we have been to. The guy sits us on this beam so we can reenact some famous picture and then starts talking to us like in a valley girl voice. I'm not sure why because he didn't do it to the other families in front of us. It was really weird and kind of rubbed me the wrong way. Anyway, I'm pretty sure all the pictures looked like crap because he took them so fast and made us do weird poses.

After the picture we were shuffled off into a holding area. Kind of like where Disney World makes you watch a movie while they clear out the ride. Well, we just weren't in the mood for a movie so I thought we could skip it. Nope, no skipping. They have you locked in that room. So we watched the first four minute movie and it was actually interesting. It was about the history of the Rockefeller Christmas Tree.

After the movie they count you off by 12 at a time and then you wait in line for the elevator. I actually like the timed ticket, the holding area and the limited number of people in the elevator. You didn't feel so rushed and it when we got to the top it wasn't crowded.

We looked around for about 15 minutes, took our pictures and headed back down. Yep, all that trouble for about 15 minutes. I mean it's cool to look over everything. I liked the view of Central Park. Lots of people were taking pictures of the Empire State Building. It is cool to see the architecture of the buildings from a birds eye view but how long are you really stay up there and look? We were satisfied so we headed back down.

By this time we needed to eat so we headed back down the the subway area and found a sandwich shop to eat at. Our tummies were full some headed to the next stop.



Central Park

With the New York City Pass we were able to rent bikes. We wanted to bike around Central Park.

Ok, this adventure was an hour and a half of learning process! No one got hurt but we might have gotten in each other's nerves for a minute or five.

The funny thing about planning all the activities for the days is that you put yourself in a position to have to answer a lot of questions that I do not really have the answers to. I have my books, my maps and this wonderful thing called 'google'. I did the best I could but I do not have all the answers. I think that frustrates me and I might have shown my frustration a time or two on this little adventure.

With all that being said, we walk the six or so blocks over (up, down, east, west...I don't know) to the bike rental place. Weeeelll, the bike rental place is about 3 blocks from Central Park. How in the world are we supposed to get bikes to Central Park?? Oh boy, questions start flying at me and anxiety about bikes vs cars in NYC starts to set in among the group. We make it through that hurdle and I rent the bikes.

In this case 'free' is not 'free'. You have to pay some sort of insurance fee which was only $1.99 a person but the New York Pass didn't mention that. So we got the insurance and bought an overpriced map.

We all get our bikes and without any instructions they send us on our way. We have to walk our bikes three blocks up. Did I mention we were in New York? The crowds closer to Central Park did not get thinner they get thicker. The fact none of us knocked anyone with our bikes was quite the accomplishment.

We get up to Central Park and we find out that bikes are not allowed on the trails. The bike rental people told us none of this.

This reminds me of a story of when Jeff and I were on our honeymoon and we rented snorkeling gear at the cruise ships private island. They gave us all the instructions and right before we got into the water the instructor said, 'its jelly fish mating season so watch out.' There had to be a million jelly fish. It was crazy. We rented the gear only to not be able to use it. I get people want to make money but that seemed a little shady to me.
With this bike rental I started to feel the same way.

The only places bikes are allowed are on shared roads with cars. SHARED ROADS WITH NEW YORK DRIVERS!! Then add the pedicab and horse drawn carriages on top of that. I was pissed.

So we head to the bike lane when the coast is clear and we start riding. We were able to find the carousel and it was a needed break so that we could regroup and figure out the next stop.

We decided that we would ride to the Bethesda Terrace Fountain. We rode up a little way and then took a slight left turn. I was so happy to see a sign that said 'bikes only'. Happy day!!!

We were able to ride around the rest of the circle without being worried by cars. It was very nice. As we rode I was very surprised that Central Park wasn't flat. I guess I always just thought it was a big flat park. It was nice to finally see some greenery.

We returned our bikes and then just went exploring.


Brooklyn Diner

On our way to find something to eat we stopped by Tiffany's and took a picture in front of Trump Tower.

We were a little intimidated by Tiffany's but we walked in anyway. We were very surprised at how friendly all the workers were. They were very quick to help and pointed us in the right direction. We headed up to the 4th floor so that we could look at the Sterling Silver jewelry.

We weren't buying anything so we just found a place to sit and charge our phones while Cheryl shopped.

After Tiffany's we continued down 57th Street (I think) past Carnegie Hall and we found a place called Brooklyn Diner.

Brooklyn Diner was a very cute place. It looked like an old silver train car. It wasn't packed so we were sat right away. We were able to get a booth that faced the street so we could people watch while we enjoyed a glass of wine.

The prices at the restaurant were a little shocking. The kids ordered sodas that were $4.50 each (ouch). Jeff and I split a chicken pot pie that was $24 and Kirby got a hamburger that was also $24 dollars. We knew that dinner was going to be expensive but wow that was a little much.

We really enjoyed the meal and the down time.

Madame Tussauds

Since we had the New York Pass we were able to enter Madam Tussauds that was less than a block from the apartment. Madam Tussauds is a wax museum. They have over 200 famous people and celebrities.

By the time we got there is was about 9:45pm. We were the only people in the building. It was awesome.

You start by riding an elevator to the 9th floor and then you walk your way through the exhibits to the ground floor.

When we got to the 9th floor the first thing I was was Edward (Twilight). I yelled, 'Edward' and we all just laughed.

I was very surprised because they encourage you to interact with the exhibits and take as many pictures as you want.

I think we spent about an hour walking the museum.

After the tour we headed home and all passed out again after a long New York day.

Day 3 will be Statue of Liberty, 9/11 Memorial and China Town.



fun

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