Aug 17 2013

Day 17 – Wall Street to Brooklyn

Today our plan was to head over to the city around lunch time so we could stay late for a comedy show. This being our last day with enough time to travel around the city, we had a lot of sights to see. We started our journey near the 9/11 memorial subway stop and walked a short distance to Wall Street.

On the way, there was a beautiful old church, Trinity Church. There is a sculpture here called The Trinity Root which is a bronze root of the Sycamore tree that helped shield St. Paul’s Chapel from debris after the fall of the World Trade Center.

If you have been to the city and you have seen how very close all these buildings are and you are not crazy, then you are probably thinking “there is no way that 3 MASSIVE building in the center could possible fall straight down into the ground without harming anything within less than a football field radius.” This is what was going through my mind the whole time we were walking around. Phrases like “literally impossible” and “what the hell” and “this is what they do in Vegas” and “why” kept repeating over and over in my head. Even as I think about it now my heart is racing, I just can’t believe anything…news…media. I wanted Jacob to write the blog because I knew I would not be able to hold back and I was right. This sculpture just got me thinking that so much is wrong with this picture….I can’t believe all the pain and suffering. It is so sad. And there is nothing we can do, but it does no good to remain ignorant. This scientifically, physically, and morally doesn’t make sense. We were sent a video before we left on our trip, check it out here. AE911truth.org is a website that was put together by engineers and architects, experts in the fields of constructing and demolishing buildings. It got us thinking!
I’m finish, on to Wall Street.

Below are pictures of Federal Hall, the site of the Inauguration of our first President George Washington, April 30, 1789.

This is the bible used to swear President George Washington into office.

Bully bully, bully bully!
A ‘Bull Market,’ a financial market of a group of securities in which prices are rising or expected to rise. The term “bull market” is most often used to refer to the stock market, but can be applied to anything that is traded, such as bonds, currencies, and commodities. (investopedi.com)
Jacob really really really wanted to the get a coney dog from Coney Island sooooooo bad, I think this trip was planned on strict basis that there will be pizza and hotdogs alone! While waiting in line for a hotdog he said, “I am SO HAPPY!” but not, “this is my favorite!” still waiting for that one. LOL

It was a good hotdog, nothing special. I like that the dog has a snap of the skin when you bit into it and it is juicy but I was thinking it would be thicker. It was very thin hotdog. I think the bun was too much for the dog to handle, too much bread, not enough meat. After our lunch we walked down to the boardwalk to check out the beach and the amusement park.

Ooowee, dat’s a lotta hotdogs, man!
We hopped back on the subway to Dumbo. We planned to walk the Brooklyn Bridge back to Manhattan, but that was just too much. Instead we took some great pictures.

Jacques Torres Chocolate was a few blocks away, I couldn’t be that close and not go in.

I was so excited! I used to watch him on the FoodNetwork make amazing chocolate creations. I hate I make something seem extraordinary in mind and come to find out it was not. There was nothing special here, just a variety of truffles, coffee/express, 3 types of cookies, and various treats covered in chocolate. Nothing grand or exciting.

I purchased only 3 truffles, I have a wedding to stand in at the in of this trip. They were so delicate. The chocolate shell was hardly noticeable, melting almost immediately on my tongue and the truffle centers were intensely flavorful. I love when a truffle is made so that the chocolate covering only protects the center from coming out and doesn’t over power the truffle center. So it was definitely a good purchase! YUM
Jacob bought ice cream.

We took the subway to Greenwich Village to get tickets for Comedy Cellar, highly recommended via Scott Faulk. Unfortunately, they were sold out. So made reservations in Chelsea for a Comedy Show. Before heading that way grabbed a quick bite at Artichoke Pizza which was sooooo good and cheap!

Cute, quirky decorations.

This was a skit comedy, we were looking for improv but couldn’t find anything. I thought I was funny and well done.

Aug 16 2013

Day 16 – 9/11, Lady Liberty, and Accordions

Hi there, 2nd day here in New York. We got a later start this morning because we planned to take in a late night comedy show. We left the campground around Noon and headed to the Path train. It was a lot less crowded this morning compared to yesterday during rush hour, we actually were able to sit! We headed to the World Trade Center station. This statue greeted you as you exited out of the subway station. It’s a soldier riding a horse. It’s symbolic because, when we invaded Afghanistan, some of the troops did so on horses. Soldiers haven’t ridden on horses in battle in over 50 years. I didn’t know we used horses in Afghanistan, but , it makes sense given the mountainous terrain.

We headed to the 9/11 memorial store to obtain tickets. We had an hour to kill since our tour was later in the afternoon, so we headed to St. Paul’s Chapel. St. Paul’s is literally across the street from the WTC. It was a place of rest and prayer during the days following the Twin Tower collapse. Hundreds of fireman, policeman, paramedics, and countless volunteers took shelter, rested, and were fed here. Another interesting piece of trivia, New York was actually our country’s first capitol. George Washington often came to St. Paul’s to pray and reflect on his many political decisions, his pew is below..

After touring St. Paul’s, we found a nice park nearby and ate some lunch. Soon, we were in the security line for the 9/11 Memorial. The memorial was very nicely done. It consisted of 2 pools with waterfalls that were built in the footprint of the north and south towers. The names of the fallen were inscribed around the perimeter of the memorial.

Below is picture of the not quite complete Freedom Tower. There’s plans for more sky scrapers to come…

After the 9/11 memorial, we took a subway to the Staten Island Ferry. On the way, we found a great example of New York DOT 😀 Yeah, that’s a road on a sidewalk..

We arrived at the Staten Island Ferry and boarded. The ferry is free to ride and has great views of the Statue of Liberty and Manhattan Skyline. Below is some pictures we took on the ferry..

Aimee and I are huge “How I Met Your Mother” fans. If anyone isn’t familiar with the show, it’s about a group of 30 somethings who are very close friends. They live in the New York and the series centers around Ted who’s trying to find the love of his life, but all his friends give him a hard time, its a funny show. The majority of the show takes place in the bar downstairs from their apartments. The creators actually developed the bar from a Irish bar they used to frequent, McGee’s. Aimee and I of course had to stop in and have a beer.

After our beer, we headed to Bryant Park. Aimee had goggled for stuff going on in the city this week. One thing she found was “Accordions in the Park”. So those of you that know me, know that I play the cajun accordion. Aimee and I love the music, so of course I had to check out other accordions. The majority of players up in New York play a keyboard accordion, which is a little different than mine. They play mostly polka, Italian, and German music. It was nice to enjoy a little music in the park.

Another cool thing about this park is there is tons of stuff to do. At the same time the accordion group was playing, a group was doing Yoga, there must have been a hundred people doing Yoga. Also, there’s plenty of games such as chess, checkers, ping pong, and shuffle board. There’s even a reading section with books that you can check out. What’s great is all this stuff is free!

Our stomachs were starting to growl, so we headed to a Chinese Restraunt that Aimee had wanted to try, Sammy’s Noodle Shop. The restaurant is in Greenwich Village. Aimee and I love Chinese and Vietnamese food so we ordered a little bit of everything! And the portions here are humungous so we had leftovers! We had dumplings, egg rolls, “A Little bit of everything” soup, and house lo mein. Everything was great.

After a full belly and tired feet, we didn’t feel like taking in a comedy show 😀 We headed back to the campsite and took in a movie. Until tomorrow, Bon Soir!

Aug 15 2013

Day 15 – Hello New York

Hi there, reporting live from New York. We had a ton of stuff to see, so we got started early. We left the camp site for the New Jersey Path Train around 8 am. The train was packed with commuters going to work. We literally had squeeze into the train car. Here are some pictures of the station and train.

We got off of the train and took the subway up to Time’s Square. Time’s Square was busy even at 9 in the morning. It was all lit up!

Aimee found a cool local coffee shop and she stopped in for some coffee. They had some good looking pastries, check out those waffles!

We walked down to Rockefeller Center. On the way down, we passed by a ton of street vendors, the food smelled awesome. Check out the size one of the vendor’s coffee filters…Quuuaaww!

We walked up to Radio City Music Hall. X factors was scheduled to record that night..

Next we walked up to Rockefeller Center. I wanted to check out the gold statue and fountain that the center is famous for. We actually found a farmer’s market with some local produce and food, pretty cool. We killed some time there while we waited for our tour to start for NBC studios.

We toured the NBC studios. We got to see the news set, SNL set, makeup, and even watch a mock news broadcast. Check out who Aimee met..

I sat in the Voice chair! Unlike Celo, my feet touched the ground 😀

Next, we walked down 5th Avenue (Aimee’s request). We stopped by the Lindt Chocolate Store. That’s a lot of chocolate. I couldn’t pass by the peanut butter truffle without buying one, actually the cashier said it was on the house, nice of her!

On 5th Avenue, there were some old cathedrals…

We even passed by the Apple Store.

We decided to head to Central Park to eat our packed lunch. We found a nice area by the pond…

After finishing up lunch, we headed up Broadway to the Majestic Theatre where we planned to watch Phantom of the Opera. Aimee was so looking forward to watching an authentic play on Broadway and what better than her favorite. On the way to the theatre, we passed David Letterman’s studio..

We finally arrived at the theatre, Aimee was pumped. We waited in line for a short time and then were seated. Aimee did a great job researching the seats, we had a fantastic view for the play. The old theatre was definitely majestic. The Phantom of the Opera has been playing there for more than 25 years and is currently the longest running show on Broadway. It was sold out!

The performance was awesome. The acting, singing, costume, stage props, decoration…everything made the show! Aimee was all smiles after it ended..

After the show, we made a stop at Junior’s for some cheesecake. Thanks Aunt Debbie for the recommendation, the carrot cake cheesecake was delicious.

Our last stop in New York for the day was the Empire State Building. It truelly is a New York staple. Looking up to the top, I almost fell over backwards it’s so tall..

We headed back to our campground in Jersey and decided to get some pizza for the night. We took a stroll on our bikes in the harbor area and found a cool pizza place, Two Boots. Aimee and I ordered a 14″ and we ate all of it but one slice, we were starving after all the walking (22K steps to be exact). It was kinda funny because the place advertises that they are cajun/creole, Cajun music was playing when we walked in…talk about good timing. Until tomorrow..Bon Soir!

Allons Danser Blog

Our Adventures…

Category Camping

Day 17 – Wall Street to Brooklyn

Day 16 – 9/11, Lady Liberty, and Accordions

Day 15 – Hello New York