Hot Child in the City

Time to finish the rest of the story on New York. I still can't stop thinking about it. It was a great time.

Tuesday morning we woke up bright and early and headed out to the subway to see the Today Show. We were a bunch of crazed loonies out there hoping to get on TV. Joe chopped a few segments that we were in on the Macbook and did a good job doing it. Check it out. We saw Billy Ray Cyrus and Piers Morgan as well as the whole Today gang. The entire staff was super friendly and seemed genuinely happy to visit with the crowd. On our way there, Jill got a picture of a huge pile of puke. I'm figuring she'd start retching at any moment but she had to get a picture. Yes, she's weird like that.

After the Today show we headed to the South end of Manhattan and got on a ferry to Ellis Island where we saw the Statue of Liberty.

Then we headed back into town and visited ground zero. We took an amazing tour and heard from a retired fireman who had been there that day. We saw old St. Paul's church which was saved by a huge Sycamore tree that shielded the church when the North Tower collapsed. It was like a shrine to the victims and recovery workers and was very moving. It was hard not to cry and has left an very vivid imprint on my mind. It's still unfathomable what happened. Surreal actually, you look at a huge building in NYC and then are told the Twin Towers were twice as high and just stare up in disbelief. I just can't imagine the horrors that happened and still think sometimes, did that day really happen? It was a tough 2 hours of the trip but 2 very important hours for me to experience.

We then headed into Chinatown for some shopping. What an experience.

We got freshened up a bit and then headed to our Broadway performance of Hairspray. IT WAS AWESOME! I had never seen the movie so was surprised often and found it super enjoyable. Norm from Cheers played the part of Edna (the leads Mom) and did fabulous. He is an awesome singer. I can't wait to rent the movie to compare. It was an exclamation point on a stellar day.

I of course can't forget to tell about seeing the family of rats in the Subway. I could have done without that part of the trip. Poor Jill, along with her puke pic she was hoping for rat pics and her camera died. I had already stolen her battery stash and didn't have my camera there. DOH! Jill got yelled at by the police officer for leaning over the subway edge. We talked quite a bit with him and he told us that he had lived their so long that he didn't realize he was taking the puke and rats that come with city living for granted. ;)

Our evening ended with a little more Times Square shopping and a midnight snack at our hotel. Just that quickly our trip was over. We had a very uneventful trip home. Tired but happy.

I'm so thankful for Amy planning the trip, and for Lupe and Jill going along with our craziness. It was a trip for the record books and one I'll never forget.

In Toronto, Tommy's hockey team is 0-2. The first game was good but they got a really good thrashing the 2nd game. We'll see how tomorrow goes. We are having a good time here though. I think I know why Canadians have universal health care, everything here is CRAZY expensive. I think we will spend twice as much here in Toronto than I did in NYC.

Well I've been waiting for Photobucket to upload photos and Joe just noticed that Jill and I are posting at the same time. You can see the puke on her page. ;)


Enjoy the slideshow, sorry for the sideways pics. I'm going to bed.