#13 - take Ricky to NYC (day 1)

DAY 1 - MONDAY, MAY 14TH

Ricky and I started our Big Apple adventure with a flight at the heathen time of 6:00 AM.

A 6:00 AM flight means a 5:00 AM airport arrival.

A 5:00 AM airport arrival means a 4:30 AM departure time.

A 4:30 AM departure time means that the Jensens are, under no circumstances, sleeping the night before.

I don't do well with early mornings, especially when trips are involved.  In my family, any estimated time of departure for road trips that falls in the early morning is automatically moved to 9:00 AM.  Never officially, of course, but the entire family understands that we will ALWAYS leave at least two hours after we said we would.  Since obviously this is in my genetic makeup (luckily, I have the most laid-back travel partner in the world), I know better than to try and sleep the night before an early-morning flight.  It definitely had nothing to do with the fact that I spent all day Sunday putting an extensively detailed trip schedule into Ricky's iPod and therefore didn't even start packing until after 10 at night.

(A side note on the detailed schedule: I was a BEAST on the details this trip.  I feel like Becky Crapo would be super proud of me.  I had a pocket-sized expanding file that I carried with all of our event tickets, hostel and restaurant reservations, online confirmations, etc. sorted by day.  I downloaded offline apps of the metro and the city.  I had hour-to-hour schedules written out for each day, including how much petty cash we would need and which subway stops we would be using.  Obviously, we switched everything around once we got there, but all the pre-planning meant I was already familiar with where the subway trains ran and when things opened and where all the major landmarks were.  Normally I just play these kinds of things by ear, but when you're on valuable paid vacation time, you plan that sucker out to the minute.)

Anyway, Ricky and I managed to pack and shower with just minutes to spare before my lovely coworker, Kelly, picked us up to go to the airport.  We were extra smart and didn't check any bags (checked bags are on my "things that make trips terrible" list...and YES, I did fit a week's worth of clothes into a carry-on; feel free to applaud), so we zipped through security and made it onto our awesome plane and into our awesome seats.  Ricky and I fly often enough to really hate flying--the popping ears, the suffocatingly dry air, the crying babies, the cramped seats, and the inevitable coughing person spreading his germs to the entire cabin have made us progressively more bitter about how expensive first-class tickets are.  Luckily, JetBlue exists to magically make all problems disappear in an angel chorus of DirectTV and blue corn chips. (We normally get stuck flying United, which is the equivalent of starting off every vacation with someone kicking you in the shin, but the central JetBlue hub at JFK airport means their flights are the cheapest going in and out of NYC.  Praise the airline gods.)

Even JetBlue can't get rid of early-morning-shower grossness.  Curly hair just doesn't work that way, people.

We landed at JFK at nine and hopped on the AirTrain, which is the mini-metro that takes people from terminal to terminal, and we passed the Enterprise space shuttle parked in an airport hangar (I immediately revealed my dork by exclaiming "WOW, COOL!" when it came into view) on the way to catch the A train to Manhattan's Upper West Side.

Waiting for the train...

After some awkward luggage juggling on and off the subway trains, and the three-block walk from the 103rd station, we made it to our hostel!  We stayed at Jazz on the Park (it was right across from the street from Central Park, which was beautiful and perfect), and I was pleasantly surprised.  Not the most stylish of accommodations, but our room was clean and everyone at the hostel was great.  Bonus: We paid for two beds in a four-person dorm, prepared to get buddy-buddy with two strangers, but found out when we arrived that they had upgraded us to a private room for no charge.  Score!

Jazz on the Park--great location, totally safe, etc. etc.

We dropped off our luggage in the storage room and walked up Broadway to find Tom's Diner of "Seinfeld" fame.  (How could we not?)

The inside isn't set up anything like the show, but the outside was good enough.  We were expecting typical diner food--and for the most part, it was--until we got the milkshakes.

THE MILKSHAKES.

The cute husband is just a bonus.

They came shaken in tall metal cups that we poured into our glasses, with enough milkshake for four people.  It was crazy how good these were.  Usually chocolate milkshakes leave me with a strong aftertaste in the back of my throat, but not these.  These are the milkshakes they'll have in heaven.  Plus, Tom's had a bathroom that wasn't gross.

After our delicious lunch, we caught the 1 train down to South Ferry to catch the boat out to Liberty and Ellis Islands. 

I didn't get a picture of the ferry, but check out this tiny church near the Staten Island ferry!  It reminds me of the house from "Stuart Little."

We passed a man selling knock-off handbags, a street band, fa man dressed as the Statue of Liberty, and one dressed as Elmo (??) on the way to buy our ferry tickets.  It was weird.  The ticket kiosk had one really long line, and then a window that was completely open--I guess the advantage to being an English-speaking tourist (and there were very few of those) is that you can read the signs, and don't just follow the crowd.  Sure enough, once we walked up to the open window, a line formed behind us.  I don't think ferry ticketers are too eager to tell people their window is open.  Once we bought our tickets, we had to do the normal security stuff: bag checks, metal detectors, drug dogs and cavity searches, etc.  (I may be exaggerating a little.)  Then we boarded the ferry!  The water was super choppy--I was afraid I was going to get seasick--but we found a spot on the 2nd level deck and enjoyed the ride to Liberty Island.

That's the Statue of Liberty, and I still can't believe Ricky was able to take this shot with the boat rocking.  Normally he's terrible at these pictures!  (Sorry, Ricky.)

I was wearing a long-sleeved shirt under my striped hoodie, and I was still chilly.  Overcast New York weather is not a Florida girl's favorite thing.

Halfway across the harbor--obviously windy.

My hair's way of telling me I should've put on eye makeup before leaving the hostel.

We waded through the ocean of tourists and private-school girls (they were so adorable in their skirts and blazers and black stockings) and braved the rain to snap some Statue of Liberty shots.  I've been to NYC a few times now, but I had never been out to Liberty Island, so I'm glad I finally got to see her up close.

Here's Ricky, looking majestic.

It took us a grand total of 20 minutes to see everything there was to see, and then we were back on the ferry and off to Ellis Island.

  I went to Ellis Island on a school trip in 8th grade, and I remember being way bored the entire time.  When Ricky and I floated up to the island, I thought to myself, "Maybe it was just too museumish for 12-year-old me.  I'm obviously more educated and mature and can appreciate these things now."

Nope.  Still boring.

There's really not all that much to get excited about in the main building.  There are a few exhibits on immigrating groups that are interesting, but the second floor is bland, and the space isn't utilized well, and some rooms are dark, and it's not all that impressive for being, you know, Ellis Island.  They do have a memorial/monument-type park behind the building that lists names of immigrants, and Ricky and I had fun picking out our favorite Randall/Jensen names:

Couldn't even tell you what the names are anymore.  Oh well!

After we had made our lackluster tour of the building, we hopped back on the ferry to Manhattan.  We had some time before our tour time for the Ground Zero memorial, so we walked from Battery Park up to St. Paul's Cathedral, which is right across the street from the WTC site.  We passed Zuccotti Park, the infamous site of the Occupy Wall Street beginnings, on the way:

You could tell these two plaques were older, and had been put up around the same time...

...and that this third one was much shinier and new-looking!  Notice the rule about no tents, etc.  It was weird to see the place where all of that went down.

I was pretty surprised when we saw the park, because it's not really a park at all.  There are trees, but they poke out of holes in a concrete-covered ground.  The benches are concrete, too.  I commented to Ricky that it seemed like the worst possible place to camp out for weeks--definitely not the Woodstock-esque green lawn I was imagining.  I'm glad it was on the way, because it was interesting.

St. Paul's, with part of the 9/11 memorial site in the background.

This isn't the best picture, but you can see how close the two sites are; when the towers fell, St. Paul's was covered in ash and debris, and they couldn't believe such an old building (1766!) survived the ordeal.  It took weeks (months?) to clean, and the chapel was used as a makeshift dormitory for firefighters and police officers who were working around the clock at Ground Zero.  They had wooden pews on display that were roughed up from all the firefighters' uniform gear.  The whole thing was really incredible to see.  They had these tear-jerking displays (literally--I totally cried) around the chapel with statements from families, and people who had been saved from the towers, and first responders.  We even saw where George Washington used to sit during worship when he lived in New York:

The President's Box, as they call it.

I always wish I knew more about architecture in these situations.

We STILL had time to kill before our 6:00 tour time (you have to get WTC memorial tickets online in advance, and they make you pick a time), so we grabbed pizza at Charlie's.

I think the crust on the far plate is actually MY crust that I gave to Ricky to finish.  I'm not entirely sure...but that's the usual course of events when we eat pizza.  If it's not slathered in garlic butter, I don't really "do" crust.

Typical.

Once it was finally time for our tour, we walked to the next block over, through the memorial entrance, past a mile of empty space where the line usually extended (that's not too much of an exaggeration--it was so far back!), around construction sites (the reason you have to have tickets is because it's not finished yet, so they only let a certain number of people in at a time), and through more security to finally reach the absolutely perfect WTC memorial.  In case you haven't heard about it, the memorial itself consists of two in-ground waterfall fountains in the spot where the two towers stood.  Each has the names of either 9/11 WTC/Pentagon casualties, Flight 93 passengers, or the people who died in the WTC bombing in the 1990s. 

One of these (above and below) is the North Tower, and the other is the South--I don't remember which.

I thought these fountains were just perfect, and so breathtaking.  I wish my pictures did them justice.  You can't see it very well, but the water falls into the square in the center, and you can't see the bottom from anywhere around the fountain.  I loved that the fountains are in the ground, and not raised up--it's really symbolic to me of the deep wound that 9/11 was, and the unity that it inspired.  The water starts out as individual jets, but by the time it falls into the center square, it's a solid sheet.  A flawless concept, I think.

Our last picture in the memorial park.

We were planning on taking the subway back up to the hostel at that point, but since we had so much time to kill, we decided to stop in Times Square.

Ricky said something really funny about his senses being assaulted when we emerged from the subway station, but I don't remember what it was.  You're just going to have to take my word (as a completely unbiased source, naturally) that it was funny.

We did the normal Times Square things that people our age do:  Toys 'R Us and The Disney Store.  (...What?)

I legitimately could not imagine a better husband than the one I have.  LOOK AT THAT FACE.

I was fully prepared to buy this glorious thing, until I realized that it was just a big box with a lot of tiny Nerds boxes inside of it, and not a giant box with giant Nerds inside.  You almost had me, Wonka.

Disney Store!  I didn't take any pictures except for this weird one while we were going up the escalator.  Just imagine a lot of overpriced princess dresses and Marvel figurines, and that's basically it.

I loved the Disney Store when I went in 2008, but it's decidedly less impressive when you've just been to Disney World two days before.  Ricky and I are super Disney snobs now, FYI.

We also hit up the Yankees store, and I unsuccessfully tried to make Ricky buy something before we snapped a few more nighttime shots and left for the hostel.

We were starving by the time we got back, so we walked down the block to a deli/corner store sort of thing (who knows in NYC, really?) for food.  It was pretty embarrassing, because I was trying to ask the deli guy to make me a salad, and I couldn't understand anything he was saying to me.  It was a combination of the open fridge and his accent, I think, but I eventually had to say "I'm sorry, but I don't understand what you're saying."  And if there's anything that you don't want to say to a New York deli guy at 10:30, it's probably that.  My salad eventually got made, though, and it was surprisingly good!  Ricky grabbed some Cheez-its (he's not a big nighttime eater like I am, the weirdo) and we headed back to the hostel.

I meant to take a picture of our room, and you'd think that over the course of an entire week I would remember to take one eventually, but I never did!  For visual reference, imagine a small room with a black linoleum floor and a wire-framed bunk bed on one wall and a chair and a small table against the other.  Hang a full-length mirror in that mental image and you've got the entire room.  It wasn't fancy, but for being the cheapest accommodations I could find in Manhattan, it was awesome.  I've never had a bad experience at a hostel, although you do have to get past the awkwardness of brushing your teeth next to a complete stranger in the hall bathroom.  It's like the first day of college, basically.

I can't believe how long it took me to finish this post!  I'm determined to make this as detailed as possible, because I always kick myself when I don't record the Jensen adventures as well as I should have.  Stay tuned for Day 2: Tuesday, in which the Jensens meet up with Huey and Gabriel, and Katie eats fish with the heads still on.