The Big Apple. Wall street. The Empire State Building.
New York has much to see and luckily our travels to the great pyramids didn’t begin until Tuesday, so our group – Rob, Shayna, Chris, Ron, Jason, Lisa – decided to head out a few days early to explore Gotham before the big trip to the Middle East.
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Day 1: Travel Day
We arrived in the Big City Saturday night only to be greeted by a free happy hour at the Hilton. Jason is a diamond member which benefited us all.
We had a few drinks and then explored the areas around the hotel. We walked around Ground Zero, paid our respects, and then headed back to the hotel to prepare for the next day.
Day 2: “ON BROADWAY… on broadway”
Feeling the New York spirit, Ron talked Rob, Jason, and me into doing a run through Central Park early in the morning. We took the subway and the girls left to search for Central Perk, home of the Friends coffee shop, which they reluctantly found out does not really exist.
Our six mile run had some great views of the New York cityscape, which I’ve seen in the movies. We ended our run at a cool looking Apple store.
After a quick shower at the hotel, we went to our next stop, Broadway. Until we bought our show tickets, I didn’t really know what to expect. Sure, I knew it was a street where upcoming actors centered their dreams around, but I didn’t know what it all entailed. We had bought tickets to watch Wicked, a play which gives a creative spin to Wicked Witch in the Wizard of Oz.
The Broadway show set was very detailed and quite amazing, the performance was very well done, and the story was creative and entertaining. What else can I say? We had a lot of fun.
After eating traditional New York Pizza, we headed to the hotel we almost stayed at – Hotel Carter. After reading some online reviews, which were very entertaining to say the least, we found this hotel was deemed one of the worst hotels in the nation. We opted elsewhere, but we had it in our itinerary to see with our own eyes.
As we walked down the street to the hotel, the giant Hotel Carter sign flickered. Perfect. We asked to look at a room, and we were led down a hallway with room doors that desperately needed to be repainted. Once we got inside the room, the dresser drawers were falling apart, the obstructed view was of a building five feet away, and darkness seemed to emit from the lights. We decided to go back down to the first floor, but the elevator stopped working. The concierge jumped on the elevator to try to jump start it, but no luck. As he continued to jump, we opted for the stairs. It was worth our time.
We then headed to Times Square. It took a few minutes to take in all the different things: the big apple, the giant television screens, the bustling foot traffic. And then while we were walking, we found a guy trying to get people in his comedy club. This was the perfect ending to the night. The first two comics killed and the last two couldn’t compete, but overall it was a great show.
Day 3: The Roots of America
The next morning started early as we headed to see the most famous green lady in the world, Lady Liberty. We took a ferry over which gave us some great views. We walked around Memorial Park and climbed up through the pedestal and learned more about the history of the Statue of Liberty.
We then headed over to Ellis Island. I never realized this was actually a man made island, and a lot of the dirt to build the island came from the subway trenches.
I looked for my great grandma, Sophie Kassay from Hungary, but I couldn’t find her at the lookup points.
After seeing the gateway to our country, we went to the street that controls it. Wall Street is filled with many iconic buildings, ranging from the Stock Exchange to the Trump building, and it’s filled with many egos and suits.
To end the day, we went to the building that Ghostbusters suggested paranormal activity coming from. Yes, we went to the iconic skyscraper, the Empire State Building. I got a great recommendation to go to the La Quinta rooftop bar, enjoy a drink, and enjoy the view of the Empire State Building.
Last, we decided to take a midnight stroll over and back across the Brooklyn Bridge to finish our busy day.
Day 4: Finishing Up
I woke up a bit early to see if I had time to meet one of my main contacts from Deloitte in the morning. I found the corporate building but unfortunately he was on vacation (and based at the Broadway office).
Today’s adventure was visiting the church next to Ground Zero. Many pictures and memorabilia could also be found at this church. We then scooted our way down the city through Soho, which was interesting to walk by the shops. One shop had thousands of Singer sewing machines that lined the walls, each one estimated at about $500. It was a very upscale, hip shop.
And then we quickly left for the airport to meet with Jeff and Libby to begin the second part of our trip. And to Egypt we go!