Friday, April 15, 2011

Enn Why See!!

Courtney and I finally got to go to New York City! We have been planning to go ever since before Courtney turned 16, which was 6 months ago. We couldn't go in October because Courtney still had soccer, so we waited for Spring break. It was worth the wait. We had a fabulous time! Here is a brief synopsis of our adventure.

Saturday
We left Sat. morning amid snow flurries. We wasted time in Denver waiting for our flight and then we were off. We got into Manhattan around the time the sun was setting.



Sunday
It took us about 15 minutes to walk to church from our hotel. We went to Megan Atkinson's ward. It was fun to see her and catch up with her a bit. The church was on the 3rd floor and the 4th and 5th floors are the temple. There was a wonderful spirit there.
We took a bus tour and got a basic idea of where everything was after that. We ate in an Italian restaurant in Little Italy called La Mela's. Apparently, Joe Jonas, among other celebrities, had eaten there. The last picture is of what is going on at Ground Zero now. There are two tall buildings being built and some other construction projects going on.






Monday- The Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island

I got a little emotional thinking of my Danish ancestors coming through Ellis Island. I was there under very different circumstances, thanks in part to them.
We also explored the Trinity Church and Wall Street.
On this day, we had our quintessential NYC experiences: 1) watching some people get arrested 2) seeing a celebrity up close (Kathy Ireland came in to Serendipity after us and was seated before us and 3) walking into an area where they were filming a tv pilot. It was called "Weekends at Bellview" and we were walking in the area seconds before they were filming on that very sidewalk!








Tuesday- a rainy, drizzly day so we spent it at Madame Tussaud's wax museum (we had never been to one, and we thought it was cool!), and lots of shopping!





Wednesday- Broadway show day!

We did a little souvenir shopping in the morning, had lunch at Rockefeller Center and then went to a matinee of Wicked, a Harry Potter exhibition (which was very cool but taking photos wasn't allowed), and then we scored half-price tickets to Mary Poppins! Mary Poppins was great and our seats were on the 13th row. The shows were both superb. Sidenote- So, would you believe that the people we sat next to in Wicked were from Orem, Utah?? It's a small world!








Thursday-

After breakfast at Ellen's Stardust Diner, we spent our last morning in NYC at Central Park. The weather was finally beautiful.