This is my final blog from New York City. It has been a whirlwind! I didn’t think that doing ALL the things that we planned on doing would take so much out of me. I am so excited that I will be getting back into town early.

JD and Anna wanted to try out a restaurant that was recommended by Rachel Ray called The Eatery. They have stuffed french toast (bananas, cream cheese, chocolate, topped with ice cream). I had Green Eggs and Ham. This turned out to be a croissant sandwich that had eggs with mixed greens, goat cheese, and ham. It was pretty good. I probably wouldn’t get it again, but it was good.

After we ate we walked to Central Park since The Eatery was only about six blocks away. The girls hadn’t had the chance to visit yet. JD wanted to see a specific part of the park where the trees overhung the path. We asked the staff and they couldn’t get it from her description. We decided to try The Mall, a part of the park I hadn’t yet visited and we happened to be closer to that than Strawberry Fields.

Jackpot! The Mall is a long with walkway with large American Elm trees around it. It was lovely, lovely, lovey. We took quite a few pictures along The Mall which ends at Bethesda Fountain, where I was only a few days ago.

Afterward we walked up to 79th Street and over to the east side of the park so that we could get the Lexington line of the subway down to Fifth Avenue. We found the Apple Store, which was something that I wanted to see. The entrance was interesting. In the middle of a courtyard you see a large apple logo in a cubic glass case. That is all that Apple uses to let you know the location of their store. It’s like a homing beacon to Mac lovers.

The doors open (There’s also a cylindrical glass elevator to help people down) and there’s a circular stairway that takes you down into the store. Once in the store, chaos ensues. There were people EVERYWHERE. I was overwhelmed. I took a couple of shots, but I high tailed it out of there. I wasn’t going to buy anything anyway.

I left there and went in search of the girls. They had gone on ahead to find coffee. Let’s just say that Fifth Avenue is crazy busy. And the designer stores are everywhere. Even the air seems to smell expensive. I didn’t love that the street peddlers were selling knock off bags outside of the stores that they had copied. That was ironic to me.

I found Anna and JD enjoying a cuppa in Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue. That Tower (there are several Trump Towers in New York) includes a Starbucks on the second floor. I went up to get a hot chocolate and then down to the lower level to join up with the girls.

There we planned our attack. It was getting late. I decided not to worry about getting to see the Flatiron Building. We were all so tired, and we still had packing to do, that we decided to just get some food and go home.

We hopped on the C line to Times Square and ate at Dave & Busters. It was pretty good. Hit the spot when we were so tired and ready to go home.

We walked 8th Street in search of a luggage strap for JD and found one at a souvenir shop. The kid there said he didn’t have any to sell, but JD asked if he would just sell her one off of the bags they had and he said yes. She’s funny.

And now we’re packing….packing….packing. Have to leave at 3:30 am to make it to JFK by public transportation. I’ll be back in Boise just a little after noon tomorrow.

-Melissa

View photos from Day Ten >

We started yesterday very late, not leaving the apartment until noon. We decided against going to get bagels (as we have the past few days) and went to the Starbucks across the street from us before catching the subway to Brooklyn. The day was much better than Thursday, where the rain fell steadily. It was a bit windy, and still chilly, but without the rain we felt much more confident about crossing the bridge.

We found directions to the Brooklyn Bridge quickly and after a few stairs we were on the pathway. Let me just take a moment to note that living in New York is being at peace with stairs. Lorna and I were in agreement that we felt like we’d spent half our time her on staircases.

Anyway, we walked the bridge and it was beautiful, though colder than we’d thought. The wind coming off the ocean was colder than that on land (which, of course, it would be). Anna tapped out after the first arch and walked on ahead to get off the bridge. JD and I took our time. I ended up taking quite a few pictures from different angles, through things, over things, etc. I had a blast with that.

When we reached the other side we met up with Anna and attempted to find Pier 17. We had seen it from the bridge and wanted to check it out. We stopped over in a Starbucks to use the bathroom, I bought a hot chocolate, and asked directions.We walked in the direction the lady had indicated but ended up overshooting the pier and having to backtrack I didn’t mind because I found some awesome shots of the ships that were moored there.

Then something horrible happened. My camera’s battery died! Sad days. But I didn’t really want to take a picture of Pier 17. Too touristy.

We stopped off at Seaport Cafe and ate a little. Nothing to write home about and expensive. Don’t go there if you want food that’s worth the price.

We went in Pier 17. The shops there are pricey and we didn’t feel like shopping there, but we did use the bathroom and I pressed a penny with an image of the Brooklyn Bridge. That was fun.

We found a TKTS, hoping to purchase discount tickets to South Pacific, but it wasn’t on the board and Anna and I didn’t want to see anything else, so we found the subway (thanks to a friendly New Yorker who walked us halfway there) and went back uptown to our apartment to charge our batteries. All of our cameras were displaying low battery symbols, so it wasn’t just me!

We waited there for a few hours. I did some work for the church and the girls listened to music.

We left at around 7 to meet up with a friend of JD’s from when she lived in Connecticut. We were going to eat at The Smith, a place that Anna and JD had been trying to find all trip long because they make their own potato chips with a bleu cheese dip.

I ordered macaroni and cheese and a salad. It was very loud and expensive. Don’t go on a Friday if you do go, but I think that the experience was definitely worth it. It was a fun atmosphere and the wait staff is very attentive.

We left for the Empire State Building after that. It wasn’t very far from us. We ended up walking to a subway and taking it to 34th Street, which is nearby. Then I went inside and the girls went off to talk.

The Empire State Building is a must for anyone visiting the city for the first time. I would like to say, however, that after walking this city for almost ten days, it was a treat to be able to look out of the observatory and recognize landmarks. It was evening, and my pictures reflect that. I probably could have stayed up there all day to catch the changing light, but I knew that the girls were waiting.

That didn’t stop me from taking almost 250 pictures up there thought. Hee hee. It was beautiful and not as windy as I had expected. It hadn’t rained all day and only a few drops hit me as I walked the observation deck. I went up to the 102nd floor, which is enclosed and quite a bit smaller than the 86st floor. It was hard to take pictures without the ability to brace my camera, but with some tinkering, and my holding my breath to keep from moving, I was able to get a few shots.

I returned down the elevator to the 86th floor, then took an elevator to the 80th floor where they had me walk through the gift shop before going to the elevators down to the 2nd floor. Then a short escalator ride took me to the lobby and out of the building.

While I was on the elevator, my neice Kayla called me but I lost the call in the elevator. I called my sister from outside while I was walking to the place where JD, Anna, and Darla were hanging out. They were very cute and excited that I was going to be coming home. Shelley guessed that I had taken 110 pictures. When I told here that it was more than that, she guessed 2,000. Whoa there. No, I said, less than that. Then she said something close to the following: “I’m going to go somewhere in the middle and guess 200?” She was aghast that I had taken 615 pictures. Yeah. That IS a lot.

We said goodbye and I found the girls. We then said goodbye to Darla, who needed to catch the train home, and we found a subway that would take us home.

Then began the fun. They were cleaning up the tracks after the rain had come. It was very, very, very slow going. We got on one train (not even the one we wanted) and stopped twice in the tunnel due to “trains in front of us.” Once we got out, we hopped on a train BACK the way we’d come, hoping for better luck. No good. We finally boarded a train going CLOSE to the direction we wanted and walked the final few blocks, though we were dead on our feet. We’d spent over an hour total waiting for trains. It was horrible. But we made it home in the end and we all collapsed into bed.

One day left.

-Melissa

View pictures from Day Nine >

Yesterday we went to Brooklyn. We actually started out much earlier than we’ve ever started on our own. We were out of the house by 10 am! Wow.

We rode the subway down to Brooklyn and when we emerged from the stairs, we were blasted by wind and rain. As it turns out, it was not the best day to be in Brooklyn. Hence the reason I didn’t have a lot of pictures that day (only 42 total, mostly duplicates). We had intended to walk the Brooklyn Bridge, but it was so unexpectedly cold that we, instead, visited a few stores and ended up eating at Dallas BBQ before heading off to Conway again.

Dallas BBQ was very good and they had a lunch special that we cashed in on. A lady there had Conway bags and we wanted to go there. We asked her where she’d found it and ended up going toward Fultton St, which was only two blocks away from BBQ.

We spent a bit of time in there and made our way back to the subway entrance (on the corner) and back to Manhattan. It was an…interesting ride. We were asked by a woman on the subway where we’d gone to Conway. We laughed about that since we had done the same thing to someone earlier that day, and we told the subway lady so. She started asking us directions and we told her the street, but we couldn’t get more detailed because we aren’t local.

We told her we were from Idaho and an older couple said, loudly, “Welcome to the Big Apple!” We talked with the subway lady for a bit (mostly me with JD laughing at me). We talked about work, church, orphans in India and Romania, music, etc. I seemed to be a fountain of information! She asked if we were “Interfaith” and I figured I knew what that meant.

There are a great many people here who claim to be “Interfaith” which we definitely are not. I told her that in India we work with Hindus quite a bit and we do not withhold treatment from them because they aren’t Christian…but I don’t think I said it quite right.

In the end she gave me a piece of paper that told me of her beliefs. It was quite interesting in that it was a whole page telling how she was “one” with a whole host of different people of different religions, walks of life, etc. It made me sad.

Firstly, I was saddened because it spoke nothing of there being a truth that supersedes all other truths. It spoke of being happy with mediocrity, happy with being “one”, and therefore subject to, all other faiths and religions. In short, it was a page full of nothing. No ultimate truth. Just trying to live “at peace” with others and sacrificing anything that makes life worth living. A hope of the truth that Jesus brings.

Secondly, I was unhappy with the fact that she was a minister herself. She even asked me if I was intended on becoming a minister myself. Uhm, no. I told her that I was quite content with leading people into worship. Though I’m a minister in that respect, in that I minister to people, I am no pastor nor do I intend to be.

She speaks to people and has some sort of influence over them. I don’t know the strength of her influence, but I’m sure that if she doesn’t have a lot of followers, there are quite a few more like her who do.

When we returned to the apartment, JD and I wanted to go to a movie and Anna stayed in the apartment. We went to AMC Theater and our movie was in theater 24 on the seventh floor. We had to ride escalators the entire way up. It was pretty ridiculous. And the theater was very small. But we enjoyed the movie and picked up a slice of pizza on the way home.

All in all, an interesting day in New York.

-Melissa

View photos from Day Eight >

Today: Another try at the Brooklyn Bridge and dinner at Smith House