New York

Sorry it's taken me so long to tell everyone about my New York trip. I was really waiting for a picture, but didn't get it. I had a blast and it was a ton of fun. We did some way fun stuff. Some of the highlights of the trips were the two days we spent in the City. The first day in the city was crazy. There were a million people and it was really hard to even just walk down the street. I almost got lost so many times and have never felt so claustrophobic. We went to the following places:

New York City library -- there was a special on some author that we went to, we also went to the park behind the library where there were shops and an ice skating rink. The architecture in the library was amazing. I was more interested in that than the John Cusack stuff.

Central Park -- We didn't spend a lot of time at Central Park. We basically just went to Belvedere Castle. It's amazing you can go up and you get a view of the entire park. It's pretty cool. (the picture on the right on the top is taken off of the top level of Belvedere looking out over the park)

Christmas windows -- at Macy's, Saks, Bergdof Goodman, and Lord and Taylors (We didn't go to the Bloomingdales because there were so many people)

Arties -- We went to lunch here. It's a Jewish delicatessen. They had superb food. I had a PLT
(pastrami lettuce and tomato) and it was delicious. They also had some great sides like noodle kugal, potato pancakes and some awesome coleslaw.

Zabars-- This is a great supermarket type deal. They have some way interesting things. It's in a heavy Jewish section of town so most of the stuff is kosher and everything. It was an interesting experience and there were many cool things (especially the things they were sampling)

FAO Schwarz -- We attempted to go FAO however the line to get in to the store was a block and a half long. We walked there looked and walked back. It made me a little mad since it was a 20 block walk from where we were to there, but oh well we got to see some stuff (like the Empire State Building) along the way.

Rockefeller Center -- We stood a little bit away and admiringly looked at the tree. There was no way that we were going to trample through all the people to try to get a better look at it. You could see the mass grandness of it from where we were. We also went to this chocolate shop that had amazing chocolates.

Grand Central -- Because we rode the train in we had to go to Grand Central. It so amazing in there! There is great architecture work!


Day two was a little less crowded because we went to the other side of the city. There were still a gazillion people but it wasn't near as bad. Here were are day two stops:

Subway -- We rode the subway quite a bit this day. We were all tired after are all day walk a thon through the city the day before. There's nothing like the subway that's for sure. The worst was on our way back to Grand Central. It was the time when most people are getting off of work and you were so crammed into the car it was crazy. You hoped that soon you'd be able to breathe and you hoped that the doors closest to you were the ones you needed to get off at.

Chelsea Market -- We spent the majority of day two in Chelsea Market. For those of you who don't know what this is it is where Food Network is filmed. On the bottom floor there are shops with amazing food! Some of the places that we shopped at in the shop were: Fat Witch -- These people make some amazing brownies! The Milk Bar -- This is a place that just sells milk products (well they have some food items, but their milk is what they are known for) The place was amazing all decorated out of old milk crates. We bought a milkshake and it was the best I have ever had! We also went to a couple of different cupcake shops were we looked at the cupcakes. There were cupcakes that had more icing than actual cupcake. They were beautiful through. We also went to this basket shop were they had some cool food and baskets. We bought some Beef and Horseradish chips that were really good. I also got some licorice that was shaped like little pigs. Chelsea Market was way fun and was in this cool old funky building. It's near the Meat Packing district and it was just cool to see all the old buildings that used to be meat plants!

Shopping -- We spent a little bit of time shopping although not very much. We went to a store that was entirely filled with yarn and another that was just fabric. It was cool and they had some way cool and interesting things. We also went to this really upscale hand soap place. They had the most amazing body scrub (and I splurged a little and bought it). We also went to another chocolate shop to buy some chocolate covered bacon bars to bring home. It was kinda sad but they didn't have any because they had sold out for Christmas. It wasn't a total lost because we had some really good hot chocolate. We had a white chocolate with lavender and lemon and a dark chocolate with vanilla. It was really really good.

Chinatown -- Chinatown was cool but once again you got to a place where there were a trillion people. We went in to a few of the shops to find my grandma a scarf and some jewelry. It was really cool. We then went to a place to eat in Chinatown. It was really good. There I got to try duck for the first time. It's actually not all that bad!! We also had some of the most amazing asparagus that I've ever had. After our lunch we went and got some ice cream at a little Chinese ice cream shop.

We did some other fun things on the trip. We went shopping at some big shopping centers. We spent one day going around West Point and seeing all of the cool things to see there. We spent a lot of time at Valries house too.

I tried some really new and interesting foods including duck, sushi (just a California roll), brussel sprouts, humus, and tapenade. Overall I had a really good time. I'm sorry that it has taken me so long!!

Kaylee