nyc travel diary: day two

more nj transit and subway adventures (feeling much more confident and comfortable today too)

breakfast @ sarabeth's central park.  great breakfast food!  and fun location!  literally right across the street from central park.  it was hard to decide what to get (especially since breakfast food is my favorite).  me: lemon and ricotta pancakes with fresh berries, him: farmer's omelette, mel: pumpkin waffle topped with sour cream, raisins, pumpkin seeds, and honey, justin: classic eggs benedict


biking through central park!!  this was one of the events i was anxiously excited for.  mel and i had subscribed to groupons for nyc since late last year hoping to find some deals.  bike rentals was one of them.  that park is ginormous!  we had two hours to explore and only saw a little more than half of the park.  we turned around at the jackie o. reservoir.  what a beautiful park that houses so much stuff!  the friends fountain, strawberry fields for john lennon, a zoo, lots of bridges and other fountains, and so much more!  its crazy that there is still a lot of traffic there too.  full on streets that run right through it.  biking through central park was definitely one of the highlights of our trip.  and it also gave us the chance to be real new yorkers and bike through the city!  what a rush!  gordon owned it.  i was a nervous wreck and just followed him hoping not to get hit.  even with my heart about to explode, i'm glad we did it.

lots of walking around the city after this.  i'm pretty sure we walked 5+ miles each day.  i was the only successful shoe person on the trip.  i'm pretty proud of that. (gordon would have been if it wasn't for his dress shoes...that was day three...the day he dreaded.)

next stop...museum of natural history.  wow!  that place is also huge and pretty remarkable.  when we walked in i immediately thought of the movie 'night at the museum' and thought about how cool it was to be in that same museum.  we saw a lot of incredible things there: indian artifacts, life sized animals (whoa elephants!), dinosaur bones, reptiles (yay for turtles!), the underwater world, and a short movie about the sun (which we all may have enjoyed a little too much...it was so nice to sit and rest that we may have all taken a little nap during the movie...new york is tiring!)

i couldn't wait for lunch...i had heard nothing but wonderful things about shake shack.  best burgers, best shakes, best everything!  and it was all true!  the fat person inside of me was satisfied beyond measure after eating here.  one of my favorite things about shake shack?  they love dogs!  they have a dog area complete with fake grass and a fire hydrant, and also had 'for dogs' section on their menu!  we also had our first famous person sighting here too.  christopher gorham.  i may have been the only person in shake shack that knew he was famous (i watched the show popular when i was in high school, okay.  and i also saw the movie the other side of heaven, of which he is the star).  me: single shackburger, black and white shack, crinkle fries, abita brewing co. rootbeer on tap, him: single shackburger, vanilla shack, crinkle fries, and the other half of my rootbeer.

and now on to china town (which was dirty and reminded me of mexico the way everyone was coming up to us trying to sell us fake fancy purses and watches) where i saw and smelt a fish market, then on to grand central station.

pit stop at magnolia bakery for the worst cupcake i have ever had, but the best banana pudding i have ever had (thanks for the taste justin).

we rested for a brief minute while we waited for our time to go to the top of the rock.  the elevator ceiling was clear while we rode up 70 floors to the top.  here is where we saw the city in all its glory.  wow!  nyc...you are amazing and exhilarating!  we got to see just how huge central park is, as well as how smooshed and tall everything is.  we had a good time up there.

time to eat again!  tonight's dinner...nyc style pizza at lombardi's.  meatballs on a pizza?  okay!  we all thought it was yummy (although we experienced the better pizza two days later).

for dessert we walked across the street to pinkberry (mel and justin went to rice to riches again...yes it was across the street from lombardi's.  and yes, mel pretended that is wasn't since that is the place i made her walk 2 miles to get to the night before...whoops).  it was good, but i also don't get what all the hype about it is all about.  too many yogurt places around these days make it so the great ones don't get appreciated like they should.  sorry pinkberry.

after dinner we walked the streets of soho (one of my favorite areas of nyc by the way).  saw some sweet graffiti (i love graffiti so much!  sure it's a sign of ghettoness.  but i love it none-the-less.  and soho is far from ghetto).

subway and nj transit home.

and day two of nyc...perfect!