The Trip of a Lifetime to New York City!: Day 1 & 2: Arrival, Liberty and Ellis Island

Hello!

Even though it isn't necessarily (but partially!) book related, I wanted to share my trip to New York City over Spring Break with you.

So anyone who really knows me, knows that New York City has always been my dream trip.  I haven't wanted to go before I even knew what California was.

No joke!

Being born in Germany, and living there for the first seven years of my life, I was exposed to a lot of movies made in the USA.  While I know now that a lot of them were made in Hollywood, I didn't know that at the time.

One place in these movies stuck out to me particularly.

New York City.

Thinking back, my memories have me watching the movie We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story.

Image from IMDB

I don't think many people actually know about this movie, but for some reason this movie started my love for New York City.

It's funny, because I watched it recently to show my husband (to get ready for our trip!), and not all that much of the city was shown, but for some reason it just stuck!


So over the next couple of weeks I'm going to share my epic dream trip to New York City, the city I have wanted to see almost my entire life!  The place that has been #1 on my list to visit for so long...I finally got to fore fill my dream, with my favorite person by my person.  <3

Day 1 (Wednesday March 27th)

So we did an overnight flight into New York City.  We flew out of Burbank Airport Tuesday night, and arrived into JFK at 6:15am (Eastern Time).

At the airport getting ready to get on our flight

Our Tuesday started with packing, work, and then dinner and goodbyes with our family.  And then off to an overnight flight.

We went a total of 36 hour without sleep.  But I was sooooooooo excited I didn't even care!  

So like I said, we arrived at JFK at 6:15am.  We had a private car take us to our hotel, The Knickerbocker Hotel on Times Square.  

We checked in about 7:30am and were told our room wouldn't be ready until 3pm, but they were going to their best to get it ready sooner.  

The tiredness started kicking in at that point, but we were also hungry, so we hunted down our first stop on the list of things we were going to do while in New York.

Carlo's Bakery!

Any Cake Boss fans?

I've been wanting to get my hands on a Lobster tail for years!  And let's not forget about the Cannolis!

Lobster Tail (it does not contain any lobster ;))

Cannoli

Dang!!! Were they delicious!!!  We were a bit worried, because obviously the Times Square location is not the original (the original is in Hoboken, NJ, which wasn't too far away from the city, but there just wasn't enough time to make a trip to Jersey); and we were worried this would be the tourist location, so things wouldn't be as fresh.  But the lobster tail and cannoli were absolutely delicious!  My husband did get a cookie, and that wasn't as good, but they aren't famous for their cookies!

After Carlo's Bakery we made our way back to the hotel slowly to see if you're room was ready yet...it had only been an hour, but we were hopeful.

Along the way, I was just taking everything in around me, in a partial delirious state.

That old style architect building, is the Knickerbocker.

H&M and its ginormous TV billboard was directly across the street from our hotel

From entrance to The Knickerbocker Hotel

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child was playing across the street a block down! (I wish we could have seen it, but tickets were starting at $250 a piece (for both parts), and that was just way too much!)

Our room was not ready, of course.  So we hung out in the little coffee shop attached to the hotel, on our phones, telling our families we had gotten their safe.  Then Vincent had an idea...there were two movie theater within a block of us!  Lets see a movie to kill time!  

So we looked up times, and low and behold, AMC theaters were showing a new movie based on the Nancy Drew series, which I had been wanting to see, and it was playing just perfectly! (We had already seen Captain Marvel before we left, otherwise obviously that would have been our first choice!).  So we went and saw Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase.  It was cute, a bit hokey, but still cute.  

We were exhausted though, and ready for a bed.  When our hotel STILL wasn't ready at noon, we ended up having lunch at our hotel in the restaurant, and I accidentally ordered  $28 Chicken Cesar Salad (it literally contained a piece of chicken breast (which was $10 of that salad!) and romaine and dressing!  I didn't want the croutons.)

It was at least delicious, but let's just say we didn't there again for the rest of our stay.  There were plenty of other amazing places to eat.

After lunch our room was finally ready!!!

So we went and slept for a few hours, woke up and decided to hunt down some dinner around Times Square.  So what did we decide to try first?

New York Pizza of course!

So we found a Joe's Pizza right across from our hotel, ordered a whole pie, took it back to our room and devoured 3/4 of it!

Goodness was that delicious!! We ended up eating there again, and then also found a Ray's Pizza like a block away!  New York Pizza is seriously the best!

Then it was time for more sleep, because the next day would be a big day!  Our first really big day in the city!

Day 2 (Thursday March 28th):

My original love for New York City?

The Statue of Liberty.

That Statue has always fascinated me for some reason.  When I was going through the museum in the pedestal of the Statue, I saw this...

I thought it was the perfect description for her.  "The Statue of Liberty is more than a monument.  She is a beloved friend, a living symbol of freedom to millions around the world."  

When I was in fifth grade we talked about the significance about the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, and it made my love for grow so much.  I had already been enchanted by her for years at that point (we had been living in the US for three years at that point) and just the idea that she was the first focal point for immigrants coming into this country, and them knowing they were home, finally.  It was my favorite point in history to learn about while I was in school.  

When we arrived to the Statue of Liberty on our first full day in the city, I was surprised to see that she isn't actually in a place where you see her right away.  She isn't actually facing the ocean in a way where her back is facing the city's panorama.  I feel like movies are always showing her that way.  

But man, was she magnificent none the less to see!  

Liberty Island also had some of the best views of the city.

I had done a lot of research for the trip, and learned pretty early on that in order to get the crown of the statue you had to book your tickets six months out.  So we did our get tickets in October, as soon as the six month mark hit (they only research up to six months out, but they sell out fast!).  

So we were "lucky" enough to climb up.  

This was us before the climb:

We were young and innocent, with no idea what was ahead for us.

And this was me after...

Eye is drooping, sweat was running down my face, and I look like I just had a stroke.

Dude, was that tough!  I felt like I was going to die!  It was so claustrophobic, high, steep, and man did it get hot in there!  I suffer from vertigo when I am at any high height, so it was difficult making the climb, but I knew I needed to try and do it at least once.  I am so glad that I did it!  I don't think I'll ever do it again, but it was pretty cool being up there!

My hair looks I was electrocuted 

View down from the crown

Her tablet

Her arm

It was so much fun!  I will say the way down isn't all that much better than going up, because the steepness of it, is almost equivalent to a ladder, and the best way down is to go backwards.  I just stared at the step in front of me the whole time, because I was so dizzy.

This is what the staircase looks like, that we climbed.

It was gnarly!

So after over 25 years of waiting, I finally achieved my dream of not only seeing the Statue of Liberty, but also getting the opportunity to go up into her crown. 

Up next, we took the Liberty Ferry over to Ellis Island.  Ellis Island was a huge part of my 5th grade immigration curriculum; so I was very much looking forward to seeing it.

Ellis Island wasn't what I was expecting.  I didn't know this, but when Ellis Island closed in 1954, the government didn't care about the island, and let it go to shambles.  People were going on the island, stripping the walls of wiring, breaking windows, graffitiing the walls.  Apparently trees and roots were going through the buildings.  It was mess, and it was not until the late 80s that someone decided to restore the main building and open it as a museum in 1990.  

It's actually a shame, because you can only go into the main building when visiting the museum and island, unless you buy a separate tour, which my husband and I didn't find out about until we got the island, and by then the tour was already over for the day.  The main building, while the Registry Room (the place where all the immigrants coming into Ellis Island cycled through first) was a sight to see; overall the restoration of the rest of the building was disappointing.  It was nothing but white drywalled walls, modern day electrical outlets, and modern day conveniences.  I mean obviously bathrooms need to be made available for museum visitors, but my husband and I thought it would have been preserved more to its original ways.  If you have been to Alcatraz in San Francisco, that is what I was expecting more so.

The Registry Room ceiling

The Registry Room

While walking around we looked through windows where you could catch glimpses of some of the unrestored, original pieces of Ellis Island.  Below is a stair case leading to an original building.

Original unrestored part

Overall, Ellis Island was still an experience I'm glad my husband and I got to share together. 

My favorite part, was when we found this quiet corner upstairs of the Registry Room, there were no people to see, but you heard the voices echoing through the room; and it felt so eery, as if I could close my eyes and imagine what it was like coming to Ellis Island in the early 20th century. 

When we were done near the end of the day at Ellis Island, we got back on the ferry and headed back to Battery Park; where I wanted to accomplish one more thing off my list that day!

The Seaglass Carousel!  

I only found out about the Seaglass Carousel last year.  Any Younger fans out there??

Credit goes to Younger's Twitter page!

I found it to be so cool, when I saw it featured on an episode that I had really hoped to do it while we were in NYC!  It ended up being so simple to find!  Pretty much right next to the dock for the ferry!  My husband and I may have even sat in the same "carriages" as Liza and Charles!

I sat in an open one just like Liza (my husband has that photo though on his phone :)

It was so cute!  They played Ella Fitzgerald and we went around and around. I loved it!  

We took the Subway back to the hotel (which by the way, if you're afraid to take the Subway, while in the city...don't be!! It is SOOO easy to use, and you quickly get the hang of it! Google Maps tells you exactly which one to get on to, and which stop to take!)  Once back at the hotel, we decided to hit up the Hard Rock Cafe across from our hotel for dinner.  

The Guitar wall upon entering the restaurant

Yummy Fruity Berry Pina Colada

I was only able to eat like a quarter of this, but man do I love their twisted Mac n'cheese!

It was a truly adventurous day and an amazing start to our trip!

Coming up:  Rockefeller Center where we did the NBC Tour!

The Romance Bookie :)