On Tuesday morning, the journey began for them. My Roomie Julien brought them to Wayne train station. From there, they took the train into Philly and jumped in a greyhound bus which brought them to New York.
As I still had to work Tuesday and Wednesday, they visited spots I was not that hip to see. Also, on Wednesday, it was St.Patrick's day and there was huge parade through the City. I started after work and drove to our hotel in New Jersey where I met my 2 impressed guys.
We wanted to see a lot, so our schedule was pretty tight for the next day. Many people had suggested to us, to make a boat ride around Manhattan and so we did. That way, you can see the Statue of Liberty very well and also catch a different view on Manhattan.
Even though the wind was quite chilly, I really enjoyed that ride.
Then we went into the city and made our way to the famous "Ghostbusters" house.
After Michael got his picture, we headed south and walked down the waterfront. The next stop was at former "Ground Zero" which is a huge construction area now. Even though you already see new buildung emerging there, it is still impressive to realize the impact of this event.
We continued to walk through battery park down to the south peak of Manhattan and then turned into the direction of Wall Street. They have statues of the Bull and the Bear around there and I couldn't resist to jump on and ride the bull.
I have been told before that you will become rich when you touch the balls of the bull, so I did, just to make you not missing any chance here. Grand Central Station was the next stop on our "wanna-see-list" and as it was so close by, we also had a glimpse into the lobby of the Chrysler Building. The plan for the evening was to experience "Top of the Rocks" at sunset. For those who don't know what I mean by "Top of the Rocks": This is the Obseervation Deck on the Rockefeller Center.
We picked the perfect time to ascend there. We had enough time to walk around, take pictures and see the city by sunshine.
Then we found a very good spot to see the sun setting down and so we ended up leaving the deck in darkness. Michael and Thomas wished to experience a jazz session in one of the Jazz Clubs in the city. The first one we wanted to enter didn't let us in as they were already full. But then we found pretty sweet, classy Jazz bar at the Lincoln Center and we all agreed that this was a perfect end for such a wonderful day.
We started the Friday with a stroll thorugh Chelsea and Soho and my special spot for the day was the house of Carrie in the TV show "Sex and the City" and a visit in the "Magnolia Bakery" which is also featured in the show. The bakery was so busy and to the boys' amusement, girls were constantly approaching the little shop from all directions. There even exist "Sex and the City" bus tours which all stop at the famous places of the show. Empowered after a little snack from the bakery, we made our way to Little Italy where Thomas needed to get something 'real' to eat. We got a recommendation for a good Italian Sandwich shop. While Thomas was waiting for his sandwich to be prepared, he discovered the little check from George Bush who paid his dinner with the check and Thomas also found out that this restaurant feed all the hungry firemen and policemen after the 09/11 disaster with great enthusiasm and unforgettable commitment.
Following Little Italy, we entered a different world, just one block further, Chinatown starts to spreap out. It is interesting to see that even international banks like HSBC display their names in Chinese letters.
Finally we arrived at Brooklyn Bridge and we decided to walk the bridge to the other side to Brooklyn.
After that it was time to return to the hotel. We had to get ready for the night as we had tickets for a basketball match in the Madison Square Garden. This was one of Thomas high priority wishes and he was smiling like a happy little camper.
The Knicks were playing against the 76er's (the Philly team). The 76er's were leading the first 3 quarters of the game and when the knicks started to catch up in the last period, the audience went crazy!
When we did the whole planning about what we gonna do in NYC, the boys also requested to have at least one party night in the City. It wasn't the first time for me in NY, so I knew where to go. I lead them to the Niki Beach Club where we have been with the interns before back in February for Miri's birthday. I really like this place and you can find the article about this club on my blog here as well. We had a great night there and definitely needed to sleep in the next day....
You might imagine that we started our Saturday much slowlier than the days before...We had to check out from the hotel room and then took the ferry again to Manhattan. As we all needed some kind of recovery we just walked down the blocks to the Central Park. There, we found a nice sunny place to chill and hang out and all of us took the chance to have another little nap.
Later that afternoon I wanted to show them 2 really cool hotels. On our way there we stopped in some shops around Fifth Avenue and Times Square.
Especially the M&M shop caught our attention. I wanted to show them a very nice hotel concerning the architecture and design at Times Square. The first time I saw it was together with Mona, Tim and Miri. Not only how the entire hotel is designed inside but they also have a restaurant with a revolving platform at the 48th floor of the hotel and overlooks the city.
When I saw it, I knew in the same moment that I would take Thomas and Micheal here and invite them for the last dinner in New York. And so we were sitting there, enjoying the food, overlooking the city and remembering the great and funny moments that we just had all th days before. The sun was setting down and while we were turning above the roofs of New York, we felt just happy and thankful that we could share all these memories together. What a wonderful world :-)
Check all our New York pictures on my photoalbum:
