New York City

Short one hour drive today to Liberty State Park on the New Jersey side of new york to get the closest views of the statue of liberty without hopping on a boat. I originally wanted to get tickets to take the stairs to the crown of the statue but it was soldout.

Navigated our way to Times Square as our hotel is only 1 block away. Driving there wasn't particularly difficult, just really slow and congested. Required some aggressiveness though to fight for lane changes etc.

Walked around time square and then walked to Hudson Yards where i found a really unique experience for us. We ascended 100 stories in the 6th tallest building in new york city via elevator and then with harnesses, ascended another 16 stories via stairs, most of which were outside the building. And eventually to a ledge where tourists could lean out over the edge. This is apparently the tallest exterior building climb in the world.

Climbing the staircase outside didn't bother me, but definitely quite a thrilling thing to do. I couldn't get myself to lean out over the ledge at the top. However alexa apparently is much braver than me and did both the forward and backward lean! Wow. After that, went to the normal viewing platform and got a bunch of pictures of the city and us on the glass floor and against the angled glass walls over the city.

From here, we took the subway to the Brooklyn bridge and walked across it to Brooklyn and we found the really cool Dumbo area which is an old industrial area revitalized into a hip restaurant area with cobblestone streets. Had a really good meal at a nice italian restaurant and then took in the nighttime views of the brooklyn and Manhattan bridges.

Took the subway back to times square, and relaxed at a restaurant where alexa reconnected with her friends online and i did the same with a ridiculous Yard of beer at the Yard House.Read more