New York City

June - July 2018
A two week trip featuring New York
  • 13footprints
  • 1countries
  • 16days
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  • 959kilometers
  • Day 13

    Day 3 in NYC

    July 12, 2018 in the United States ⋅ ⛅ 25 °C

    Our day starts, as most others have on this trip, with the complementary breakfast. The one at this hotel is average. Nothing beats The Embassy in that regard! For reasons unknown, there is no shuttle today to get us to the train station. So, we drive instead. When we get there we discover that it is metered parking. At 25 cents per 1/4 hour we would need a lot of quarters for the day! Fortunately, there's an app for that. All I had to do was download it and enter our location number and we were good to go. Even has a feature built in to help you find your vehicle in case you forgot where you parked it!

    On arrival at Grand Central Station we find our way out of this massive building and start our day's walking tour. First stop, the MoMA. This world renowned Museum of Modern Art has a large collection of works by many great artists including Picasso, Matisse, Van Gogh, Monet and others. Too much to take it all in during a single visit so we choose a few of the many rooms and spend a couple of hours enjoying the art. A free app was available with an audio tour so that you could get insights into many of the more famous works.

    Next not the day's agenda was the Top of the Rock at the Rockefeller Center. Unfortunately, it was going to cost the family over $200 to take an elevator to the top. We decided that Laura and Emma would go up and I would walk to Macy's with the boys. We would meet up again later. Once together, we visited a few other stores nearby and had a lunch. From there we spent a bit more time walking about and enjoying the atmosphere before heading back to the train station by Metro.
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  • Day 14

    Last Day in New York - Maybe?

    July 13, 2018 in the United States ⋅ ⛅ 26 °C

    This morning we have a family tour of the World Trade Center Memorial and Museum scheduled for 11:30. We are driving the car down to a parkade just a block from the site. I pre-booked that online a while ago. The drive from our hotel in Yonkers is easy and takes us about 45 mins.

    We are welcomed by our tour guide and joined by about ten others on the tour. She gives us each headsets so that we can easily hear what she has to say as we tour. We spend about 1/2 hour on the site and learn a bit about the design of the memorial. The two pools in place where the north and south towers once stood are very impressive. The next thirty minutes are inside the museum where we are given information about the terror attack and the extent of the damage and lives lost. We are then left to explore the rest of the museum on our own. It is a very well organized exhibit with lots of photos, videos and artifacts salvaged from the ruins. The museum is deep underground at the level of where the foundations of the original buildings were located.

    From here we began another walking tour. This one was in a travel book of NYC we purchased long before we left. It took us through the heart of the financial district, along Wall Street and ended at Battery Park. We passed many historic buildings along the way. After a short break, we made our way to the nearest Metro station and caught the train to Union Square. The plan now was to see some more sights in the area, but also to find a large, recommended vintage and consignment clothing shop called "Beacon's Closet". It wasn't too far before we found it. Very popular and very crowded. Jaden and Aaron both found sneakers.

    We continued touring the Soho and Greenich Village neighborhoods. Ate a delicious lunch and found a few more shops of interest. It was then time to take the Metro back to where we had parked our car. We initially headed in the wrong direction and got off at a stop soon after finding out. Sadly, at that stop we did not have the option to go back. So, we had to wait for the next train, go two more stops in the wrong direction and then transfer to the train that would take us in the right direction. Luckily, we had lots of time to get to the airport. Lots and lots of time!

    We had to wait a few more minutes to get our car back once we arrived at the pickup location. It is a valet service and I was instructed to text ahead of time so that car would be ready on arrival. I'm not sure what went wrong. There was no apology or reason given. Again, it was all good because we had lots and lots of time before our flight would leave.

    The drive was a it unnerving at the start. It was dark. It was very busy. And, the GPS was lagging making it problematic when you had to make many quick turns to stay on course. Once over the Brooklyn Bridge, however, traffic thinned out and it was much less stressful. We arrived at our car rental drop off location. I had to go in and see the manger regarding a parking violation from yesterday that had nothing to do with me and everything to do with the fact that the car did not have valid insurance, or at least did not have a current sticker on the license plate. The manager was very apologetic and told me she would take care of it. So far, this had been a fairly good day, considering it was Friday the 13th!

    From here we hauled our luggage to the Airtrain for a short ride to Terminal 1 where we would check in with Phillipine Airlines. It was still a couple hours before the flight was to leave so I wasn't too concerned about the fact that no one was yet available to check us in. While waiting, I decided to take a look at the recent reminder email I had received for the airline. To my astonishment, we were a day early! When I announced the finding to the family they thought I was joking. Soon, however, they realized that I was not.

    I was not popular. I expected that response. Nobody was happy. Least of all, me! I felt that I had done a pretty good job of planning and organizing this trip. It had all gone according to plan. Until now. I did not want this to be the defining moment of our last, full family trip. All I could do was apologize and go about finding a solution to our problem. It took several phone calls, but eventually I managed to find a hotel nearby with a room for us. They would even send their shuttle bus out to the airport to pick us up and drive us to the hotel. I breathed a sigh of relief. But the dilemma was not yet completely resolved.

    On arrival at the hotel, we checked in and found that there were two double beds and no cot, as promised. I called the front desk and was told that it was not possible to bring in a cot. I explained that I had been promised that the room would be fine for the five of us and that a cot would be provided. The fellow that made the promise worked out of the central reservations, not the hotel, however. To spare you more details, suffice it to say that I successfully plead my case and we ended up getting a second room at no extra cost. Now we could finally relax and get a decent nights sleep.
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  • Day 15

    Our Bonus Day

    July 14, 2018 in the United States ⋅ 🌧 26 °C

    This morning, shortly after waking up after a good night’s sleep, I opened the curtains in our hotel room and saw a shopping mall just down the street. I checked on my phone to see if I could find out what stores might be in the mall. I didn’t recognize any, however, we’ve been looking for stores we don’t have in our neighbourhood at home and they seemed to be worth a look.

    I also noticed an IHOP within walking distance. I suggested we do brunch there as our hotel room did not include breakfast. So, after a workout in the hotel fitness centre and once everyone was ready, we checked out of the rooms and left our luggage at the front desk.

    We had a short wait because it was very busy at the Hop. The wait was worthwhile! We all had great meals. And, it only cost $US92.

    We then started walking to the mall across the street. Along the way we came across a Collectable Sneaker Shop. I expected one or both of the boys to find something to their liking. But it was actually Laura that bought herself a nice pair of Nike walking shoes. I know now that every time she slips on those shoes she’ll have fond memories of my blunder.

    We found several good stores in the mall and I think everyone bought something. We then walked to a nearby Costco. I always like seeing what Costco’s in different parts of the continent have to offer. Here the highlight for me was watching a Vitamix demonstration. We have one at home and love it, using it almost daily. The one being demonstrated was cool because it has built in Bluetooth and you can use an app on your phone to pick recipes and have the machine automatically mix the ingredients at the best speed and for the required time.

    One more stop on our tour of the Queens area. Another mall about 1/2 km away. It had a Burlington. By the time we had finished inside that large store we were pretty much shopped out. The plan was to catch A cab back to the hotel. $US56 was a bit much so we walked.

    We arrived just in time to gather up our luggage and hop on the shuttle. The driver was kind enough yo take us right to our departure terminal so we did not have to reboard the Airtrain.

    Other than a bit of trouble checking in Aaron’s suitcase/skateboard combination which resulted in us having to pay to get his boards plastic wrapped, it was all good this time around. Now we just need to wait 5 hours for our red eye flight to Vancouver.

    So ends another great family vacation.
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