Things kinda snuck up on me with this trip. A bunch of friends and I had talked a long time ago about possibly going to New York to visit some friends we had out here. About a month ago when we decided to get more serious about it, most everyone either bailed out, or couldn't go due to work, and or other obligations. My friend Harper was the only one who turned out to be able to go.
We got looking at tickets, and prices were outragiously expensive. Over $400 roundtrip! We had almost consigned ourselves to not going, and settle on somewhere a little closer to home. My roommate (the cool one, not piggy obviously), Nats said that she might be able to get us buddy pass tickets because her dad works for JetBlue airlines and gives away buddy passes all of the time!
As luck would have it, things worked out, almost last minute even. We had to fly standby, but tickets were only going to be $100 for taxes and fuel and "someone looked at this piece of aper fee" instead of the original $400+ that it could have been! If that wasn't enough, Harper's old roommate, Hungaryrita, had an apartment all to herself for the summer, and said we could come stay with her. She eventually had people move in, right before we got here, and since we've been here, but they didn't seem to mind. Really though, with the way things have gone so far, I am tempted to say if they did mind, who cares!!! (So rude of me)
Initially we were thinking we would come and maybe even drive up to Palmyra, NY to see the Mormon Temple Pageant similar to one you might find in Manti, UT. My uncle is living there on a mission and is in the temple presidency, so we thought we could probably stay with him and my aunt and see a bunch of the sites that follows. As fate would have it, the timing didn't really work out to go to the pageant, but that hasn't stopped us from having an amazing time here in the city!
We fly back home this coming Sunday, July 27th in the evening sometime. I thought I would give you a run-down of some of the highlights until I can get back and post a bunch of pictures and give you all more details! Ready?!
- Open-air tour bus rides around the city (Uptown, Downtown during the day and at night, Brooklynn)
- Yankees Game
- Cirque Dreams-Jungle Fantasy (Broadway Play)
- Mariachi band on the subway
- Food (Boy do I got some good ones to post about that)
- Front row Wicked tickets for $26.25 (Broadway Play)
- Last two people on the the plane on the flight here
- Sleeping in until noon almost daily
- Manhattan Temple
- "You're here to meet a friend on the second floor?" (the security guard in the lobby of the Manhattan Temple/Church Offices where Hungaryrita works, said in a very confused tone).
- Our day of Murphy's law and riding the trains all day
- NBC Studios Tour
- Free place to stay (and cheap airfare over here)
- HOT policemen that we were too chicken to take pictures of
- Creepy statue of liberty people who grab you and force you to take a picture with them, and then charge $5 for you to take it with your own camera!
- European attitude on the Staten Island Ferry
