New York Video

Here's a video of Sheila and I in NY set to my favorite song in elementary school. I just dated myself! I loved this song so much, I flew to New York to take some photos and set them to the music so my face would be in something like a KISS video. That's really the only reason I went to NYC.....just kidding, ya'll. It is a great song though!
KISS-New York Groove

No Reservations Needed....our own NYC food tour!

It was our last night in NYC and we still had not eaten a hot dog. We were stumped on where to eat and all the other tours we had purchased had left us broke so..........make your own! It's free and requires no reservations to get in. The first stop on the tour was a street vendor, hot dog stand for a tube steak. New Yorkers don't put mayo on their dogs....mustard and ketchup only. I was hungry and it tasted delicious! The second stop on the tour was Ray's Original Pizza on 7th. I had the canadian bacon, pepperoni, and pineapple slice of pie. I love salty and sweet together! In New York you don't eat a giant slice of pie with a fork. You fold it and you eat it. We wanted to hit Grimaldi's or Lombardi's, but food on the go was more appealing at the moment. For dessert, we headed out to find a cannoli. It was a toss up between cannoli or NY cheesecake. The cannoli won only because I had never had one. We ate all three items within a few blocks of each other and in about 30 minutes. Though the food did not compare to the $175 Bobby Flay restaurant meal, the adventure to find these foods, the urban atmosphere, and the company made it more fun and more my style!

World's Best! You finally did it! Congratulations!-Buddy the Elf

Grand Central Station and Parking in Manhattan

The main concourse of Grand Central Station looks just like it does in all the movies and commercials. Sheila and I kept waiting for a flash mob to break out!
Real Estate is such a limited premium in NYC, the only way to maximize the space is to go vertical. We thought this was a very unique way to take get the most out of a small parking lot!

Times Square...If I can make it there, I'll make it anywhere!

What can I say....let the pics and video speak for itself!

 New Year's Eve Ball Drop...it's dropped!



Top of 30 Rock and the NBC Studio Tour

Well....I'll go ahead and admit it.....I'm Terri See and I'm afraid of heights! BUT you don't travel all the way to New York City and not go to the top of a building....be it Rockefeller or Empire....to see the city from one of the coolest vantage point you just don't see everyday. Twenty two dollars and seventy stories later, I made it. My heart was beating out of my chest and I was very nervous, but it was worth it. 

The NBC Studio tour was so interesting, but they would not let us take pictures or videos. We got to go the filming stage of Dr. Oz, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon (which used to be where The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson taped), and the Saturday Night Live studio set. Other than SNL, the sound stages where tiny. The tricks used during taping are what makes the stages look so large. Where Jimmy Fallon starts the show doing his monologue...his desk and The Roots Band are a few steps away from him, but because they do no pan the camera, you never see the true size or depth of the studio. Two interesting pieces of trivia about SNL is that almost every scene is done on the same stage the host starts the show on and Chris Farley had almost every one of his scenes taped on a different stage than the others because he left such a mess, being that he was so physical and used messy props. They couldn't clean the set off fast enough after his scenes between commercials.

Public Transportation...The Subway

Sheila using her App

There are not many Texans growing up and living in the suburbs who know anything about mass transit and public transportation. We all have cars! If you ever get to experience getting around in a major city without the use of a car....I highly recommend it. It is awesome and very convenient. I loved the metro in Paris and it was pretty easy to figure out. New York's subway system, though not as simple in comparison to the one in Paris, is the only way to go anywhere in New York and keep it economical. A taxi gets expensive and is time consuming with all the traffic. You can meet some pretty harmless, but interesting people on the subway making it entertaining, as well. Here's some pics and a video about my experience and by the way...the red tank top wearing woman in the video ain't no woman....it's a MAN, baby! Trust me on this one. It was a long trip and we had the time to figure it out!
One picture shows an empty car at about 8:30am Sunday morning and the one (though it is a bad pic of Sheila...sorry, Sheila!) shows a crammed pack car at about 5:30pm Saturday afternoon. I was holding on to the ceiling!

Sheila had an iPod app that was great in helping us get from place to place. Thank goodness for technology at your fingertips!

Robin Williams!

Sheila and I walked around Times Square tonight and made our way down 46th street to an area called Hell's Kitchen. We ate at an awesome Spanish Tapas restaurant and enjoyed some yummy Sangria. After dinner, we were making our way back down 46th in the area where all the Broadway productions are and we saw a few people standing outside of a theater taking pictures of someone. That someone just so happened to be Robin Williams! A car was waiting for him and a bodyguard was ushering him along, but he did stop for a few pictures with folks. I couldn't get up there fast enough, but I was able to snap a shot of him with my cell phone before he got into the car. He doesn't look like Mork from Ork anymore.....just saying! Nanoo Nanoo!

Rockefeller Center, NBC Studios, Bloomingdale's, Radio City Music Hall

Museum Of Modern Art, Starry Night, and The Persistance of Memory

Sistine Chapel....check!
Mona Lisa....check!

and now Starry Night by Van Gogh....Check!

A dream fulfilled today! If I teach about it....I just have to see it for myself! The one surprise was Salvador Dali's melting clocks surrealist painting "The Persistance of Memory." It was tiny! I did not picture it in my head to ever be that small. I knew the Mona Lisa was small, but this one really threw me for a loop! What do you think?

Central Park

Today we went to Central Park before dinner. We had 9pm reservations at Mesa Grill. It's celebrity chef Bobby Flay's restaurant. Great food! Sheila and I walked around Central Park for a couple of hours and we only say about half of it. Central Park is amazing! It is the most lush, garden oasis set smack dab in the middle of an urban jungle. It was beautiful. There were people playing street hockey, softball, throwing frisbees, laying in the grass to catch some sun, roller blading, riding bicycles, horse drawn carriage rides, etc. I just couldn't get over such a beautiful place in the middle of towering buildings and concrete.

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles!

Well, we finally made it to NYC, but it took 24 hours to get here. I woke up at 1:45 am on Thursday morning to get to the airport at 4:30 am to catch a 5:45 am flight. We checked our luggage in for that flight and headed for the gate. Unfortunately, we did not get on that flight, but our luggage did! It headed to La Guardia without us. Because we were flying standby, we were at the mercy of the gate agents and how many people were on the flight. We tried for several more flights and finally got on a flight to St. Louis. We got off in St. Louis and got another flight to Chicago easily. When we got off the plane in Chicago....it was a sea of people. Midway airport had shut down earlier that morning and many flights were cancelled and delayed due to weather. As a result, it backed people up onto any flight we wanted to take to NYC. We tried them all! We finally caught the last flight out of Midway to Long Island. We landed in Islip, NY and took an hour long, $120 taxi ride into Manhattan. We finally hit our hotel at 3:00 am. Today we spent a couple of hours heading to La Guardia to get our luggage. And by the way....Houston traffic ain't nothing. I want to say a HUGE thank you to Cheryl. We met her in the airport and she let us ride in her cab to her house and then we took the rest of the cab ride to Manhattan with her driver. It saved us some money! Thanks, Cheryl. You are an angel! She also told us that New York has the biggest parking lots in the world......it's their freeways!

New York City, here I come!

Well, I have not posted since last year after getting back from Europe and now the Two Traveling Teachers are heading out again! Unfortunately it is on our dime this time, but it will be well worth it. We are going to New York, New York this time on June 9th-13th and are staying in Midtown Manhattan at the Park Central Hotel. www.parkcentralny.com/Photo-gallery
I plan on going to the MOMA to see Van Gogh's Starry Night. That will be at the top of my "things to see" list in NY. Keep checking back for updates. I will be blogging while I am there!