New York - Part 3

Day 7: Friday started off with brunch with the entire family at The Plaza. (Thanks Rick and Connie!) They just renovated the hotel and it's gorgeous. My mom and I had stayed there 9 years ago for my 16th birthday. It was fun to go back and see it again. After a yummy brunch, Ryan and I walked through the southeast corner of Central Park - my favorite area. Take a look at this picture. It was just so peaceful there.


After our walk, we met up with Ryan's family and checked out St. John's Cathedral. The place was massive, but unfortunately we couldn't see much of it because it was being renovated after a fire. Next stop was the Burger Joint in the Parker Meridian - a suggestion from my dad. The burgers were good, but the fries and shake get EXCELLENT reviews. Yummo. Once our bellies were full, we headed over to the FDR on the East River where we waited for 3 hours (yes, 3 hours!) for fireworks. This is basically the place to be for the fireworks show. The city shuts down the FDR freeway along the river and allows everyone to just come park it on the freeway for the show. It rained a little throughout our wait and throughout the show, so the clouds and smoke made it a little hard to see some of the fireworks, but it was still a good show.


Day 8: Saturday morning we walked around Columbia University and visited the Riverside Cathedral. Columbia is a small campus, but it's really quite pretty.

The boys

Later that morning we headed down to Broadway for Boeing Boeing, a scripted comedy staring Bradly Whitford (he's the guy from West Wing, Studio 60, and the bad guy in Billy Madison). It was an excellent show - very silly, very funny.

This is Bradly Whitford. Not the best picture, but do you recognize him now?

After the show we grabbed a bite to eat at the Shake Shack - yes, another burger place. This is Trevor's favorite, so we had to compare to the place my dad suggested. The Shake Shack gets an A rating for the burger, better than the Parker Meridian, but the fries and shake don't even compare.

That evening Trevor, Adam, Ryan and I went to the MET for a little while. Trev got us free passes through his work, so we just checked out a few exhibits and called it a day. Here's one of my favorite artists, Claude Monet. I love Impressionism and have actually been to Monet's gardens in France - making this picture all the more meaningful.


Time to go home: we didn't do much on our last day in NYC - had another yummy brunch and then watched Wimbledon (what a match!) before we headed to the airport. Of course our flight was delayed, so we didn't get home until about midnight. I'm exhausted and wish I would have taken an extra day off to sleep in and do laundry. Oh well, I'll just have a busy night tonight. New York was a blast and we had a great time. Ryan was so good to me, making sure I got to do everything I wanted to do... and for putting up with all my bathroom stops. I think our next vacation will be more of a relaxing one :)