Start Spreading the News......I'm Leaving Today.....I want to Be a Part of It....New York! New York!

My sister, Jamie, and I went to New York City together this last week. Just for fun and to celebrate her birthday. It was super-duper fun and super-duper cold. Please promise me you won't zoom in on my face because you will likely see snot running down my nose. It was THAT cold.

I love, love, love big cities. In my secret life fantasy I live in a big city. I love traveling with Jamie because she is a picture-taking-freak. She is also a history nerd like myself, so we did the full audio tours everywhere we went. She also carried a backpack, so after the first day I was able to ditch my fanny pack and just be free. She can travel with me anytime! :o)

Here are some classic New York City pictures: Times Square

Statue of Liberty

City Skyline

The day before Jamie got there I went and toured the UN Headquarters. This was HUGE for me, and VERY inspiring. I always said my dream job would be Secretary General of the United Nations. I got a picture with the "actual" Secretary General of the United Nations.

We also toured the studios at Rockefeller Center where we learned that basically everything you see on TV is fake.

Something that we both loved was touring the Grand Central Station. I love old buildings with great histories and delicious food. (Sorry my eyes are closed. Actually, one is closed and the other is almost closed.)

We also did the historical audio tour of Ellis Island. I loved it. But I do NOT recommend doing it while pregnant or on pregnancy hormones. I cried at least ten times. I don't believe any of our relatives came through here because they came long before this building existed. But it was still very touching to see what people went through to get here. I hope coming here fulfilled all of their dreams that they sacrificed so much for.

We also ate great food. This is an Italian restaurant called Barbettas. It is one of Hillary Clinton's favorites, so I just had to try it. Nobody told us how "fancy" it was and I quickly regretted looking like a bag lady. But they were very nice and the food and experience was great.

I saw a show every night I was there. I LOVE live theater. When I lived in London, I would save all my money that was supposed to be for food and travel and shopping and go to shows all by myself almost every night. This one, "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying", was a definite two thumbs up.

The down side of traveling with Jamie is that she can sometimes get TOO carried away with pictures. She will take them of very stupid things and I am forced to be Vannah White. Here I am showing the stupid brass swan faucet in the bathroom at the fancy restaurant. I love seeing what people in the "olden days" thought was fancy and thought would made them appear to be rich.

We also ate at a delicious sushi restaurant. (Once again, severely underdressed. NYC is much more formal than the west coast.) But this picture was actually supposed to show my nails that I got done. It was so freaking nasty bitter cold that we were desperately thinking of things we could do indoors. We found a nail salon that was open all night, and it looked nice and warm inside. We got everything done that we could get done so that we could stay inside as long as possible. We also had too much time after our Sushi dinner and before our theater show, so we walked down the street to another restaurant and ordered a second dinner just so we could stay indoors.

Next time I go back I want to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge and order pizza. I still haven't done it. We had planned on doing it, but I will now only go to NYC when it is above 60 degrees and isn't snowing. That's the plan.