11 hours in the City

First: To get you into the empire state of mind… queue Jay-Z and Alicia Keys…

One of my NYE resolutions was to travel more…

This past weekend, B and I went on a whirlwind trip to New York City.  For my birthday, Bentley got tickets to a Yankee’s game in NYC. So we could see Derek Jeter play one last time at Yankee’s Stadium before he retires… I have been waiting since March for this!!

So we decided to take the Megabus from Rochester, NY (that way we got to see my parents too!) over night on Friday. We were suppose to leave at 11:50pm, but didn’t end up leaving until 12:50pm, Megabus was late!  We arrived in NYC around 7:40am on Saturday.  Our bus back to Rochester would be leaving at 6:40pm that same night!  That gave us 11 hours to explore the city.

This was Bentley’s first time visiting NYC, and only my second.  I was last there when I was 13 for another Yankee’s game at the old stadium.  Our goal of the day: explore and see as many landmarks as possible!

First stop off the bus was Starbucks for some coffee and breakfast!

Next stop was the Empire State Building.  After doing some research prior, we knew roughly how much it would cost and that we wanted to go up to the 86th floor and the 102nd floor and that there was an express option to avoid lines. Well we got talked into doing this “Sky Ride” flight simulator through NYC (#tourists), thinking we would have express access to the 86th floor and102nd floor.  Well that didn’t end up happening (86th floor only) and the Sky Ride was horrible. BUT… when we got to the 86th floor and saw the panoramic views of the city, it was absolutely incredible.

From the Empire State Building we walked to prime spots including: Time Square, Broadway, Rockefeller Center, Radio City Music Hall, NBC Studios, Madison Avenue, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Park Ave., Trump Tower, Tiffany’s, Central Park, and of course Yankee’s Stadium.

We found a nice cafe in Central Park that we could sit and enjoy lunch, before heading up to the Yankee game. We caught a cab and got to Yankee’s Stadium.  It was so surreal and amazing to be there, not to mention Jeter played great (disclaimer: born and raised in NY, Yankee fan since birth).  I also got a Derek Jeter foam finger, and collectors baseball… of course.

Before heading back to the bus, we found a classic New York styled pizza restaurant (John’s at Timesquare) and chowed down on some pizza!

Overall, the trip was so much fun, just walking around the city, exploring, and site seeing with B.

We arrived back into Rochester around 2am, arriving back to my parents around 2:30am… and hit the sack.  It was long, but so worth it.  I mapped our walk around NYC and we probably walked about 10 miles, only catching 2-taxi rides – my feet and legs were killing me on the bus ride back!

We got to spend time with my parents the rest of Sunday before heading back up to Cleveland. It was a perfect little weekend.

xo -eb

Now to end… classic Frank (and some pictures!)