We left our hotel in the morning, extra early of course in an uber. I refused to drive any father into the city than Yonkers so we got an uber. Its more reasonable than you think going 45 minutes in an uber and well worth the money so that we didnt have to drive. The route follows the Hudson river all the way into downtown where you make a quick left and enter the insane world of times square and NYC. There are 19 million people in NYC's 6 boroughs or something like that. Add tourists and it felt like 19 billion. Cudos to our Uber driver who took us right where we needed to be. Jump out and jump onto a bus with 28 other tourists and off we went. Turns out the tour bus was made up of 90% people from other countries. There were the four of us from Cali, one other lady from So Cal and then a guy from Houston. Everyone else was from Australia, India or other far away places.
Theres no way I can remember the order of the stops and all the things we saw but the bus drove us all over Manhattan, Times Square, Hells Kitchen, SoHo, the financial district, etc. We passed the soup kitchen as seen on Seinfeld, "no soup for you!", 5th Avenue shopping, the building that was used in Men In Black and countless other cool stops like the NY library which is the 2nd largest in the US after the library in DC. We stopped to take a peak at the Empire State building, Rockefeller Plaza where the giant Christmas tree goes, Radio City Music Hall, the John Lenon Memorial in Central Park, and the 9-11 memorial. Our tour also included a boat ride down the Hudson to see the Statue of Liberty and the Brooklyn bridge.
Ill tell you this is a crazy busy city. Cars, horns, movement, chaos, people. I dont know where everyone here gets quite time. Our tour guide was an amazing wealth of knowledge and I think I gained so much knowledge about the city from her in the 6 hours on the bus than I ever thought possible. She had so much information on the city in general and the history going all the way back to the start. Did you know NYC was first inhabited by the Dutch? I had no idea. We all agreed we liked this city the best out of all the large cities we have been to, but I think that was largely due to our tour guide Tyler who was amazing.
The 911 memorial was an intense stop. Two days ago was the 18th anniversary. Its heavy standing there looking into the reflection pools surrounded by the names of the 3000 people who lost their lives. Something I will never forget. The survivor tree stands tall at just over 32 feet now. It was found in the burning rubble with only a couple of blackened limbs but showing sings of being alive still. It was "rescued" and transplanted and now grows strong near the location of the north tower and blooms each spring.
Ending the tour we headed out to have NY pizza. After 5pm the population seems to grow even more. Shoulder to shoulder on the sidewalks we made our way to the pizza parlor. Of course we folded the slices in half the NY way and ate the whole thing. After we bought 2 slices of NY style cheesecake and a cannoli to bring back to the hotel. Who knew that an uber back would be over $150!! So we decided we'd walk some, see how much ground we could make up and lower the rate. We walked from lower Manhattan to Central Park. In my head I was thinking, "go toward the green trees", but the park itself was just as busy. Such a crazy place. Finally we walked far enough to get the rate down to a reasonable rate and headed out. Its nice to be in a quiet space where there's no sirens, helicopters, people, etc. The city may never sleep, but we are sure ready!
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