The City that Never Sleeps, Part Two

Dang, it's only been over a month since we went there.  I need to hurry up and do this before I forget what happened that day (and in reality, I probably already have).  For those of you who didn't read it, feel free to catch up on Part One.

In the interest of preserving a memory and practicing my brevity at the same time, I'll try my hardest not to go off on tangents.  (Like the proposed $3.8 trillion dollar budget for FY2011.)

After a sweaty couple of hours at the uber-crowded AMNH, we decided it was time to eat "lunch" (or lunch and dinner as it turned out to be).  Being from Georgia, we are unaccustomed to walking in windy sub-freezing temperatures, so we opted for the closest restaurant we could find thanks to our trusty GPS.  Of all places, and however ironic it might be, we ate at Uno's Chicago Grill in the heart of New York City.  Deep dish pizza, ladies and gents.  Go ahead and scoff.

From there we boarded the subway (again) en route to Rockefeller Center to see the Christmas tree.  Since it felt like we spent an inordinate amount of our day riding the subway, I wanted to commemorate it with a picture.  It turned out like this:

 

...and it embodies everything you think of when you hear the words "Scary Subway Man".

We walked through Rock Center to the tree.  (Interestingly, we passed a Shoe Shine place with a line out the door.  I didn't realize these places were [still?] so popular.  I don't think I own a single pair of shoes that can be shined.  Anyway, oops.  That was a tangent.)  We weaved our way through about 6000 people taking pictures so we could take our own, and ended up with these matching Daddy & Ben and Mommy & Ben shots:

 

  

We skedaddled on up to FAO Swartz.   (I dare you to find a New Yorker who says skedaddled.)  Of course, there was a line to get in.  I have to give credit where credit is due though.  I was so very proud of my little man.  He must have walked a million miles through even more people and did so with (very little) complaint.  He didn't quite understand why there were lines everywhere, but that was easily explained.  After all, we did wait until New Year's Eve Eve to go there.  

I'm not entirely sure Ben was as excited about the toy store as me, but again, it was smokin' hot in there.  We did get a few photos though:

 

One day when I'm rich, I'm going to design my own muppet.  Or maybe not.  It seems a bit indulgent, but I have to admit it's super cool.

  

Riding the escalator to the 2nd floor, marveling at the thousand dollar stuffed animals.

  

 Posing oh-so-excitedly next to the giant Lego Chewbacca.

Next stop, we traipsed on down to Time Square, or thereabouts.  We got close enough to take a picture.  We actually just went to Walgreens, apparently.

We took the subway once more from Time Square down to near the WTC stop so we could see the Statue of Liberty from the shore (we did).  Then we walked past Ground Zero, prompting an earnest discussion with Ben that would later bring about some hard questions.

Speeding this right along, we caught the Path, got to our car, paid the equivalent of a nice date night to the states of New Jersey and Delaware in tolls, and got back to my parents house around 11pm, only to wake up to a blanket of snow on New Year's Eve morning.

Oh, one more thing.  Is "top it off" a regional term?  I said this growing up in Maryland in reference to gas.  We stopped somewhere in New Jersey for a $1 Sweet Tea at McDonalds and when Sam asked the worker to "top it off" for us, she looked at him like he had three heads.  Is that a weird thing to say?

In the end, I was thrilled we were able to take Ben.  Sure, conditions were less than optimal, but it was all part of the experience.  I hope to go again someday.  Maybe in the summertime.  It's got to be cooler than Georgia in the summer, right?