New York, New York 10-4-13

We are up early and had breakfast before heading to Newark Penn Station.  We park and get to the station with only one wrong turn on the way.  We get help getting the tickets we needed to take the train to the WTC station in NYC.  We get all 5 of them and get on the train.  When the conductor comes to us for tickets, he tells us we are on the wrong train for the tickets we had.  We now have to pay him another $30 (he didn't charge for Chris and Paige) but we would wind up at 33rd Street Station in NYC instead of the WTC.  We get off and everyone heads to the bathroom first.  Chris is upset that mom won't allow him to go alone so he comes with us.  He will get this when he grows up but right now he does not appreciate going with us in the least.  We find the exit and begin our day in NYC.  It only takes two minutes before we realize that Lindsay is very stressed about being here.  I have to admit that the amount of people and looking up and only seeing the sky in the small space between the skyscrapers is a strange feeling.  We head toward the Empire State Building and take some photos.  This was just a block from the train station and in that period of time we realized how hot and humid it was that day.  The wait was long to go to the top so we decide to go to Central Park next.  It is about 35 blocks away so we try to get a cab and have no luck so we continue to walk until we get to a Springhill Suites.  Since we spent the night at one the night before, we go in and ask them to call a cab for us which they do....yay!  We get to the park in front of the Plaza Hotel which is something Chris wanted to see because of his favorite movie..Home Alone.  We take photos at the hotel and fountain then find a pedicab to take us through Central Park.  It was the highlight of our day.  We were able to see and walk through the Rambles and see Strawberry Fields and the Imagine tiles.  We exited the tour at the Dakota where we saw where John Lennon was killed.

 

 

By this time it is a little past noon and it is now really hot in the sun and no air movement.  We find a cab to take us to Times Square.  Once there we have lunch at McDonald's.  Teresa decides it is ok to let Chris use the Men's room here so we are seated upstairs and the Ladies room is up here.  We all finish and head downstairs to let Chris go and there is a line at the Men's room!  The first time we have ever seen this but we figure out eventually that there is only one at a time in there and apparently every man waiting really needs to use more than a urinal.  So he waited in line twenty minutes for his turn.  Once we finish there we start walking toward the ABC Studios where GMA is broadcast.  This part of Broadway is so crowded you can barely breathe.  The kids wanted to go into ToysRus and they rode the ferris wheel in there and then toured the store for souvenirs.  They did find a man demonstrating a drawing board that was unique and only currently available in either New York or London so I bought them one and they did have fun with it the rest of the trip.  After we left there we walked to Rockefeller Center and passed Radio City Music Hall on the way.  They were putting the ice rink together for the holiday season.  I am so hot and tired by this time I am not sure that I will make it much further.  Since it is now so late we need to get the train back and get on the road toward Cape May before rush hour kicks in so we begin looking again for a cab that will take us to the WTC PATH station so we can use the tickets we had purchased this morning.  We walked another three blocks before we find one that will take us.  This now begins the most terrorizing ride of my life.  Teresa and the kids are in the back and I am with the driver whose head is in a turban.  I tried hard to refrain from screaming but couldn't help putting my hand on the dashboard to brace for the accidents I thought were imminent!  I don't believe I have ever come that close to that many wrecks in one ride ever...nor do I want to again.  He did get us to the station and I was eternally grateful that we all got out of that van alive!  We had no problem getting to the right train this time and our ride back to Newark was quick. Lindsay is finally relieved that we are out of NYC and on our way.

 

 

 

 

We get the car and find that like NYC, you must be aggressive and use your horn continuously in order to drive here.  Teresa manages to get us out of there and back to the expressway but it is now 4 PM and rush hour has now started.  It was stop and go for much of the trip which took us longer than we had planned.  Lindsay was able to look up a Mexican restaurant in Sea Isle City that we could stop for dinner and it was very good.  We stopped to say hello to mom and visited for a few minutes then headed toward Wildwood to the condo we rented for our time here.  We stopped to pick up some things for breakfast at a WAWA near mom's but found another "Retro Wawa" that was in Wildwood closer to where we stayed.   Teresa pulled a Chevy Chase in Vacation when she saw a liquor store and whipped the van into the lot at the front door.  She was back in moments with a bottle of wine which we really needed by now. The guard at the gate did not want to let us in and we couldn't reach the man we rented from.  After producing a copy of the contract, she finally took us and let us into the unit.  We got settled and relaxed with some wine before turning in. We didn't give the kids wine but they did have a Tastykake.  What a day!