New York City 1 - Nick

4/21/17

Our New York City Campsite

Yesterday we packed up our campsite in the morning and started the 3 and a half hour drive to New York. We did math in the car, we read, and we played our tablets for a little bit. We also stopped in a big parking lot for lunch. We had PB&J. Then when we got to New York we saw our campsite. It was practically just a parking lot with hook-ups. There is also a boat yard next to us. Then we kind of looked around the campsite. Then we went down to the metro station to see how long it would take us to walk there. It took us 15 minutes. Then we watched the movie Sing, which none of us have seen before.

4/22/2017

Yesterday, since we are actually staying in Jersey City, we took the ferry over to New York. Then we got our metro cards and our New York Passes. The New York Pass gets us in to a lot of things for free. Then we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge. It has 14,000 miles of wire (4 cables, 15 inches thick, with 3500 miles of wire per cable), and it was really crowded. The bridge was one mile long. Then we went to the bakery and we got some fresh bread, some cheese, and some really good sausage. Then we went to the Museum of the Moving Image. It was about all sorts of different movies. One of the parts I liked was a bunch of Star Wars action figures that were really neat. There was also a part about how they film live sports. I never realized it was so complicated. They have to switch back and forth between 14 cameras. It was really interesting. Then we went home and had the stuff we got from the bakery for dinner. New York City was really cool. It was like nothing I have ever seen. Everything was so big and there were so many people. It was really amazing.

Cathedral of St. John the Divine

Today we took the metro downtown and got some freshly baked cinnamon rolls and scones for breakfast. Then we saw the St. John’s Cathedral. It was huge. We found out that there was a fire in it in 2001. It is one of the biggest cathedrals in the world. 

Coney Island Roller Coaster

Then we went on a tour of Radio City Music Hall. It was really cool. They said it had the biggest stage in the world and they could play a pro basketball game on it. We actually got to go onto the stage and the tour guide said that he had been working there for 4 years and he only got to take 3 groups on stage. He also said that on some of their performances they had busses, animals, and lots of other stuff. 

Then we took the metro to Coney Island. On the ride there my dad said it was just an island full of wild rabbits, but when we got there we saw a roller coaster park and my parents said we were going there. When we got there we found out that the park was closing in 30 minutes because of the weather. We ended up getting in 6 rides. My favorite one was a roller coaster that accelerated really fast. The first time we did it, it surprised me. We also went on some water rides. There was another cool airplane that was upside down half the time. 

I forgot to mention, before the roller coaster park and after the theater we went on a tour of SoHo, Little Italy, and Chinatown. My favorite part of the tour was Chinatown. I thought it would just be Chinese food, but it was actually almost all Chinese people. We got a sample of fried dumplings and they were really good. We also got some samples in Little Italy. We got gelato which is kind of like ice cream. We also got cannolis. They are a pastry with some sort of creamy pudding stuff in the middle. Then after that we went to the Rockefeller Center. We got to go up to the 69 th floor. It was really cool. We could see the entire city. We could also see central park. It was huge. We could see the Empire State Building, the World Trade Center, and the 432 Park building. Then, because Andi wanted to, we went to the Lego store and looked around. We didn’t buy anything. Then we came home and had dinner.

4/24/17

Yesterday we went to Krispy Kreme. It is a doughnut place. I got two of the original glazed doughnuts. They were really good. Then we went to the Museum on Eldridge Street. It is an old Jewish synagogue. The building was really cool, but I did not find the museum very interesting. 

Then we went to Central Park. We rented bikes and drove around for about 3 hours. The bike the rental place gave me was a little small. It had 7 gears. It was kind of nice to get away from the city for a little while. 

The bus for "The Ride"

Then we went to The Ride. Andi and I both thought it was going to be a normal bus tour but it wasn’t. It had stadium seating, which means you are facing sideways and only one side of the bus has windows. That wasn’t what made it different though. It wasn’t really a tour at all. After we got on the bus there was really loud music playing and there were two people running the “tour”. The people running the tour were doing really funny dance moves at the people outside. There were also some people who we drove by who danced in front of the bus. One of the guys was doing flips and break dancing. There was a rapper, a saxophone player with a singer, and a ballerina. There was also a quiz they did, and all the questions were about New York. Their first question was “what is the tallest building in New York?” The answer was the World Trade Center and I said it first. I also won a couple of the other questions. 

Then we had dinner at the Hourglass Tavern. Andi and I shared shrimp Catalina and mushroom ravioli. They were both delicious. Our waitress was super nice and she made up her own drink for us. It had mango juice, orange juice, cranberry juice, and a little bit of seltzer water. We called it the Jardaine, because that was the waitress’ name. All the food and drinks were delicious. Then we walked around Times Square for a little while.

There were so many bright billboards and lights, it looked like day even though it was about 10:00 pm. Then we went up to the 86 th floor of the Empire State Building because that’s as far as our ticket got us. It was kind of like the Top of the Rock, but it was still cool. It was also night, so you could see all the cool lights.