NYC Day 4

Hi everyone! Today I am taking over for Andrew to write about Day 4, departure day, while he is being a good boy and studying. My writing skills do not compare to his, but we will give it a shot! Thursday morning we were up with the roosters. We woke up bright in earlier to make sure we had time to do what was planned as well as beat the crowds!

First on the list was to walk down to the Rockefeller Center to catch a glimpse of the Today Show crew. Mind you the day we planned on being outside the most was the coldest of all days (but a beautiful sunny day at least). We arrived at the NBC Studios to try and get a good spot to make it on TV. Of course there were those hardcore fans that were there before us in those prime spots, so we ended up just finding an area with less people to at least see Matt, Meredith, and Al. For those who do not watch the Today Show, off and on throughout the 3 hour show, they do an outdoor segment which seems to focus more on the crowd than anything else. Even though we didn't become 5 second TV stars, it was fun being a part of it.

By this time, we were freezing cold from just standing still... our next and last attraction visit was the Empire State Building. After my many hours of research of NYC, I learned for the best experience of the Empire State Building, you must arrive when doors open (which was 8am). My research paid off! Once to the building after walking about 15 blocks, we arrived with absolutely no lines to wait in and no heads to look over when overlooking the city. The views were breathtaking! We all knew New York City was huge with hundreds of buildings, but you don't really grasp that fact until you are standing on the 86th floor of the tallest building in NYC (2nd tallest in the nation). Although there had to of been 50mph gusts of wind, the weather allowed us to see for miles and miles. We spent about 45 minutes trying to take in every little detail of the city, but I don't even think that would be possible to do in a days time.

It came time to make our trek back north 23 block to our hotel to check out. All were hungry and thought we would make one last stop in the city for a bite to eat. Cafe Metro looked inviting and we stopped to grab a breakfast sandwich. Only a block away from the Wellington Hotel, we ordered to go and hurried up to our room to eat before everything was cold. We did our last minute check to make sure nothing was being left behind and said goodbye to our sleeping quarters of three nights.

Even though we were all exhausted from the three days of craziness, I think we were all sad to leave the city that never sleeps. Valet brought the car, we packed it up, hopped in and were off! My GPS wasn't as helpful leaving the city due to all the huge buildings interfering with satellite signals. Andrew decided to "go with his gut" to get us going the right direction, but ended up not working out too well. We were going north and east instead of south and west (Note: New York streets not the best place to be at lunch time). Finally we ended up on the correct streets and made it to Lincoln Tunnel which then spit us out into New Jersey. We were able to say one last goodbye by turning around and seeing the city backdrop. Goodbye New York City!

Hope you enjoyed this trip as much as we did. Make sure you check back to get helpful trip planning tips as well as keeping track of our journeys from week to week!