"Don't you love New York in the Fall?"

Brian here... I had to be in New York last Thursday and Friday for work so Emily and I made a week of it. The kids had such a fun time with Grandma Susan and Aunt Amy while we were gone (thank you SOOO much!). In our minds we were thinking of the trip as: a "belated anniversary trip", a "first time ever away from the kids trip", and a "could we really live in New York someday trip?". Since we didn't know when we'd ever be together in NYC again, we tried to hit a lot of the attractions, but we also scheduled a lot of free time to just wander and see where the city would take us. Overall, it was an incredible trip filled with tons of little things that went our way or just seemed to fall into place. Yes, I'm going to be a complete nerd... it was filled with serendipities (noun: "the occurrence or development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way). The trip could not have been better!!

Day 1 - October 8th:
Early start... the alarm clock went off at 3:45am! The cab was coming at 4:30am because our flight to JFK took off at 6:30am. Did you know with no traffic you can make it to LAX in 20 minutes? Incredible!!

Serendipity #1: Delta = assigned seating... when we booked the flights there were no two seats next to each other so we were either going to find a flexible/accommodating co-passenger to switch seats with, or I would be drooling on some stranger's shoulder for six hours. Not only did we find someone to switch seats with, but he willingly gave up his assigned seat which was in an extremely wide, non-exit row, with foot rests on the seats! I felt so guilty that I asked the guy twice if he was okay with it.

Serendipity #2: I love maps! I could spend hours looking at road maps, world maps, country maps, topographic maps, even climate maps (do you know why the East Coast is more humid than the West Coast?). When I first discovered Google Earth I spent a straight 9 hours traveling the world. Emily came home and found her un-shaven, un-showered, un-smelling good husband, still in his underwear, glued to the computer... "LOOK AT THIS HONEY... I'm at the Eiffle Tower!!" I don't know why I love maps so much... I guess I just like looking down on people:) Because of my map infatuation, I always choose the window seat (thank you Emily). I usually take the red eye to New York so this was my first flight during the day. As soon as the sun came up I could not believe how clear the view was! We flew over the Rockies in Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa, the Mississippi River (a little too far north to see Nauvoo), Chicago, Lake Michigan was amazing, Detroit, Canada briefly, Lake Erie, Northern Pennsylvania/Southern New York (lakes and fall leaves everywhere!), and to cap it all off, we flew right over New York City/Central Park before landing at JFK. Serendipity = a rare daytime flight with perfect weather, perfect view, a beautiful time of year, and we were on the right side of the plane to see most of the action.
Serendipity #3: The weather was perfect! Sunny, clear, not humid, and low to mid-70's during the day. Our last day had a little rain, but it was fun to walk around the city sharing an umbrella (have we lived in Los Angeles too long that we think that's fun?)

Serendipity #4: Once we landed, we took a taxi to our hotel (love traveling with work... so much easier than taking the subway). We stayed at the Crowne Plaza Hotel at Times Square. You don't get your room assignment until you arrive, but I was hoping we would get a room on a higher floor, facing Times Square. Sooo lucky, we ended up on the 43rd floor facing east with a great view. Notice the grass on top of the building next door!
Serendipity #5: That night we went on a Murder Mystery Dinner Theater Cruise around the Statue of Liberty. The theater part of the night was a disappointment... does anyone know how to be funny anymore without being crude? That being said, it was incredible to see the lights of the city at night from the water, the dinner was great, a guy proposed to his girlfriend in front of everyone, and to our surprise there was a fireworks show from a barge on the Hudson next to the Statue of Liberty!

Day 2 - October 9th:
We went to church with Dave and Emily on 87th and 3rd. We were up at 7:30am (4:30am our time). The continental breakfast at the hotel made the early morning a little more bearable.

Serendipity #6: A few weeks ago I was telling Emily that it was impossible to find a better deal on a hotel by calling the hotel directly vs. booking online. I had never heard of it happening before and my thought was "how could the hotel offer a better rate than all the discount websites?" When I went to book our hotel for New York I decided to try out my theory. Apparently the hotel was having a promotion that day (they all say that, right?) that allowed us to upgrade our room slightly and included continental breakfast for less than the online rates. This was super convenient in the mornings and they had the best hot chocolate ever... super rich and creamy!!

Serendipity #7: After church, Dave told us that he had "his and hers" bikes we could use to ride around Central Park. This was one of the highlights of our trip! It was perfect weather and the park was beautiful (proof that it was great weather were all the sunbathers in the park). There's really no better way to see New York.

We stopped for lunch at Crepes on Columbus (109th and Columbus). I had the Club - smoked turkey, bacon, tomato, swiss cheese. Emily had the Roast Beef - oven roasted beef, smoked cheddar, leaf lettuce, tomatoes, red onions, with creamy horseradish sauce. It was a clean, fun, little restaurant.

After lunch we rode the bikes to see Columbia's campus.

The Cathedral Church of St. John the Devine

More bike riding around the Upper West Side

More of Central Park

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

To wrap up the day we had dinner at the Shake Shack on 86th and Lexington. What a day!

Day 3 - October 10th:
One of the things we wanted to do at least once was sleep in as long as we wanted. This backfired on me because my internal alarm clock from getting up early for work went off as usual.

Serendipity #8: We hadn't thought of it or planned on it, but Monday was obviously Columbus Day and so we were able to catch the Columbus Day Parade along 5th Avenue.
After the parade we went to lunch at the Boat Basin Cafe at 79th and Riverside Drive. We ate outside overlooking the Hudson. Thanks for the great recommendation Dave!
After lunch we took a nice walk through Riverside Park. This wasn't the first time I noticed it, but I was shocked at how quiet and peaceful different areas of the city could be. This was also the first time the squirrels took the lead in our rat-to-squirrel ratio.
Next stop was the American Museum of Natural History. We are both Night at the Museum fans so we were excited about this stop. Nothing can do it justice... it's an incredible museum! Charlie and Lucy would have loved all the animals.
Serendipity #9: Next stop was the Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle. Dave offered to give us a tour of his office at CNN. This was a little extra perk as we didn't think tours were allowed anymore. We saw a lot of the the stages, the floor where CNNMoney is produced, got a couple Joy Behar coffee mugs, and got in Erin Burnett's way as she was getting ready for OutFront.

That night was our first of three Broadway shows. We saw Phantom of the Opera at the Majestic Theater. The music, of course, was breathtaking.
Day 4 - October 11th:
It's a really busy time of year at work so I needed to catch up on a few things. This is how most of the day was spent:
Serendipity #10: Work took longer than I thought so we didn't leave the Upper East Side until 6:30pm and we had to be in Times Square for to see Lion King by 7:00pm. This was going to be close! We took a taxi thinking it would be faster, but traffic was really slow. We got to the hotel by 6:55pm and grabbed the will call voucher. We rushed to the theater and made it just in time. I gave the will call guy my voucher and he looked in the computer, looked at the voucher, looked at me and said, "this is for tomorrow night". I felt sooo sick and sooo stupid! I knew immediately that I had mixed up the Tuesday and Wednesday shows.

-Brian (frantically): "Where is Mary Poppins playing?"
-Ticket Window Guy: "Three blocks south."
-Brian: "Emily, let's go!"

So we ran three blocks south through Times Square in three minutes. The whole time I was thinking "there's no way we're going to make it". Long story short... we didn't make it:( Here's us running through Times Square:

Just kidding. We made it just in time. We literally sat down in our seats as the lights went out to start the show! After a long day filled with work and not much fun, Mary Poppins was the perfect show to see. They changed the story a little so it wasn't predictable, the music and dancing were upbeat, and they did some incredible things with the props & set on stage.
Serendipity #11: We hadn't eaten all day so after the show we wanted to have a nice dinner. This randomly worked out; I had seen a Brazilian restaurant ad in the magazine on the flight, and it happened to be around the corner from our hotel. So we ate at Plataforma Churrascaria on 50th and 8th. It was your typical Brazilian buffet with waiters carving delicious meat onto your plate. The Pão de Queijo was amazing!
Day 5 - October 12th:
Time to get out the umbrella. It was a little drizzly, but we were still able to walk around the city quite a bit. First stop was Rockefeller Plaza and the set of the Today Show.

Radio City Music Hall
Macy's on 34th Street
Empire State Building

St. Partrick's Catheral and Atlas Statue
FAO Schwarz
Frozen Hot Chocolate from Serendipity on 60th and 3rd.

These two signs were in the gift shop... they caught my eye.
Hershey's Chocolate Store

That night we went to see Lion King. The costumes were incredible as expected, but the story line followed the movie perfectly which made it predictable, and it felt a little too long.
Day 6 - October 13th:
I had work all day Thursday and Friday so Emily flew home.

Serendipity #12: We slept through our alarms so we were leaving lower Manhattan at 5:30am for a 6:30am flight out of JFK. We made it to the airport by 5:55am (incredible), but we still had to check a bag :( When we printed out the boarding pass, we noticed that the flight wasn't scheduled to leave until 7:00am. What a blessing!! Just enough time for Emily to catch her flight!

Work was great and really interesting in New York. The Occupy Wall Street protestors right outside the office were a little distracting, but overall everything went as planned.
Day 7 & 8 - October 14th & 15th: I got to spend some man time with Dave on Friday night at a BBQ restaurant drinking lots of Boylan's Cane Sugar Root Beer, and then I flew home on Saturday morning.
Serendipity #13: The greatest "occurrence or development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way" was seeing Charlie and Lucy again and remembering that we had new Halloween jammies for them!!

It really was the perfect trip.