New Jersey - New York -- Part III and IV

On Sunday, I spent the day with my family (see previous post). Monday and Tuesday were spent all day in the city. I decided to combine those two days as just one post (mostly because I forgot I was seperating them by day and uploaded pics from both days and didn't want to re-do that).

NOTE: There are two, really short videos within the pics.

Monday began with a Subway ride to the Museum of Natural History.

I am not exactly sure what I thought the Museum was going to be like, but for some reason "natrual history" didn't cause me to assume the museum would be packed full of fossils and stuff. We watched a movie (dome, Imax style) on a theory of how the moon was formed (somehow, I believe God's theory more though). And of course, we saw tons of fossils, like this giant turtle!

After the Museum we decided to walk back to Rockefeller Center, rather than take the Subway. On our walk, we walked through Central Park, which was really pretty. They still have some colorful leaves (well, we caught the end of their colorful leaves season).

I stopped to by roasted almonds on our walk to Rockefeller Center. They were pretty good but not as good as they smelled. You can really only eat a few before they are just too sweet.

I wasn't quite used to the city-walking thing because a few times, I almost walked out in front of cars. I think we actuall all did that at times. No one got hit so that was good.

At one of the 5 pizza places we stopped at, there was a Friends poster so we took our picture with it since we are huge Friends fans! And the picture is in NY and that is where they were from... which somehow that just made the poster cooler!

At Rockefeller Center, we went to the"Top of the Rock" - a 67 story building. I hate heights and this was no exception, but it was cool and as you can see, the view is amazing. This picture is the Empire State Building and lower Manhattan...

And this is Central Park and Upper Manhattan.

And the gang at the top of the building....

Ok, the elevator going up and down was trippy. The ceiling was glass and there were blue lights all the way up. I didn't really like the fact that the elevator shaft was 67 stories high, but as many people told me, if it were only 5 stories high, I'd still be a gonner if it crashed to the earth.

And here is the "Top of the Rock" building from earth.

We also went ice skating at Rockefeller Center. This is something I have always wanted to do and the only thing that would have made it better would have been if the Christmas Tree had been up already but that doesn't go up until the first week of December. Oh well, it was still rad!

Here is a video I took while skating... it's pretty short... but it gives you the

view of the buildings from the ice.

Ok, so as we were walking along later that night towards Penn Station, we saw this garbage fire on the sidewalk in Times Sqauare. No police or firemen were around and just a few tourists were standing around wonder what was going on. I thought it would be fun to take a picture next to it, so I did. (More to the story is that a friend from work told me that if Obama gets elected - which obviously he did - and we all end up poor and homeless, I can come to her garbage fire. And since I saw a garbage fire, I had to take a pic with it)

After the picture was snapped, a police walked across the road and yelled at me in his New York accent, "What the heck are you thinking??? Get away from there!"

I have to admit that I was more amused than embarassed.

And the firemen finally showed up... here's a video of their big save!

I just saw this and though it was cool =)

And this is a Charmin Toilet Paper ad!

Our group at Times Square

I Love State Farm and everyone knows it.

I saw this sign at the train station so I had to take a pic with it =)

Tuesday we went and saw Ground Zero. They have done lots of construction, but I have no idea what they are building since I haven't heard of any WTC 9/11 memorials that are going up.

I figure that when they do make a decision of any memorials or new buildings,

we'd hear about it, right?

At Battery Park, we saw Mounted police.

NYC actually has police in car, on foot at random locations throughout the city,

on horseback, and in weird one-person cars...

A street vendor had some yummy looking candy...

Alicia eating a piece of pizza from, in my opinion, the best pizza place we ate at!

A view of Lower Manhattan from the Statue of Liberty ferry.

Alicia and I on Liberty Island. Lower Manhattan in the back ground.

And, the Statue of Liberty...

Overall, we had a fun time! I can't wait to go back again someday!