Hey, so do you remember Labor Day? Well, Kristen and I went to the wonderful New York City to celebrate, and to see the US Open, and I'm just now getting around to talking about it. We had gone to the Australian Open a few years ago, and decided that we eventually want to go see all four of the Grand Slams, so New York was our next stop. We watched tennis every night, and then had to pack in everything else we wanted to do during the day. And we had a grand time! I'll apologize in advance for all of the pictures, but it's how I do.
If it were up to me, I would pretty much only eat, so we agreed that I would plan the food portion of the trip, and Kristen would plan the activities, and I think it worked out pretty well! We arrived and started off at this place, which had great food, and we were able to sit outside and plan our first big night.
We were close to Times Square, so we ventured over there, and we both decided pretty quickly that there were too many people for us! We are officially old.
We ended up having a long walk back to the hotel, so we stopped for some cookies and milk, which were pretty tasty. And they provided the necessary spring in my step to make it back to the hotel.
The next day we went to the Ground Zero memorial. It is still a construction site, but I thought they have done a great job with it. The hole in this fountain is the exact spot where one of the towers was. They have decided not to rebuild them on the same space, but instead have the fountains flow into those holes.
We noticed these white roses around the names of the people who had passed away, and Kristen had read that they put a rose on the name when it is the person's birthday. If that doesn't make you cry, I don't know what will.
I had tried to narrow down the vast choices of pizza to one place, which is difficult! I had read about this pizza place called Motorino that I was very excited to try. They had a brussell sprout pizza that was delightful, and it was in this cute neighborhood that we loved stumbling upon. Did I mention that we walked a lot? Because we did!
It happened to be nearby two dessert places that I had been wanting to try, so we started our day off with two desserts. Best day ever! Butter Lane Cupcakes provided us with this salted caramel and chocolate cupcake, and right next door was...
The Big Gay Ice Cream Shop. They got famous courtesy of the Food Network, and there was a line out the door waiting for them to open. I should have two desserts every day!
And we also happened to see some tennis. Our seats were really high up, but before the big matches started, we were able to wander and get some good seats to the smaller matches. We saw some great tennis and loved being able to be in the big arena with all of the fancy players. We watched a great match with a feisty Italian who almost knocked off the #2 player in the world, which was so fun. We also loved seeing what celebrities would be there every night. Ralph Macchio, the Karate Kid, was there one night, so we texted Julie to see if she could guess who was there. Her immediate response was, "The Eyre's?" Bless her heart.
We made it to Central Park, and we loved hanging out in the beautiful park in the middle of the city. We may or may not have ridden the Merry Go Round, because that's just what you do when you're there!
We also saw these cute gents doing some lawn bowling. Check out those outfits!
On our way to the park, we had the best burger I've ever eaten. I had heard about a secret burger place in the fancy Parker Meridian Hotel. All I knew is that it was behind a curtain, and that it didn't have a sign, so you had to hunt for it. So we were looking for it and down a dark hallway, we spotted this:
Sure enough, it was this total dive that served amazing burgers. I would go back to New York just for that. We also saw the Manhattan Temple, which is really pretty right in the middle of the city.
One of our favorite places was Chelsea Market. Inside, they have tons of great stores, including this spice store. Doesn't that make you want to whip up a curry or something else spicy?
Behind the market, they have made a driving range over the pier. We loved this. Doesn't Kristen have great form?
Right next to the market is the Highline which goes above the city. We also loved this as it was so fun to see the city from that angle.
I had been dying to go back to the Shake Shack, and I knew their lines would be ridiculous, so on our last day, I made poor Kristen go there right when it opened. We even made it on the Shake Shake cam, so we're kind of famous now.
They only make corn dogs two days out of the year, Memorial Day and Labor Day, which as Julie will tell you, makes it a must have. So of course we had to get one.
Can you believe how much I talk about food? We had a hoot while we were there, and can't wait to hit London and Paris to complete our goal!
