New York Mother-Daughter Trip

We woke up pretty early in order to beat the rush because we were going to the Empire State Building! We ate breakfast at the same place and then got on the Subway and made our way to the building. It is a gigantic building! I know what the top looks like, but I had no idea what the bottom looks like till today. It's really amazing how big it is. I can't even imagine what the people who work there think of it. We had to go through more security, but it was pretty easy, except for the line. It, like every other line, it zigzagged back and forth forever! Once we got through security, we headed up to the elevators. They packed 10 of us in a tiny elevator that took us up to the 80th floor, where there was an observatory. We spent about 10 minutes there before going to the next elevator. That one took us to the 86 floor. Of course there was a long line for that one, they said about 15 minutes, but it was only 10. They offered people to walk up 6 flights of stairs but we decided to...

Today we woke up early (7:30 am) to get to our NBC tour on time. It started at 10 a.m. but it's recommended to be there ahead of time. So we ate at the City Kitchen (again) and headed toward 30 Rockefeller Place. It was only half a mile from our hotel, so we got there nearly an hour early. We looked around the NBC store while we waited. We were super excited to go on the tour because we watch the show "30 Rock" all the time and couldn't wait to (sort of) experience that in person. The pages that were taking us on the tour came down and we went through security (again). They were super nice though, and we even got badges! There were about 12 other people in our group and we all headed up the stairs. Unfortunately, there was no photography allowed, but that made it better because everyone was alert and listening to the pages talk and enjoying the experience in the moment. We were surprised how much the pages knew! We think they must have to go through a lot of trainin...

Monday was really awesome. The crowds around the theatre district near our hotel actually slowed down, just a little bit, so it didn't feel quite so hectic. We still slept a little late and didn't get ready for breakfast until about 9:30am. We are falling into a bit of a breakfast routine already. American Breakfast and a giant glazed doughnut from "Dough" in the City Kitchen next to the hotel. We decided we really wanted to go to the Central Park Zoo, so we bought tickets online and planned our route to get there. Google directed us to the 49th street subway station, so we got to/had to walk through Times Square proper. Of course the first thing that happened was that Samantha was 'playfully accosted' by 3 Disney characters and a Pikachu who proceeded to convince us to take pictures, which we did. It's kind of cheesy and we tipped them more than we planned to, but when you're in NYC you just gotta do that at least once.  :) So we made it to t...

We woke up somewhat late this morning, around 9 a.m. We had planned to wake up earlier so we could get to the statue when it wasn't so crowded, which online reviews has said was prior to 11 am. However, we didn't even get on to the subway until 11 am because both of us wanted to stay in bed longer. We ate breakfast at the City Kitchen, downstairs in the hotel. We got an American breakfast (bacon, toast, scrambled eggs, and home-fried potatoes) and a doughnut from "Dough", one of the restaurants in the City Kitchen food court. The doughnut was AMAZING!! We took the Subway from Times Square to Battery Park. It was Samantha's first subway ride and she really liked it. Once we got to Battery park, we had no trouble at all finding the Statue of Liberty boat. It was already docked and letting people off. The boats leave about every 20 minutes, so we got our tickets and stood in line. We had to keep crowding in so they could get more people in the line behind us. We ...