NYC!

To quote Taylor Swift, "Welcome to New York, it's been waiting for you!... The lights are so bright, but they never blind me." We drove to Bayonne, NJ, where the duplex we were staying in was, unloaded our stuff, and jumped on the light rail, train, and then subway straight to Time Square. It took us about an hour to get there, but it was fun and novel so no one complained. Times Square is gross to me as it is commercialism taken to hideous extremes in all aspects. The electronic billboards with ads everywhere you look, people in costumes waiting to be paid to pose with tourists, and people selling cheap souvenirs everywhere. BUT, it was fun to pop out of the subway terminal and be surrounded by the chaos that is NYC, and we even managed to take a family selfie without getting an ad for something shady in the background. High fives all around!

Collin had a specific place he wanted to go to get pizza so we headed there straight from Times Square. While we were in there it started to torrentially rain. When we split up for the evening (Collin and the two older kids went to Broadway while the two younger kids went with me back to NJ.) we had to sprint through the rain to our next destinations.

The three of us braved the Port Authority Bus Terminal and made it onto our 70 minute bus ride back to Bayonne. Three different random sketchy men tried to "help" us buy our tickets and I had to channel my inner New Yorker-self to get everybody to back off and let me get us on the bus. I was proud of myself for figuring it out, and ending up in the right place. At least almost the right place. We ended up getting off the bus one stop too soon. That ended up being a bonus though because we got to see fireflies on the slightly longer walk back to the AirBNB, which was really cool.

On the ferry out to Liberty Island

We only ended up walking half of the Brooklyn Bridge. It was a little warm out and SUPER crowded so we turned back after getting the view. It was a fun thing to do, but since it was beautiful weather everyone else in the city had the same idea. The kids were really good sports about how much walking we did, well that almost all of us did. Tim rode in the stroller for most of the time, but everyone else hoofed it around the city. We walked probably 8-10 miles a day while we were there, with almost zero complaints of being tired or needing a break. These kids are champions!

These are all the Central Park photos. Everybody liked Central Park. We pretty much went from playground to playground sampling the different equipment and entertainment along the way. In one tunnel there was an opera singer, which was fun. At a pond there was a lady spreading the message that Jesus love you by sharing turtle food. She shared with Leona and Tim who really enjoyed chumming the water for turtles. Leona also picked up an unknown hitchhiker, more on that in Boston's post, while we were in Central Park as well.

We didn't manage to get bagels in NYC, but we did get NJ bagels the morning that we had to decamp from Bayonne. They were delicious, and I don't believe inferior in any way to NY bagels.

Leona first selected "Starry Night" as her favorite piece of art. Then she found this piece with pieces of a real baby doll being part of the art. It was a little creep. Leona loved it.

Leona was outraged (rightly so) by this gallery. 

Our last morning in NY Collin had to work, which was a bummer for everyone. The kids and I left him working at a Starbucks back in Bayonne and the kids and I took all the trains and subways back into NYC to go to the Museum of Modern Art. I enjoyed everything about the museum and the kids enjoyed it more than they had thought they would. Everybody got their photos taken in front of their favorite piece of art that they saw. With the short time we had available we were only able to see a fraction of what the museum had to offer. Hands down everyone's favorite exhibit was a weird stop motion video of a man who goes to sleep and then hotdogs "march" around him while he sleeps. They watched it twice and would've stayed for more viewings, but I hustled them along so we could see more exhibits.

Leona's favorite parts of NYC were: 9/11 Memorial (We didn't take any photos there, because it felt disrespectful.), NY Pizza, Parks, & the Statue of Liberty.