Mmm...Cheesesteak!

Saturday July 16.  Ahh…Saturday…the weekend!  But when you’re on a marathon vacation trip, I guess it’s like one huge weekend anyway!  We took our time getting up and getting ready, so we could have more of a leisurely, no pressure, no time constraints morning.  It was nice.

Pat's Steaks in Philadelphia

Around 11:00 or so we headed out in search of Pat’s Steaks so we could eat a renowned Philly cheesesteak sandwich.  There is  a great debate in Philadelphia about who grills the best cheesesteaks – Pat’s or Geno’s.  Funny thing was – they were directly across the street from each other.  The lines for the order windows were BOTH entirely in the street when we arrived.  It was crazy!  Pat’s is the “original” cheesesteak, as Pat Olivieri and his brother, Harry, are often credited with inventing the sandwich by serving chopped steak on hoagie rolls in the early 1930s. They began selling this variation of steak sandwiches at their hot dog stand near south Philadelphia's Italian Market. They became so popular that Pat opened up his own restaurant which still operates today as Pat's King of Steaks. The sandwich was originally prepared without cheese. Olivieri claims provolone cheese was first added by Joe "Cocky Joe" Lorenza, a manager at the Ridge Avenue location.  (Info gleaned from Wikipedia.)  At any rate, the Pat’s sandwiches were delicious!

Benjamin Franklin Statue in the Franklin Institute

After lunch, we drove back to Logan Circle to visit the Franklin Institute, which was one of my absolute favorite places to go as a child.  Inside is a heart, big enough to walk through!  The pathways are guiding you through the blood flow and the heart even “beats.”  There is also a “Train Factory” section in the museum which houses a real train engine and one other car and they REALLY MOVE!  Okay, so maybe it’s only a foot or so, but they MOVE!  I had been talking about the train for quite a while and Dan walked into the room and said, “Oh!  It’s a REAL train.”  Uhhhhhhhhhhh.  (By the way, Andrew and Kylie were NOT sufficiently impressed with the heart, which made me a bit sad.  :(  Oh well.

At the Franklin Institute was an IMAX theater, so guess what we did?  YES!  We saw Harry Potter and theDeathly Hallows, Part 2.  Of course we did!  We all loved it and I cried.  No surprise there.  I can’t believe all the movies are done!  But now that Daniel Radcliffe is about 38 years old I guess it’s time.  LOL.

View of the Philadelphia Museum of Art

Cue Rocky music.  Down the avenue a ways was the Philadelphia Museum of Art and that’s where we headed.  Our own Rocky, Dan, wanted to run up the steps.  Kylie ran up the steps and pointed out that Dan ran up the “steps” but walked in between on the “landings” and that she ran the entire way.  Ah, the honesty of children.  We did not go into the museum, as it was already closed and we figured we had had enough art perusing at the Met in New York.

A Phanatical Phriday

AT&T Station near the sports stadiums in Philly

Friday July 15.  It was time to take the subway in Philadelphia so we could compare it with the NYC subway.  We were heading town to Citizens Bank Park for a tour and this was probably the easiest way to get there.  We bought our tokens and jumped on the Orange line...all the way until the end.

Part of a gorgeous painting of Phillies now and then

As we got seated in a presentation room at Citizens Bank Park, Dan stated, "Any tour that begins with 'Please take a seat' is a good tour in my book!"  We might have been getting just a little bit weary of all the walking we had been doing already on our trip.  The tour of the ballpark was lovely and included the field, the dugout, several boxes, the press booth, the locker room, and the announcers' booth.  What was really cool about seeing this stadium was all the old, old history of the ball club.  And the Phanatic.  We can't forget about him!


Afterward, we popped over to the ballpark restaurant and grabbed a bite to eat.  Somehow we managed to leave our souvenir photos there but luckily someone turned them in and we were able to retrieve them the next day.  Whew!  Walking back to grab the subway, we checked out the permanent markers in the parking lot of Citizens Bank Park that identify the location of the original home plate, pitcher's mound and bases, as well as the two goal posts, that were part of Veterans' Stadium, where both the Phillies and the Eagles played for years and years.  Have you ever watched the movie Invincible?  If you haven't, I highly recommend it.

The First Bank of the United States

We decided to play the ultimate tourists and take an hour-long horse and carriage ride around Center City Philadelphia.  We were being pulled by a beautiful white horse named Dominick and were guided through the city by our driver, Ryan.  We saw many places, including Society Hill, Elfreth's Alley, Christ Church, the Christ Church Burial Ground, Betsy Ross House, and the waterfront.  After the tour, we walked around just a little bit.  I was very disappointed that Independence Hall was under renovation, and had been for six months.  What does that mean?  That means it will be beautiful when it's repaired, but it means it was covered in scaffolding when we saw it.  Boo hoo.

Marra's pretty streetview

Dinner for the evening was at Marra's Italian Restaurant in South Philadelphia.  The tune from the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air was in my head the entire taxi drive there.  Our dinner was absolutely delicious!  If you're in Philadelphia, don't hesitate to give Marra's a try!







Returning to the hotel, the kids relaxed by watching Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince while Dan read and I edited photos and wrote blog entries!  Until tomorrow....

I'm hungry, I'm thirsty, I'm bored. Let's eat dinner.

Kylie at the NYPD Times Square building

 Thursday July 14.  Just for the record, I would like to state that I have come to realize the further away from Times Square I am, the better.  Times Square in mid-January, even while it is freezing cold, is tolerable.  Times Square in the middle of summer is absolutely nuts.  Oh, by the way, today's title comes courtesy of Kylie.  She said this one day not five minutes after we finished something fun and exciting.  ;p

Here's Bucky!

We started off the day by having breakfast at a local bakery.  Yes, I had a bagel and cream cheese.  And it was de-LISH!  The best bagels in the world are in New York.  After we finished, Dan and Andrew took a cab to La Guardia to pick up a rental car.  While they were gone, Kylie and I walked around a bit more, sat in the dreaded Times Square for a while, and managed to buy a few souvenirs!  There was a big net set up by the Yankees doing some promo stuff.  Folks were able to "take batting practice" and guess who was pitching?  Bucky Dent!  He was such a cutie pie back in the 70s....  :)

The original Nathan's location

Kylie and I met Dan and Andrew back at the Times Square Hilton and we loaded up the rental car and headed out - first stop Coney Island to get a Nathan's hot dog!  Dan has been fascinated by the International Hot Dog Eating Contest that goes on there each year so we stopped by the original Nathan's.

Dan was so happy to get his Nathan's hot dog!

We drove from Coney Island to Philadelphia through exciting places such as Camden, New Jersey.  We crossed the Delaware, albeit a little differently than Washington crossed the Delaware.  We drove over the Betsy Ross Bridge.

We were happy to find our hotel located on Logan Circle - right where the Franklin Institute is!  I adored the Franklin Institute as a kid.

Pennsylvania - the Keystone State

As we were running out of clean clothing, we walked to three different dry cleaners to find one that also laundered clothes and we found one!  Yea!  Having them launder the clothing was so much cheaper than having the hotel do it.


We ate dinner at a place called Elephant & Castle, which specialized in "English" fare.  The waitress was absolutely lousy but the food was pretty good, and the bill was a whole lot cheaper than any we paid in NYC!

How do you get to Carnegie Hall?

Wednesday July 13.  Practice, practice, practice!  Okay, okay, I know it's an ancient joke but, hey.  Very near Carnegie Hall is the Carnegie Deli and we just had to go eat lunch there.  The serving sizes are obscene and no one got even close to finishing what was on their plate (thank goodness), but it's fun for the experience.

Andrew and Dan with a FMUMC disc!

Right around the corner from the Carnegie Deli is the Ed Sullivan Theater, where The David Letterman Show is taped in front of a live audience.  We did not even try to get tickets, as our children would have been too young to get in.  But we stopped for a photo op!

Meredith with Rupert Jee of the Hello Deli

What's a stop at Dave's place without a visit with Dave's friend, Rupert Jee, of the Hello Deli?  Rupert was very gracious and posed for a picture with me.  We talked about a recent skit on Letterman which dealt with the eatery board of health ratings system in NYC.  It was a great skit!

Fountain in front of the Met

On the upper east side of Central Park is a fantastic place to visit, The Metropolitan Museum of Art (the Met).  It was VERY large and we ended up seeing only a fraction of the art showcased there, but it was wonderful.









The non-Apple-loving person in our family, Dan, was just dying to go by the Apple store near Columbus Circle, so we did.  That place was a MADHOUSE!  We walked in, walked down the stairs, and pretty much walked right out again.  Why anyone would want to shop at that particular store is beyond me.  It was wall-to-wall people.  Yikes.


Around this time, we were talking about our trip up to this point and I asked the kids what they liked seeing the best so far.  Andrew loved seeing the Empire State Building and going to the Top of the Rock.  Kylie's favorite activity was seeing The Lion King.  We'll see what the rest of the trip holds....


Dinner at Junior's was pretty good. We sat out on the patio and people watched, too.  There are a lot of very interesting characters in the big city!

After dinner, we retired to our room and watched Rango on the TV.  It was a cute movie (I liked the animation), and it was the perfect thing to do, as we were all pretty much wiped out.  Nighty night!

A Walk in the Park

Tuesday July 12.  Central Park was calling our names today!  We thought about renting bicycles but opted to walk instead.  The sun was beating down today so we were thankful for all the shade trees in the park.  Dan estimates we walked probably a good four miles all together.  There has been no shortage of walking on this trip, but I am quite certain it has not made up for the abundance of goodies we've consumed along the way.  :(

After much searching, we found the Central Park Zoo.  Central Park is 2.5 miles long between 59th Street (South) and 110th Street (North), and is 0.5 miles wide between Fifth Avenue and Central Park West, so quite a bit of searching can be the norm!  Kylie looked at the map of this small, cute zoo and decided she did not want to go in because there were not enough big cats!  Oh well.  She got something at the gift shop anyway, which was probably her goal all along.

Tuesday night was very exciting, as we got to see The Lion King at the Minskoff Theatre.  Dan and I had seen it at Fair Park years before, but this was the kids first experience with this musical.  It was so good to be in New York seeing it with Andrew and Kylie.  Kylie grinned throughout most of the show.  She was in an aisle seat, so she got to see a close-up look of a lot of the cast.  The Lion King, I think, was Kylie's favorite thing to do in New York!

After the show, we had a very late-night dinner at a new restaurant called Casa Nonna, on 38th Street in the Hell's Kitchen area.  We had a wonderful dinner and overall dining experience, even though the American League managed to lose the All-Star Game while we were there.  We went to this restaurant on a recommendation from our hotel concierge and we closed the place down!

We walked back to our hotel in the late-night hours.  Andrew said everything appeared a bit "sketchy" at night in New York City.  I can't say as I blame him.  :)  We made it back safely. 

Weeeee're...off to see The Lady

Rector Street Station

Monday July 11.  Monday morning - time for something new.  We headed down to the subway to buy our metro card and away we went.

In front of the Statue of Liberty!

We had tickets to the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty.  We wished we had tickets to the crown, but calling four months prior to our visit was not enough time, believe it or not!  But, that was okay!  We took the Liberty Cruise to Liberty Island and visited The Lady.  She was as beautiful (and green) as ever.  :)

Another tourist took our photo for us!

We did stop at Ellis Island on the way back to Manhattan but did not do a lot there.  They were shoring up the banks of the island in many places and had many of the pathways closed to pedestrian traffic.  I would love to trace the roots of my family to see who might have entered the country by way of Ellis Island.  They have a whole area devoted to just this kind of search, and it was very popular.




After returning to Battery Park, we headed off on foot in search of some lunch.  We ended up at the most confusing sandwich shop ever, called Au Bon Pain.  We are choosing to remember the term "pain" with regard to our lunch experience!  The sandwiches were actually very good, but the ordering process coupled with the drink/sides/dessert choice process was extremely confusing for a newbie.  Plus it was a mad house in there, so that did not help!  Oh well!  Live and learn.

View of the interior of Trinity Church

On the tour the previous day, we had passed Trinity Church and knew we wanted to go back to see it.  If you have seen National Treasure with Nicholas Cage, you know this church plays a big role in the film.  Here is some info about Trinity Church.

NYSE

We walked down Wall Street just to say we did and met up with George Washington.  Well, we met up with a large statue of him, anyway.  George Washington was sworn in as our first President right there in that very spot.

It will always bring tears to my eyes.

Continuing on our walk, we headed over to Ground Zero to check on the progress of the World Trade Center Memorial.  You can check out the progress here.











And, yes, it was already dinner time.  Dan found a cute little restaurant on the Upper West Side, called "Good Enough to Eat."  It was yummy.

Sunday, SUNDAY, Sunday!

Sunday July 10.  After a pretty full first day of travel and activities, we slept in a bit.  I was awakened by the alarm from the room next door THAT WOULD NOT STOP!  It was 9:00, so I didn't let it bother me too much.  However, once awake I couldn't get back to sleep.  I headed downstairs to grab some coffee and asked Andrew to come along because he was semi-awake.  He came down and joined me and was followed by Dan and Kylie a little while later.

Continuing with our Gray Line Tour, we got on the Downtown Loop bus, which was a "hop on, hop off" ride. We opted to get off at the Empire State Building. 

While there, we bought the NY Skyride tickets and got to see a movie ahead of time that made me feel a little queasy!  We rode up to the 86th floor and took a look around.  The kids were sad that the attendants controlled the elevators, as they wanted to light all the buttons and say, "Heeey, it looks just like a Christmas tree!"

 

We got back on another Downtown Loop bus and traveled past Battery Park and back up to Rockefeller Center.  We hopped off here and first went into the beautiful St. Patrick's Cathedral.

Next we went to "The Top of the Rock" in Rockefeller Center.  The views from there are spectacular, both of Central Park to the North and of the Empire State Building/Chrysler Building/Statue of Liberty to the South.

As an aside, Dan was quite the hit with a lot of the attendants and security people.  He was wearing a t-shirt with a picture of "The Big Lebowski" on it and the word "Abide" beneath it.  One guy started laughing out loud and even pulled his buddies over to see it.  It was so funny how many men found that so amusing!  Here is Dan proudly displaying his t-shirt!

Andrew was happy to buy a pretzel from a street vendor.  Mom was happy to take a photo of the street vendor and his cart.  LOL.

We capped off the day with a very late dinner at the Brooklyn Diner.  Andrew was very thirsty, as you can see by the photo.  He downed the water in his small glass, the water in my small glass, and the water in a larger glass the waiter brought over specifically for him.  He did this several times!  Dinner was very good and we were happy to have such a wonderful day to look back on.