Manhattan, NY (January 9, 2015)

Our daughter was feeling much better the following morning, so our trip home should be good. We had breakfast at the hotel, and packed our belongings for the trip home. We would be traveling for most of the day, so we decided to pick up some food on our way to Penn Station. The girls found a little place called Sergimmo Salumeria that sounded delicious, so we walked a little bit out of our way to swing by and pick up some sandwiches for the ride. Our youngest daughter ordered a salami sandwich and our oldest daughter and I both had prosciutto. This was a true New York Deli. I had to watch other people to figure out how to order, and then I had to watch again to figure out how to pick up our order and pay. It was a very crowded, fast paced little deli, but I did it, and we had lunch; a big accomplishment.

Now off to Penn Station. As we walked into Penn Station, it looked very different than when we were there last. There was a big electronic board in the middle of the station (I’m sure it was here last time, but we sure didn’t notice it), and hundreds of people just standing around (they were definitely not here last time). We looked at the electronic board, thinking it would tell us how to get to the Newark airport, but for all we knew, it could have been in some other language. We had no idea how to read the board. 

Everything was so abbreviated, that we couldn't figure it out

We finally found a wonderful Amtrak employee who told us how to read the board, but she spoke with such a thick accent that we weren’t sure she was speaking English, and we definitely still weren’t sure how to read the board. 

So we went over and studied the board for a few minutes, and finally figured out which train would be ours. About 10 minutes before our trains arrival the track number appeared on the board. Our train would arrive at gate 7E. Now we knew exactly what we were doing. We looked like pros. We headed over to the sign for gate 7E, but when we got there, it felt like we were in the Harry Potter books trying to get to platform 9 ½. Gate 7E had one escalator, and it was coming up toward us, full of people. There had to be a down escalator somewhere and we were going to find it. We kept looking around, but there was no down escalator. And when we asked people where the down escalator was, they looked at us like we were crazy.   How were we supposed to get to our train? Finally, as we started to panic, thinking we were going to miss our train, a little bell sounded, and the escalator switched directions and started going down. We had never in our lives seen such a thing. Now as I’ve said before, there is a lot of open space in Colorado, so we have big hotels, and we have escalators that go up and down next to each other. We had never imagined that they would just reverse the escalator; what an ingenious idea! When you send small town girls to the big city, they are intrigued by the simplest of things! 

We got on our train, and experienced the most amazing sandwiches we have ever eaten. If I had known how good these were going to be, I would have ordered enough for a week. We will definitely go back to the salumeria if we are ever in New York City again. When the conductor came around, she checked our tickets and returned them to us. Since I had explained to the girls about the round trip tickets on our way into the city, I didn’t think I needed to explain it again, so I didn’t, but I probably should have. It was only by chance that they brought their tickets off the train with them. They had completely forgotten that they needed them for the air train. We took the air train all the way to the concourse for our gate, and went through security there. None of us remember the flight home; we had too many great memories going through our minds. The moral of this story…We Loved New York City! What an incredible experience for three small town girls.

Manhattan, NY (January 6, 2015)

Steve has been to New York City on business many times, and has always wanted to take me, but time just hasn’t allowed. So my Christmas present from Steve was a trip to the Big Apple with our girls. Steve had to work, but the girls would still be on their Christmas break, so the timing was great. Now I have to confess, I am not a big city girl, so the thought of taking our two young cubs (they’re only 18 and 21), into the big city all by myself, and feeding them to the wolves on purpose, was just a little bit daunting to me. I fretted over the trip for quite some time, but somewhere deep down inside, I was super excited too. My biggest fear was transportation from the Newark Airport into the City, and back out again. We really don’t do trains in Denver, so this was going to be a new experience for me. After a lot of research, we headed out into the great unknown. We flew Southwest from Denver to the Newark airport, where we then had to look for the NJTransit machines to purchase our train tickets. 

My research told me that I would need to purchase round trip tickets at the airport, so that upon our return trip, we could use our tickets for the air train as well as the NJTransit. I told the girls why we were buying the round trip tickets, even though I didn’t really understand it myself, but I did as I was told; Three round trip tickets from Newark to Penn Station, New York. We used our credit card to purchase the tickets, $75.00 for all three tickets. A bargain. We headed down the hall, and there was a terminal with tracks and glass doors on both sides. 

Ahh, so this must be the air train they were talking about. As our air train approached, it was a series of small cars. Only about 6-8 people could fit in each little car, so we had to make sure that we could all get in one together. Success, we were on the air train, now we just had to figure out where to get off. I can’t remember exactly, because I was kind of freaking out, but it seems like it went to the main airport terminal, and a few parking garage stops, and finally, the last stop (I think) was the NJTransit. We got off of the air train, and started looking for the right tracks for the train to Penn Station, NY. You know, if you ask enough people, and they keep pointing you in the right direction, it’s amazing how you can eventually find where you are going. We found our tracks, and waited for our train.  

The train was very nice, very clean, and pretty fast. From my research, I was pretty sure that Penn Station, NY was the last stop on this train, but of course, as any small town girl would do, I continued freaking out. There are two Penn Station stops on the train route, one in Newark, and one in NYC. We had to make sure to get off at the right one. It was now dark on the east coast, and I knew that we would still have to find our hotel once we got to the city. 

Probably five or six stops later, we finally made it to our destination. We got off the train and entered Penn Station, NYC. Penn Station wasn’t as huge as I expected, but it sure was crowded, even at 9:00 at night. It took up a full city block, and had signs at each exit for the cross streets you would be approaching from those doors. We originally thought that we would just walk to our hotel, about 11 blocks from Penn Station, which seemed reasonable, but now that it’s so dark, is that still a good idea? We headed out the doors that our little map told us to use, and to our surprise, the streets were full of people. All of the businesses were lit up and open for business. Yes, we would definitely walk to our hotel. This is great! Of course, never having been in Manhattan before, we had to take in the sights on the way to our hotel, so it took a little while to get there. We finally found our hotel, Holiday Inn Express Times Square. The hotel front was very tiny, and the building went straight up. We got checked in to our room and headed up on the elevator to check it out. We got off on the 29th floor, and were amazed to see that there were only 6 rooms per floor, three to the left of the elevators and three to the right. In Colorado there is room to spread out, so there are usually 20-30 rooms per floor. This was interesting. Our room was tiny, with two queen sized beds, and very little else. It was difficult to find a place for three suitcases, but we managed. If we wanted to sit down, it would have to be on the bed. But we knew that we wouldn’t be spending much time in our room anyway. And besides, the view was incredible! Our room overlooked the New Yorker, and the expanse of city that lay beyond it. 

Gorgeous view from the 29th floor!

We got settled in a little bit, and headed out to see Times Square. It was a 15 minute walk, with very crowded streets. It was very cold, so we kept ducking into stores to warm up. Times Square is near the garment and theatre districts, with so much shopping right at your fingertips. We had fun taking a cursory look at stores like H&M, M&M World, Fossil, etc. 

As we headed back to our hotel, we stopped at a burger place called the Shake Shack. Since we hadn’t had much to eat all day, we happily ordered burgers, fries and shakes. It tasted great, or maybe we were all just really hungry, but either way it was a fun, crowded, standing room only diner. 

 

Waiting for our order.  Standing room only.

So yummy!  Definitely worth the wait, and we actually found a little table.

To our delight, when we got back to our hotel, they had carafes of hot cocoa and coffee waiting in the lobby for us cold weary travelers.