New York

I'm back from New York and I have been putting off writing about my trip 'cause to write about seven days of intense awesomeness is a pretty daunting task and I didn't know how to go about it. So, I'm just going to talk about various aspects of the trip, and if I get bored I'll save the rest for another post.  Sound good?
Subways
Because the cheapest mode of transportation is the subway we each got a week pass and used the subways to get around everywhere we went.  My sis and her husband had been to New York before and knew what they were doing, but Jordan and I got a rude awakening.  We got off the plane and had to take the subway to our hotel which didn't strike me as a big deal.  What I didn't realize was that we would need to train hop, and lugging our luggage (pun intended) through the subways was sucky to an absurd degree.  I also didn't know there were different levels of subways and we would get off a train and go down a level to a different train, then at one point had to climb about three flights of stairs, again all while carrying heavy suitcases and trying to keep up with my brother-in-law Ross, who is long-legged and a speed walker.  I believe we took five trains to get to our final destination.

Then there is the smell and general rankness of the subway.  Everything is unbelievably dirty and I was confident I was going to contract some sort of rare disease if I touched anything.  Me and antibacterial hand sanitizer became well acquainted and when I used it I just covered my arms for good measure.  The smell was like 300 people lined up and peed onto the subway track.  And they were all dehydrated.  The thing that really amazed me was by the last day I hardly noticed the smell.  I was terrified that I had the capability to acclimate to such a raunchy smell.

The people of course are another matter entirely.  Every person on the subway had soulless eyes.  Like they were all sitting there trying to forget who they were.  Staring off into nothing and trying not make eye contact with anyone.  I thought it was funny how similar everyone was, while being so different.  The majority of people had headphones in, and when they ate they ate out of paper bags.  Literally out of the bag, they would stick their face in the bag to take a bite, rather than pull whatever they were eating out.  Weird stuff.


Eats & Treats
We ate at some pretty amazing restaurants.  To me Hard Rock Cafe is a given, and we ended up going there twice. We went to Planet Hollywood, which isn't as much of a whoop de doo, but we went the first night and none of us had eaten anything since breakfast and we were starving.  Any food at that point would have been amazing.

Some of the best food was actually from the street vendors.  The hot dogs were so amazing that I dreamed about them that night.  One time Jordan was getting a hot dog for both of us and the guy asked if we wanted small or large.  Jordan said large figuring it would be a bigger hot dog, but the guy put two dogs in one bun.  Interesting.  There were ice cream vendors everywhere, which we took full and perhaps obscene advantage of.

My favorite restaurant we went to was The Chip Shop.  We had seen it on the travel channel before and definitely wanted to try it out.  They deep fry everything which sounds gross, but it was amazing.  Jordan and I got deep fried pizza, and deep fried mac and cheese.  It was like having a scone with a pizza inside of it.  Sounds gross, but it was divine.  For dessert we had a deep fried Twinkie and deep fried Reese's.  The Twinkie was good, but it was the Reese's that was heavenly.  Heavenly, I say.  The chocolate and peanut butter was melted and it tasted like love.  Fresh, puppy love.  I dreamed about that place too.  If you're ever in Brooklyn do yourself a favor and go there.

We went to Carlos Bake Shop in Hoboken NJ, and I was really excited for this because I'm a big fan of the show, Cake Boss.  The pastries look so amazing on the show and I was excited to be able to try some.  We got there and had to wait in line, and overall it took a little over an hour from the time we got there to checking out. 

I got a lobster tail, a cannoli, and a cream puff.  Jordan got a couple of cream filled pastries that looked like bite-sized pies and a chocolate chip cookie.

And the verdict?  It wasn't that great.  I was sorely disapointed and couldn't finish most of the stuff that I got.  Same with Jordan, but he did say that chocolate chip cookie was the best he has ever had.  I suppose that's just one opinion, and maybe I had hyped everything up in my mind.

Geography

Jordan is going to kill me if he ever reads this.  One big thing I learned from the trip, is that our kids had better not learn geography from Jordan.  As our plane was on its decent and circling around to land I pointed out the window and told Jordan to look.  He asked what he was seeing, and I said water, we were above the ocean.  He said, "New York doesn't touch any water, does it?"  I had to explain that Manhattan is an island, and he said "They don't have beaches though." Then, I explained that Coney Island was a big ol' beach.

The next day we were in New Jersey and he was asking questions like, "Is New York big?" and what all New York City encompasses.  He asked if that was where Jersey Shore was filmed, and I said it's filmed in Jersey, but not this part of Jersey.  I wish I remember exactly how he asked this, 'cause it was priceless.  He asked how Hoboken could be a part of New Jersey, while New Jersey is a part of New York.  I was confused, and it dawned on me that he thought New Jersey was a city in New York. He couldn't figure out if we were in the city of New Jersey then what does that make Hoboken, a sub-city?  Which explains why he was dead set that the Jersey Shore was filmed there, since we were in New Jersey city.  Ahhhh, needless to say he got crap about that for the rest of the trip.

Ok, I'm bored, and this is getting lengthy.  I think next I'm going to talk about all the amazing attractions we got to see.