Yesterday we started out early. We left Brimley around 9:30am and made good time to the Bridge. We hit some pretty heavy traffic on I-75 (that's post-holiday for you) and it took us longer than we thought to get to Birch Run, where we stopped for lunch at Tony's. That place was a riot: first of all, it was packed. Second, their portions are HUGE. I ordered scrambled eggs, toast, and bacon, and the picture to the left is what I got. Three pieces of rye toast, like... four scrambled eggs, and an entire POUND of bacon. And then I didn't eat again until this afternoon. I'm sure that food was delicious at the time, but I felt like crap for most of the rest of yesterday.
After some shopping at the outlet mall in Birch Run (Old Navy! Bath & Body Works!), we hit the road (and the traffic) again, this time to Romulus, where our pre-flight hotel was located.
The hotel was... interesting. Definitely a cheapie, but it did what we needed it to do. Today was another early morning. This time, we had to find the place to park my car for the week (that was easy) and get on the shuttle to the airport. We lost my Starbuck's travel mug at the carry-on and shoe bomb check (sad, and it was Sean's fault), but the lady at the end of the conveyer belt said my shoes were cute, so I guess it's a wash. We eventually found our gate and then it was time to wait.
Our plane was basically a tin can with wings.
It was a 50 passenger plane, with 3 seats across (2 on one side and one on the other). Sean's a nice guy and made sure I was going to have a window seat, so I got to look out the window as much as I wanted. It was a nice, clear day so the view was great. Of course, we had no clue where we were most of the time, but it was very clear when we hit the New Jersey/New York metropolitan area (aside from the fact that the plane was descending). We had a cool view of the skyline on the opposite side of the plane, but no pictures. And I noticed that basically everyone and their mother has a pool in their backyard. Hmph.
After our arrival at Newark Int'l, we boarded our shuttle bus to the hotel in Manhattan. It was my first experience with crazy traffic, and let me tell you - I figured out quickly that in order to drive around here, you need balls, and I do NOT have them. I'm SO glad we're relying on public transit while we're here, and I'm even MORE glad that we flew instead of drove, because I could not handle this.
So here's a funny story. On the way to the hotel, we were stopped at a red light next to a limo that wanted to park. If you look really closely, right above the license plate, you can see the reflection of a taxi cab. Where's the funny part? As the limo, whose license plate clearly says "ACCURACY", was backing up, the driver backed up right into that taxi cab.
Check-in at the hotel is at 3:00, but we managed to get into our room at 12:30. After we got our stuff upstairs, we headed out to explore Times Square. We went to the Hershey's store, the M&Ms World (three stories of M&M stuff!), and we ate lunch at Planet Hollywood. Saw the sights, and there are oh so many of them. We walked around for a bit, then headed up to Bryant Park, where we ran into the New York Public Library. We happened
to get to the NYPL right in time for their last tour, so we snuck into the group (it was free) and checked out the HUGE library. Most of the pictures turned out blurry because of the lighting, but here's a good one of the hustle and bustle of Times Square:After our late lunch at Planet Hollywood, we headed up to Central Park to walk around for a while. We got a little lost looking for the zoo, but it didn't matter since it was closed anyway. Central Park is so neat - you can still see the huge skyscrapers over the trees sometimes, but it's just like this whole other world in the middle of all of this action. Central Park is PACKED, though. There are people everywhere around here! It's so bizarre and completely not what I'm used to, but surprisingly I haven't really been uneasy about it (I'm more afraid of walking around Detroit). We almost got hit by a taxi cab once, but I think that might be part of the experience.
This is the view of the carnival thing they have in Central Park, backdropped by some gorgeous trees and of course, The City.
Overall we had a great day today. Tomorrow we're heading up to Central Park again, to visit the zoo while it's open, and also to go through the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the American Museum of Natural History. We'll see what else we have time to do during the day, before we meet up with a couple of my friends tomorrow early evening and then head to dinner at the Babbo Ristorante (Mario Batali) at 10:45PM (!).
If you'd like to see the pictures we took yesterday and today, visit http://karstenwedding.shutterfly.com and click "NYC Honeymoon, Day One".
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