NYC Birthday Trip Day 2

Have I mentioned recently that I love NYC?!  Well I do.  First thing Saturday morning Melinda and I (the two birthday girls) made our way to lower Manhattan where we took the Staten Island Ferry so that we could see the Statue of Liberty from afar. We would have gone to it but it was closed due to the government shutdown.  (Kara and Stephanie were awesome and waited in line (while we went to the ferry) to get matinee tickets for that day for all of us.)  

   

I liked this building near the entrance of Staten Island Ferry. 

Lady Liberty!

 Melinda and I on the ferry!

View of Manhattan from the ferry.

Manhattan!

If you look closely you can see the Statue of Liberty in the background.

 We had a bit of time after the ferry ride before we had to meet up with Kara and Stephanie, so we went to Battery Park, which is super close to the ferry landing. I really liked the park! We didn't get to see it all, but the part we did see was pretty cool! In the picture above is the Navy memorial. The walls on the sides have names of Navy men killed in action.

I have never seen a statue like this before. It's the American Merchant Mariner's Memorial dedicated to those American merchant marines who lost their lives at sea.

 Battery Park!

Our matinee show this day was Once with Arthur Darvill and Joanna Christie.  (Another blogpost to come later about the shows we saw while there.)

I also love Central Park! On this trip we went to a different part of the park than I have been to before and I loved that part too.

We saw Belvedere Castle in Central Park.

The view from the castle!

Central Park!

Still Central Park!

Look how large that bubble is!

To end our awesome second day in NYC, we saw Newsies, which I absolutely loved! What a lovely end to another day in the Big Apple.

NYC Birthday Trip Day One!

I turned 30 this month. I wanted to do something big to celebrate my birthday. So a couple of weeks before my birthday three of my friends and I traveled to New York City to celebrate my birthday as well as one of the other girl's birthday. I love NYC! 

We took Friday off of work and took the bus or train up to NYC and got there late Friday morning. 

We went to Union Square and walked through the market there.

We looked at the statues in the park.

We went to Strand bookstore, which is a very large bookstore with tons and tons of used and new books in the area of Union Square.

 We saw the Flat Iron building which as you can tell is very skinny from this angle and gets bigger as you go back like an iron, hence the name.

 I liked this shot Kara took!

I liked this cool sculpture... it's a building in the shape of an O.

We ate at Ellen's Stardust Diner where there are singing waiters. The waiters would take our orders then take turns entertaining us. Apparently some now Broadway stars were discovered while working there.  It was pretty much awesome!

You can see the waiters up on the balcony in the blue and green shirts singing for us.

We went to FAO Schwartz to fill up some time and let's just say it was awesome! (I will do a whole post just on our time there.)

Me, Melinda, Stephanie, and Kara waiting for the train.

We saw First Date with Zachary Levi and Christa Rodriguez and can I just say it was hilarious?! (I will do another post just about the shows we saw while there.)

After the show, Kara, Stephanie and I went and sat on the steps at Times Square. We just sat there and soaked up the scene and talked. I  was amazed by how many people were out at 11 pm.  (I guess there's quite the night life and people coming out of shows.)

On the steps at Times Square.

The end of awesome day one.  Day two coming up next...

It's my birthday...

for another 10 minutes!  Today has been a lovely day!  I feel loved!

I have so many things to write about but it will have to wait for another post or two. :)