NEW YORK, NEW YORK!!!!

You'll have to bear with me, because this is likely to be one LONG post...I'll try to keep it simple! So, as many of you might already know, (due to an earlier post) TJ surprised me with a trip to New York!!! We left last Thursday (the eve to our 5th anniversary). We were able to see and do SO much! We stayed in Manhattan about 5 minutes from Grand Central station...so getting around was easy. On day one (Friday) we got an early start to head over to the Lincoln center for the performing arts to see the New York Philharmonic! We got there one and a half hours EARLY so we walked over to central park to check it out. Because we were there in March, we didn't see the park in its most glorious state, but nonetheless, we were happy to enjoy such a peaceful place amidst all the concrete. One of the highlights was walking into "Strawberry Fields." This was a portion of the park that was dedicated to John Lennon. This picture was a favorite. The flowers on the mosaic were put there by a man who put's some sort of peace offering here every day and has done so for 10 years.

After central park we walked back to the Lincoln center and on the way saw this:

For the rest of the trip TJ or I would burst out at random..."when there's gum on the ground, in the neighborhood....Who ya gonna call.....GUM BUSTERS!!" This was one of the funniest things we saw on the trip!
The NY Phil concert was pretty amazing! The only downside was the comments from the mean old lady at the end of the show. The conversation went a little like this:
MOL(mean old lady): "Young love is so sweet."
ME: "Oh, how sweet, we are celebrating our 5th anniversary..."
MOL: "But it is very disconcerting to me that you were cuddling and leaning in towards each other so often (we leaned in maybe...MAYBE five times by the way). I wasn't able to enjoy the concert because I couldn't see
TJ&I: stunned silence, with jaws on ground.
--an interjection, for those of you who know TJ, how many of you have ever heard of him being speechless?
MOL: a sweet smile...as if she had just done the world a favor, by telling us "young lovers" off.
EWWW! I was so mad, and so sad. I almost cried on the spot! TJ and I spent the rest of the day saying things like..."I still can't believe that mean old lady said....," To say the least, it put a bad taste in our mouth for the rest of the day.
The rest of the day consisted of walking around and seeing some of the different sites in NY. We saw Rockafellar (wow...I have no idea how to spell that!) Center, 5th avenue, Times Square, the empire state building, St. Patrick's cathedral and Macy's (the absolute largest department store I've ever been in-and in the world!)
Here are some pictures:
Some of my fav's from atop the Empire State Building:
What cute couple....awwww...

I still can't believe how HUGE this city is!

My handsome hubby:

The Channel Gardens in Rockafellar Center. We were so glad to see these flowers...they were some of the only ones in NY!

This picture (you'll have to forgive the orange, I forgot to change the settings on my camera...duh) is of St. Patrick's cathedral and when we walked in it was like going from NY city to a beautiful Cathedral in Italy...this hold's quite a bit of significance with TJ and I because TJ served his mission in Italy, and we spent three weeks there together when we were just newlyweds. The picture barely does it justice! This cathedral was INCREDIBLE!!

At the end of the day (around 8pm) we decided to call it quits...it was freezing and we were sooo tired!
The next day (Saturday) we woke up early again and headed off to see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. We got there around 9 am and noticed a HUGE line and realized that it wasn't for the ferry tickets, so we breathed a sigh of relief and went to buy our tickets. When we went to go get in line to wait for the ferry, we ended up having to get in this HUGE line. It was sooooo cold and WINDY outside! We stood in that stupid line for two hours!!! It was worth it though, because seeing the Statue of Liberty and the NY skyline was an incredible experience. Ellis Island was pretty cool, but after all the standing in line, we were pretty worn out when it came to look around there.

After Lady Liberty and Ellis Island we decided to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge-one of the highlights of the trip! It was suggested, in our guide book, to walk from the Brooklyn side to the Manhattan side. The guide book also said to visit one of the top 5 pizza places in NY afterwards. So we walked across:


We got to the other side and started walking around looking for the pizza place...and TJ, in typical male fashion, decided AGAINST calling for directions (I must say here though, that he did all navigating during the trip and was awesome...except for this). We walked around for an HOUR...!! We eventually found out that we were on the wrong side of the bridge.......cricket, cricket....what now? So, we decided to take the subway back across to have the pizza. TJ and I were willing to go through this for world famous pizza...So, we find the pizza place and there is about 20 people standing outside and we ask the people at the front of the line how long they had been there. ONE HOUR! By this time my husband desperately had to go to the bathroom and we were starving (poor us). So, we decided to go back and go to Times Square for pizza at a lesser, but still famous pizza place. We were able to get in at a decent time...thank goodness and the food was wonderful. After dinner, we started walking around looking for something to do. We were in middle of all the Broadway Theatre's so we thought we would try to find a show. Our first choice was "Wicked", but TJ had already tried to get tickets back in January and they were sold out...a long shot. So we headed over to the theatre, even stopping at and almost buying tickets for "The Little Mermaid." When we got to the Gershwin Theatre (for Wicked) we saw a small line of about 12 people and found out that this was the "cancellations" line. So we got in line, waited for 15 minutes and thought, who would cancel tickets to Wicked, and walked out of the Theatre, only to hear a Theatre employee say, "...your chances of getting tickets tonight are really good." to the other people in the cancellations line. So we went back in and stood in line for another hour and thirty minutes and at 7:59 (one minute to showtime) got two tickets!!! We had a to pay an arm and a leg each :) for them, but it was SOOOO worth it!!!

...until later...guys! Or else this post will be too long!