Louie and I wanted to have two trips this summer, one at the beginning and one at the end of the summer. The first trip we focused on visiting family, so we planned a trip to New York and Philadelphia (with a little side trip as well.) We planned to fly into NYC, visit his uncle Paul, go to Brooklyn to visit my sister Carrie, take the train to Elizabethtown, PA to visit my aunt Connie, and then finally to Philadelphia to visit his dad, and fly home from there. All of the travel arrangements worked out just as planned, and we had a great time.

Our first stop was New York City, so that’s what I’ll tell you about today. We flew direct to La Guardia and the flight was uneventful.

We landed in La Guardia and were amazed by the airport: both of us recalled LGA being a dump, and instead it was a beautiful modern looking building. Evidently the terminal was new and LGA had had a large renovation over the past few years. We obviously don’t fly to New York much. Anyway, we took a cab to get into the city, and the cab driver was classic “New York”. At several points the driver yelled at other drivers out the window things like, “I’m going to teach you how to drive!” It was like in the old Jerry Seinfeld bit about NY cabbies and how it doesn’t feel real, it’s like it’s all happening on TV.

In any case, we made it to Louie’s uncle’s apartment without major incident, and enjoyed the rest of the afternoon catching up with him.

My sister Carrie came over for dinner that night, and Louie’s aunt Phyllis and uncle Paul made pasta, salad, and we had strawberries with ice cream.

The next day Louie and I hit the ground running for sightseeing. We had coffee and croissants for breakfast, and then starting walking up 5th avenue. If you are familiar with Manhattan, we started near Union Square (well, we did that regardless if you are familiar with Manhattan or not, but it will mean more to you.) We walked all the way to Central Park, had lunch at a place called DIG, walked around Central Park, and then back down 7th, past Carnegie Hall, through Times Square, had gelato, and finally back to Paul’s place. It was a 10 mile walking day, and it was invigorating and exhausting.

We met up with Paul and Phyllis after they finished work and went to Fowl Witch for dinner. It was delicious!

The next morning we had breakfast at Newsbar Cafe, and then in the late morning took the train down to Brooklyn to Carrie’s place. Riding public transportation is super easy now for NYC, just tap your credit card to buy a ticket upon entry. Make sure to use the same card each time, because if you take enough rides to spend the same as a weekly pass you’ll be charged for that instead, and also any transfers will be tracked automatically. We did have a little trouble with our trains and ended up getting off what would have actually been the correct train but got convinced by a stranger it was wrong. No big deal though, it just took a little longer. Lesson: always trust google first for directions rather than people, haha.

My feet hurt from the walking the day before, so ostensibly it was going to be a lighter day, but no, we still walked over 10 miles! We had lunch at a Thai place called Sukh.

We walked down to Brooklyn Bridge Park after that, and along the water. We could see a bunch of bridges, and the Statue of Liberty in the distance, and of course Manhattan.

We had an ice cream stop at one point, and then finally back at Carrie’s for a bit in the late afternoon. We rested before deciding where to go for dinner: we ended up going to Zaytoon’s, a middle eastern place that Carrie really wanted to show us. We ate a delicious dinner there.

Maybe that’s a good place to stop for today. I’ll finish up our days in Brooklyn and the rest of the trip another day: I’m sure you can’t wait!