We left at about 11:00pm, packed up, loaded with snacks and DVDs, and a tank full of gas ready for this long drive to NY. Sometime between then and 6:00am (I slept the whole way and had a hard time waking up to do my share of driving), my mom accidentally took a wrong turn somewhere, or didn't take a turn at all, and we ended up 100 miles south of where we were supposed to be at the time. I guess what had happened when I was sleeping in the car was that Dusan and my mom were stretching their legs out at a rest station and there was a map on the wall. It said "you are here", and they looked at each other and said "no we're not". But we were. Good thing I was asleep!
Thursday --
In the morning we got to the buzzing city full of one way streets and honking taxis. The abuse of traffic laws in New York City never ceases to amaze me! Here's the Williamsburg Bridge, I think:
This was a watch shop that had international clocks on the building. Kind of cool the high class stores you see from just driving around New York.
After getting unloaded, parked, and up in the apartment on 72nd and Broadway, we realized the bathroom light didn't work, but that didn't stop us from showering! Of course Gray's Papaya was a must for hot dogs and drinks (here's a picture from last year):
First stop was the Empire State Building. What a disappointment, I have to say. I always pictured the interior to be an eloquent, fancy-schmancy building but it was beaten up, torn up, the lines were ridiculously long, the employees were ridiculously rude, and the NY Skyride (a show/simulation ride) was ridiculously terrible. If it wasn't for the amazing sight at the top, I would rate this a 1 out of 10. 
I love this picture! I took this at the 80-something-th floor of the Empire State Building. See the shadow?
Behind all these buildings in the middle/right are where the World Trade Centers are supposed to be. On the map that was displayed to show their old location, it showed that they were much taller than the building surrounding them (about half an inch taller on my computer screen).
Just so ya know, that's not my mom's hand in the picture below! It's Dusan's hand adjusting the binoculars for my mom. Haha... it looks funny, I know. 
Of course, we had to stop at Macy's which was just across the street from the Empire State Building. They were having some kind of annual flower show and everything inside was covered in flowers, plants, small trees, and fruits. This is a behive made of flowers with little, plastic bees sticking out of it:
If you've ever been to Time Square, you know at night it's pure lights and people!
There was this huge billboard that D had to take a picture of that was above Starbucks :) It just has all these mathmatical equations and all this stuff on it - it's actually pretty cool. The website for it is www.beyondthedrawingboard.com You don't know until after you go to the website that it's actually an ad for the GMC Yukon. Neat marketing technique huh?
At the end of the day, we were all kind of cranky and tired from the lack of sleep. We walked around trying to figure out for over an hour where we were going to eat, and finally we settled on Olive Garden. I know, lame... after driving hours and hours to New York, we just go to Olive Garden. It wasn't even that good, in fact, it was really really over priced compared to Novi's Olive Garden. It was cool though because it was like 4 stories and there was an escalator for waiters with lots to carry.Friday -- More Grey's Papya hot dogs. And they have good drinks too like pineapple juice, coconut milk, banana milk, and of course, papaya drinks. Here's me trying to hurry up and finish one so we can get on our way:
And then off to the Intrepid Air and Space Museum! This was probably Dusan's favorite place. It was a museum actually on the retired Intrepid. Next to it was this airplane that D says is rare to find. Is it an Airbus? I can't remember but he took a million pictures of it so it must be a big deal!
That evening, we went to the the place where the World Trade Center used to be. They're planting the "Freedom Tower" there, which is a tower made completely of glass that will be built in place of the World Trade Centers.
Saturday --
Woke at 5am (yes, I can't believe it either) to get in line for SNL tickets at the Rockerfeller Center. Or so we thought. There were about 50 people in front of us who had been camping out all night with their sleeping bags and fold out chairs, so we thought we weren't getting tickets. 7:00am rolled around and we got these pinkish, reddish tickets that turned out to be stand by tickets (but we didn't know). That night, when we got to the SNL at 10:00, we were told that the tickets were standby tickets and only 8 people made it in. So much for all that waiting :(
On top of waiting almost 2 hours for SNL tickets that were non-existent, we waited a total of at least 5 hours in lines that day to see the Statue of Liberty. Like last time, we witnessed a couple guys get arrested by undercover cops for selling Folexes, Foakleys, and pirated DVDs. Anyway, we were in line for 1 1/2 hours and got towards the front when we realized we were in the wrong line! This wasn't the line for tickets, this was the boarding line! So D stayed in line for board while I went to a 1/2 hour line to buy tickets. Luckily, we made it in time but I can't remember when our feet have ever hurt that much in my life! Dusan and I took turns standing and sitting because our feet were just killer.
Dusan was like "pose for a picture" and I shook my head to get my hair out of my face because the wind was blowing, but he took the picture early and we ended up with this:
So he's like "looks like a model runway shot" and we started doing this thing where one of us had the camera, the other would walk away, turn on command, and we'd take these random, dorky shots:
After Libery Island, we went to Little Italy's for authentic, not to mention expensive, Italian pasta. We got such a kick out of the waiters there with their thick, heavy accents. Our waiter had a whole speech prepared (with hand motions and all) about the dinner specials for the day. D was like "I don't understand a word he's saying but it's fun to listen to him talk! Something about chicken and potatoes?" Haha his face is so pink from the sun. 
We went back to Columbus Circle just to hang out with in the park and listen to the amazing street performers. Here's the Trump International Hotel and Tower in Columbus Circle:
Sunday --
Ahh I gotta finish this entry later...
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