Packing for Adventure

I will kick off this post describing our first day in New York by telling you what we did NOT do.

Chris had never been to NYC, but I had. Literally a week or so after I first met Chris, I left for a trip to NYC with one of my college besties. I had only been on 3-4 dates with Chris at that point, but I already knew he was special and made sure to make mental notes of what to see with him in the future.

What We Skipped

Central Park

Sure, it’s iconic. But Chris and I hike all the time, and Central Park just doesn’t compare to some of the national and state parks we’ve experienced together. So we passed.

Empire State Building

When I went in 2012, we didn’t specifically make time to visit the Empire State Building, but I didn’t want to miss it. So while my bestie went to bed early, I headed to the top of what was then the 2nd tallest building in the USA (second only to the Sears Tower – now Willis Tower). While I loved the visit, we didn’t go in 2024 for two reasons:

• Price
  • Back in 2012, it cost me $25 to get to the 86th floor or $42 to get to the 102nd deck
  • Today it is $44 to get to the 86th floor or $79 to get to the 102nd deck
• Willis Tower
  • We just saw the Willis Tower, which is taller than the Empire State Building

Broadway

That’s the last thing Chris wants to do, but I LOVED seeing Phantom of the Opera in 2012!

Wall Street

You may have noticed from my Chicago post that I am a major financial nerd. But there’s only so much you can do as a tourist on Wall Street, and I already had a picture of myself cupping the balls of the Charging Bull

• While there in 2012, I was actually in between jobs. I was starting a new job based out of Wall Street as soon as I got home from this trip, and the trip was timed in such a way that I got to meet the HR at the headquarters to fill out paperwork in person instead of doing it over email. It was pretty cool to see an actual Wall Street office space! She mentioned her favorite part of sight seeing in NYC was walking the Brooklyn Bridge – I made a mental note to make sure to do this with Chris one day.

FAO Schwartz

The BIG piano! I was so enchanted by this scene from “Big” as a kid! But in real life, it seems much smaller, and it’s in a small room, and it’s mostly kids playing on it, making me feel out of place as an adult.

Metropolitan Museum of Art

I did love this back in 2012, but we skipped it since this trip was a gift to Chris, and he would have hated it.

What We DID Do

Catacombs by Candlelight at the OLD St. Patrick’s Cathedral

This was a pretty cool tour we did on Mulberry Street. We were planning to visit Paris a few months later, and part of our Paris itinerary was the Catacombs of Paris. I’ll talk about that in a future series. Anyways, I was expecting it to be a similar experience as what you could expect in Paris, but unfortunately, no bones. But the historical insight and eerie beauty still made it memorable. Our guide was a born-and-raised New Yorker and incredibly knowledgeable.

High Line

A coworker recommended this as a lesser-known gem. It’s a 1.45-mile elevated park built on a former railroad track. We were intrigued… but underwhelmed. It’s a nice stroll, but not particularly memorable. Worth a stop if it sounds like your thing, but it didn’t wow us.

Times Square/Rockefeller Center/St. Patrick’s Cathedral

You can’t visit NYC without a stop to the iconic Times Square and Rockefeller Center! Having already visited the OLD St. Patrick’s Cathedral, it was neat to see the new one. Very modern, very beautiful, and very conveniently located around everything else!

That’s all we had time for on the first day, but keep in mind that we had made time to eat at FOUR different pizza places. The bulk of our NYC sightseeing was scheduled for our last day in NYC.

It would have to wait another day – tomorrow we would be visiting New Haven, CT!

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