Natural History Museum

This was probably my favourite museum that we went to in New York! I had never been to a natural history museum before! 

Obviously our first stop was the T-Rex!!

All of the Dino bones were super cool and super huge!!! Check out this giant turtle!

Whaattt!!!

I loved all of the bones and all of the evolutionary linkages! They had all of the different phyla organized together and you could see the progression of different evolutionary traits!! Loved it! I was so immersed that I didn't take that many pictures! 

My other fav area was the tree and plant section!! Check out the cross section of this giant sequoia!

They had a great section on biodiversity and on oceans. Brad loved the gems and rocks section - especially because he is now a diamond expert ;)

The only part that I wasn't down with was all the taxidermied animals... It got a little creepy after a while. Also, there was a whales exhibit that was open but you had to pay extra! By the time we found out we couldn't pay to get in :( boooo. Regardless... A great museum! I want to go back!!

In the evening we went to the Gotham Comedy Club for a comedy show!

We were seated at a table super close to the stage and we were kinda worried about it... But another group got seated closer so we were more or less out of the woods!! It was a great show!! I would highly suggest checking out a show if you are in the neighbourhood!!

Carnegie Deli and the Empire State Building!

Luckily the world famous Carnegie deli is only 2 blocks from our hotel and is open until 4am! We got a late dinner and it was delicious!! Brad got the Woody Allen - which is pastrami and corned beef... for those who can't decide. I wasn't that hungry so I thought I would try a knish! I also didn't think it would be the size of a football...

Check out Brad trying to manage his Woody Allen and the minimal damage that we did to my knish. 

Here is Brad enjoying his giant sandwich:

After we were so full with meat we couldn't move, we hailed a cab and headed to the Empire State Building!! 

All I have to say is wow!! Also... 12:30am is possibly the best time to go up!! There was no one there and you get to see all the city lights!! Although it was a little chilly!!

Check out the awesome views! You can see the flatiron building at the bottom of the shot and the new world trade centre at the top. 

Check out Times Square all lit up!!

Brad and I got our own elevator on the way down so we were enjoying it!!

All in all a great time!!

The Met!

Disclaimer... I didn't really like the Met that much :-/ although I have heard from others that it is their favourite museum. To me it kinda felt like a lesser version of the British Museum and the Louvre. There was a brand new exhibit about photos from the Civil War which  was pretty cool. No photos allowed though! Nonetheless, we still have some great photos from the other areas!!

This stained glass reminded me of the Cluny museum in Paris!

 

Brad loved this Van Gogh! 

And legitimately there were some great impressionist painting by Monet, Manet, and my new favourite...

Love it!!! 

And of course... No museum visit is complete without a visit to the Near Eastern wing!! Huzzah!

There was also a really cool section about musical instruments from the past and different areas of the world

So although it wasn't my favourite ever... We still saw a lot of interesting stuff!!

Times Square!

Times Square at 1am on a Monday is definitely something to behold... The favourite thing that I heard was "watch out for the BABY". What the heck....

Anyway, it was great!

Crazay!! There was someone singing happy birthday... There was someone else taking SUPER awkward pictures with their own personal professional photographers and there was a super smelly guy that we saw in the m&m store and then again throughout the night. Good times. It's like advertising overload!!!

We went during the day and it seemed less cool and more crammed... My advice - 1am on a weekday! You will for sure see infants!!! Haha. 

Brooklyn Bridge

The sun finally came out on Sunday so we decided to walk across the Brooklyn bridge and grab some pizza from Grimaldi's!!

 It was a beautiful walk... Although the bike path really took up a lot of space and left all the tourists pretty squished to one side! Regardless, it was a beautiful day!!

You could even see the Statue of Liberty although we can't go visit because of damage from hurricane Sandy (it is scheduled to open on July 4 which makes me think it is probably ready to go now...oh well...)

Brad has been to Grimaldi's before... But apparently where it used to be is not where it is anymore :-O after much moseying under and around the Brooklyn bridge.... We found it!! In a newer and larger location! We only waited 20 minutes... It helped that we were a 2-some!

Yum!!!

After our delicious meal at Grimaldi's we walked back across the bridge to lower manhattan to continue our day!!! See next post for our next location...

Lower manhattan

After we finished our walk to and from Brooklyn over the gorgeous bridge we headed to the 9/11 memorial and lower manhattan.

Even though we had pre-scheduled our visit...(since they make you pre-schedule your visit for crowd control reasons) ... the crowd was out of control!! There were 3 lines that all went to the same place at different speeds for no apparent reason... Chaos!! Brayden would have been furious with the disorganization in these lines!!  After the separation, merging, re-separation, then remerging of the lines we finally got into the memorial. 

It is very serene and beautiful - although the museum is NOT open yet... 

The memorial fountain is amazing. I can't wait to visit again when all of the new WTC buildings at built and the museum is accessible! It will be amazing. This is the "survivor tree". They found the stump at ground zero and the replanted it. After it was replanted it was damaged by a storm but survived that as well! It's in good health and re-rooting at the new WTC complex. 

We followed up the WTC memorial with a trip to Wall Street! Since it was Sunday it was pretty dead. 

After Wall Street we took the obligatory bull photo! Except the line was HUGE!!! Ps... Who knew that people actually lined up to take photos in New York! :-O

So I took a random photo with the head...

And brad took a random photo with the bum...

Yeah... We were done with lines for the day.....

We were pretty tired from our long day but headed to battery park to check out the Statue of Liberty from a better vantage point!

We also discovered it is impossible for me to move my hands as directed... 

Time for a nap!!! 

Central Park - Day 2

Our second day in Central Park was also Brads birthday... And also to become another important day in our lives as well!! 

It was Brad's birthday and from the get go he said he wanted to have a picnic in Central Park! Unfortunately the weather was not great so I was trying to convince him to reschedule out impromtu picnic. He was having none of it and I had to follow his lead since it was his birthday! 

We wandered around for a bit and then brad suggested that we go down towards this pond... Being the bossy girl that I am I thought we should go somewhere else...I'm so difficult!! Haha. When we got to where brad wanted to go it looked like someone else's stuff was already there...again I suggested we go somewhere else! When we got to the little gazebo this was there

A full picnic set up and ready to go for us! I thought it was kinda strange that brad had set up a surprise picnic for me for his birthday... But stranger things have happened. We were sitting and eating and chatting and drinking and enjoying this view 

When all of a sudden...

Bam! He popped the question and I said yes!! 

We hung out for quite a while in the little gazebo and saw tons of random stuff... Like ANOTHER proposal that was SO awkward!! Clearly we were in his chosen spot and he had no plan B... So this guy popped the question like 20 feet away from us... And then after the proposal all of his friends popped out of the bushes... Random! We also met some German tourists who took pictures of us and an old man bird watcher who ate all of our cherries. All and all the perfect proposal and a great birthday afternoon!!!