Aaron and Charity's Excellent Adventure: Big Lights, Big City

We got back from New York 5 days ago and needed 5 days of rest to recover from all we did. What a cool trip and what a cool city. We stayed with my family in Manhattan and just got to go everywhere. We took a train over to NYC and got off at Penn Station. The first thing we saw were gigantuous buildings. I'd heard before that "ooh, New York skyscrapers are huge!" and didn't think much of it, but man, these things are enormous. We looked up and watched the clouds go by the buildings and felt like the whole earth was moving.

The first touristy thing we did was go ice skating at Rockefeller Center. Right next to NBC studios, Radio City Music Hall, and the hallmark of many famous movie scenes, it was pretty surreal. It took us a little time to adjust to ice, but we had fun. There were all levels of skaters there including a 50-year-old lady having flashbacks to a "routine" from her childhood in the middle of the ice. It was funny and sad all at the same time.

I, on the other hand, had flashbacks to the movie Blades of Glory and skated my heart out.

We went up to the Empire State Building at sunset and got to see all of NY during the day and at night. Aside from being so windy I thought Charity might blow away, it was beautiful. And cold.

One of the highlights of the trip was going to a Broadway play. We saw Wicked which was a prequel to the Wizard of Oz. I've never been to musical before and I was prepared to suffer through it for my wonderful wife. I ended up really liking it and wouldn't mind going to see another one. Good thing I'm married or that might come off really gay. The show had great singers and a really good storyline that fit in well with the old movie. In short, it was wicked awesome.

Speaking of wicked awesome, while walking through Central Park, Charity looked over and saw a baby that she recognized. The baby was being pushed by a guy who roughly resembled Ben Affleck. That's because he was Ben Affleck, but somehow Charity recognized the baby first. I walked up real close to him to make sure and Charity Googled photos of him on that day to see if he was wearing the same clothes. Sure enough, it was him, right down to the Red Sox hat. We also saw Colin Quinn and the fat guy from Shaun of the Dead. A veritable Who's Who of Who Cares. But I cared.

We also ate at some killer restaurants. Awesome Italian food, killer NY pizza, a cool nightclub with a live swing band, and my favorite, the Carnegie Deli. They sold their sandwiches by the cow. Charity ate half a sandwich and made up for an entire year as a vegetarian in college. I ate an entire sandwich, Matza ball soup, cole slaw, and banana cream pie. Now do you believe I actually eat?

We toured through the city and got to see Times Square, Chinatown, Greenwich Village, SoHo, Little Italy, the Brooklyn Bridge, Ground Zero, Ellis Island, the Statue of Liberty, Wall Street, and so much more that it would be hard to describe it all. We got to see a Hispanic heritage parade on 5th Ave (Alex, we thought of you). And yet we still didn't see everything. We'll have to go back.