mrs. frakes: NYC Day 1

If you read my last post about how to vacation using Post It notes, you know that we recently visited NYC. Many people ask me: If you could choose your top three favorite things, what are they? Well that's a very hard question to answer because there are so many categories of favorite in New York City. So I thought I would map our week out for you, so you'd get a feel for what to do and a couple tips and tricks along the way. Okay? Okay.

First of all, when we get to town, we hit the ground running. No need to waste precious moments in the city that doesn't sleep! So I call the afternoon we arrived Day 1. You will be shocked and awed at how much we could do in a late afternoon and evening.

Day 1: We arrived by plane around 1:30 pm, which by the way, if you're looking for tips, is the best time to arrive in an NYC airport (there are 2). (Anytime after 3:00 p.m. arrivals lend to increased traffic and a bigger taxi bill to get to your hotel. So you know.) (Tip #2 while we're at it, we wore cute clothes on the plane so we wouldn't have to change and shower when we got there.)

We checked into our hotel and we were starving. So once the bags were dropped, we hit the streets to find pizza! Across the street was Patzeria, a ridiculously yummy pizza place with 6 chairs to seat people against a wall. Since those chairs were taken, we ate our pizza on the street. Hey, when in Rome!

When our bellies were full, we skipped on over to Times Square to see allthepeople. And the famous red staircase! Which leads to nowhere. It's just a staircase. In the middle of Times Square. So, whatever. Take a picture! You've arrived!

Next, we started walking quickly, because appointments. We zipped over to Sugar where the kids ordered a giant fishbowl drink that cost $30. But it bubbled! And tasted yummy (allegedly)! No problem, it wasn't on my tab. (insert toothy grin here.)

From there we made our way all the way to Central Park on foot and then caught our Pedicabs. These two guys took us through Central Park and did all the legwork (pun intended). It was fun! It was glorious! It was quintessential New York. A must do and not ridiculously expensive. Check Groupon!

You can see that although we were at Central Park, at one point we had to enter traffic. AGGHHH!!
Of course we didn't sustain any injuries, and in the end we got a picture for the ages. If only those cute tourists behind us had been out of the way....

By now you may be wondering who that cute blonde that looks like she could be related to us is. That's Abby's bff and my bonus daughter, Jeni. She kindly came along for our reindeer games in NYC and never complained once. I can't say the same for my children.

So the funny Pedicab guys dropped us off near the subway and we hopped on, bound for Harlem. HARLEM AT NIGHT, you say? Or is it just my dad who said that? Either way, yes, we subwayed up and stepped into the light of day in a place not so scary at all. I loved Harlem!

Amateur Night at the Apollo is AWESOME, y'all. I highly recommend this fun show!

So to end the day, we UBERed back to Times Square (near our first hotel, but that's another story for another day). UBER is your friend in NYC. And to be honest, we were brave enough to take a subway to Harlem in the daytime hours, but not after dark.

We ended the night with Wafels and Dinges (pronounced waffles and deen ges). If you stumble upon one of these in the city, RUN, do not walk. You'll never regret it.