NYPD in riot gear, dead Bodies in motion, and oh, so much more!

Jeff and I spent Labor Day Weekend in the Big Apple. We took the Amtrak up because it was easier, faster and more relaxing for us. We left early Saturday morning and got there by mid aftrnoon. Walking through a slight drizzle to our hotel, we saw about 4 NYPD cars/vans parked at an intersection. Nothing seemed to be happenign and we were looking around while waiting for the light to change. Jeff suddenly notices a Donut shop at the same intersection. Needless to say, that invoked some laughter.

We walked a few blocks and got to our Hotel - the Hotel Deauville - in a misting rain. I was worried about the hotel a bit because nobody had seemed to know about it but it had gotten great reviews on Tripadvisor. It is one of my favorite travel related sites now. The hotel was great. We were 2 blocks form the Empire State Building. Our room was bigger than what I had when I was at the Crowne Plaza with people from work. We didn't have a writing desk or a minibar but we never use those anyways. The bathroom was a funky bright purple but hey, it added character.

So, happy with our choice of hotel, we left our luggage with them and went exploring. We walked to the Empire State Building and had lunch at the Heartland Brewery, which is at the base of the Empire State Building. As we're sitting there, Jeff notices a blue unmarked van park outside and cops getting out the back. I turn around to see the cops taking out bulletproof vests and assault rifles. They have dogs with them and they start going inside. Jeff went and got some photos. They said they do this regularly and there was nothing to worry about. That's good but for a few minutes, I was ready to get as far away as possible from that building.

Well, we felt safe enough to go up into the building after dinner. Except that it was now raining. We got some pictures from the 86th floor:

We also went upto the 102nd floor, which was 1,250 feet up. It felt and looked like we were in a hurricane up there.

We actually had to go back to our hotel and check in because we'd gotten there too early. After checking in, we walked down 34th St to Macy's on 34th and Broadway, and then onto Times Square. We went into the largest ever Toys "R" Us there and had to buy ponchos because our umbrellas were pretty much useless.

Our first day in New York was wet and windy. Jeff had to buy a cap, jacket and ponchos. Now, we woke up the second day to a sunny, cloudless morning. We decided to walk up to the New York Public Library, then take the train upto the Guggenheim and walk down the Museum Mile. We walked down from the 86th Street to around the 56th along Central Park to what Jeff calls the "Mac lovers' Mecca" (no religious offense intended whatsoever).

In the Madison Square Garden:

We got some photos in the :



We took the train upto 86th street area and walked upto the Guggenheim. They are renovating the building, so we didn't get a photo, but we got a photo of the sign. Then we walked down to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We saw a very interesting exhibit on armor and a special exhibit on horse armor. We also saw a temple that was rebuilt here from the original stones and in the original architectural layout.



We ended our sightseeing with this: Notice the ear to ear smile!

We actually ended the night with running out to see why there were fire engines stopping near our hotel. We also thought there was smoke coming out of the tower of a building close by. But, apparently, they were just running around doing drills, getting ready for 9/11.

Now, it is Monday, Labor Day, 9/7, and we decided to go down to Historic South Seaport and see the Bodies Exhibition. We walked on the Brooklyn Bridge for a little bit, and got a cool picture of the Municipal Building.



A couple of pictures in South Seaport. You can sea the signs for the Bodies Exhibition on the right in the first one. We laughed when we sw the No Honking signs because we heard drivers honking anyways. The last photo is of us in the Amtrak back to Baltimore.