New York City

Where to start? New York City was an absolute blast! The seven or so days we were there went by like lighting with early mornings and late nights. We were also fortunate enough to have my buddy Bryce come down and spend the week with us which added to the fun.

It's hard to tell but above is a picture of us, in a picture in Times Square on our first night in NY. They were filming the people on the street and putting it up on a screen. Can you spot us? (Hint: I am in red, Bryce is in Yellow and Meg is in Red)

I guess I will basically go over the highlights.

Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island: Since we were in NY we of course had to visit the Statue of Liberty (which included a little boat trip over to Ellis Island). It was a fun little boat ride over to the statue which gave us both a more close up view of the Statue as well as a good perspective on the NY sky line. At the statue we were able to climb up to the top of the monument on which she is standing (that accounted for one of our early mornings as we had to get up in time to get one of the limited numer of passes, passes to the statues crown sell out 3 months in advance apparently!)It was all pretty fun and we enjoyed getting a view of the inside of the statue and there was a pretty good little museum on the statue that we spent some time in. Ellis Island wasn't all we were hoping it would be, it played the same role as Pier 21 did for Canadians, a major port of entry for immigrants, but the museum was rather dry, not nearly as well done as Pier 21 in Halifax.....

.....it's Meghan taking over now so things are going to get a bit brief....Cameron needs a blogging break but will return soon!

As was said, it was a brilliant week...and thanks to Bryce for coming to join us! We did all the NYC highlights including the MET, MOMA, Empire State building, a walk through Central Park, Brooklyn Bridge, Wall Street etc etc! Our shoes were lucky to not have worn out, as we walked for hours each day. Frequently we'd start the day early in order to avoid line-ups, and have a plan to rest mid-day before heading out again at night....New York is so extrordinary that we never managed to pull ourselves into our dull hostel, and ended up wandering the city until the late night...happily though!

Times Square, pure craziness!

Bryce and Cameron with the Brooklyn Bridge in the background

Brooklyn Bridge

We had a beautiful walk over the Brooklyn Bridge with a perfect sunset. We even managed to find some time to explore Brooklyn a bit, and had the best Mexican food any of us have ever had in the Mexican area of Brooklyn, YUM! A little north of that area is Williamsburg, the hipster area, in which we caught a concert.

A great day!

College football

Not only were we busy during the day, but nights kept us entertained too. A college football game was good fun one night..more cheerleaders for us! We saw two musicals...Jersey Boys and In the Heights, both fantastic! The music concert one night, and the others we just roamed.

Strollin' in Central Park, and yes, we did get a run in too!

A 5am wakeup so that we could get up front for the big Thanksgiving Day parade...yes, even the boys enjoyed it!

The parade was impressive to say the least. Thousands of people out and about for it, and thankfully due to hard work and determination, we had the best view ever! The floats were incredible...and HUGE! There were many true American Marching Bands...highly entertaining in themselves.

Santa wound up the parade, and he was just brilliant

It was a sad goodbye to both Bryce and New York City, such a fantastic week and a highly recommended place for you all to visit!