The dream vacation, New York City Baby!

So, as a special trip Michael's parents bequeathed skymiles and such to help us get tickets to visit one of Michael's best friends who is studying to be a surgeon at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City. Michael's friend Rory and his wife Raphelle were SO amazing to let us stay with them for a few blissful days, it totally rocked the casbah as far as vacations go. We just can't say enough good things about NYC and our dear friends for being so wonderful (not to mention the parents that helped it all happen). Here are some of the details and a few pictures of our trip!
This is Mike at the airport right after we landed. It was so exciting to feel the moist air and to realize that we had finally made it after a few bumpy flights. (The flights home were much worse, however, thanks to a storm blowing in and sitting in the back of the plane, but we had an amazing pilot and landed safely.)
Our first night, Rory took us out on the town. Here's him and Michael in the subway terminal, which really wasn't as bad as we expected (considering most everything we knew -or at least what Risa knew- about NYC is from hours and hours of Futurama episodes and general fiction-y shows, etc). We actually grew quite fond of public transportation while we were there.

While on the town we saw Times Square, the New York Hard Rock Cafe, the Broadway theater, the Late Night with David Letterman Show theater, the Hershey's store, and more, even a giant billboard roll of toilet paper advertising for Cottonelle. One of the best places was Grand Central Terminal, where Michael is pictured below, it was HUGE!One of the best places of the entire trip was here, where there is a place called "whispering corner" just outside the Oyster Bar restaurant. You can see a better picture at our online album, but just outside the restaurant the acoustics are so amazing that if you stand in opposing corners you can whisper at the wall and the person on the other side can hear you, even if it's rush hour, and it worked! It was phenomenal.

We went to a Tim Burton exhibit at the MOMA museum our second day there, it was pretty neat but Risa definitely prefers his more lighthearted works and stop motion animation versus some of the more abstract stuff. It was still really fun, we got to see some of the puppets from the Nightmare Before Christmas and the Corpse Bride, as well as costumes and props from Edward Scizzorhands, Beetlejuice, Planet of the Apes, and some of the Batman movies.

Here's Risa in her gnarly NYC outfit, we got the hat from a street vendor and she felt pretty snazzy as everyone was wearing scarves there, so we took a picture. It's at Rory and Raphelle's house. We spent a lot of our time just wandering around the city looking at all of the amazing architecture, visit our 2nd online photo album to see some of the amazing sites we saw including Rockefeller Center, cathedrals, restaurants, and even a giant Hello Kitty statue in the courtyard of a building. We also got to eat at Lombardi's Pizza, the first pizzeria in the USA and the birthplace of New York style pizza, it was so good we were dreaming of Ninja Turtles and cheesy heaven. We visited markets and street vendors, saw street performers (even some who performed on a moving subway train), and brought home some cute little pictures of alien creatures.

Here's Michael at The Cloisters museum we went to on our 3rd day there. It's a medieval museum where a lot of medieval architecture, relics, tapestries, etc, were saved, brought over to the US, and restored into this beautiful museum. We also saw the many beautiful bridges around here (including the amazing Brooklyn Bridge, one of our favorites), and some amazing parks, forts, and random beautiful archways.

We tried visiting Coney Island to see the side shows, but alas fate would have it that there was a scheduling mishap (grr Coney Island website) and everything was closed when we got out there, but at least Rory and Michael were able to eat a hot dog at Nathan's Famous Hot Dogs, a really famous hot dog shop out there apparently :)
Definitely one of the highlights of the entire trip was our time spent in Central Park, one of the most beautiful places we have been. We loved wandering around the grounds. We saw an awesome Alice and Wonderland statue, tried some Knish (a Jewish food that is kinda like battered and fried mashed potatoes), and just took in the awesome beauty of everything, even the benches were awesome.

This is us in the traditional picture required by all who visit Rory and Raphelle on City Island (a suburb of NYC), they ROCK and we were just all too happy to participate. In the end, our feet hurt more than ever before, and it was heartbreaking to leave so soon, but we are so so so so so so so so so so so so grateful for our amazing friends and family for giving us a much needed pick-me-up and opening our minds to new places and people. The big city experience is amazing, and we can't wait to do it again. (Don't forget to look at our 2nd online album for more photos!)