Oh, what fun...

Well, our fun weekend started when the girls came on Wednesday afternoon. I met up with them after work and we got some hot dogs at Greys Papaya then went to the temple. Tommy arrived the next morning and we headed off to the Philharmonic...only to discover that they were sold out. So we resorted to plan "B" and went to the American Museum of Natural History. That place is huge! Here we are in the...South American(?) section. Heather, Tommy and Lisa were trying to be like the men in costume behind the glass.

We went straight to the Yankees game from there. The game was a bit slow starting, but got quite interesting in the end. The Yankees were down 6-2 (or maybe it was 6-3...I know, I'm really accurate!) only to come back and win the game 8-6, thanks to a few runs and a homer by A-Rod. The fans were out of control!

After the game, we ate at a Jewish deli for dinner, then went to see "The Lion King" on Broadway. Amazing!! That's all I have to say about that.

Friday morning, we stopped off for some Dunkin Donuts, then went to Rockefeller Plaza. We saw the cleanup from the Today Show - it had ended just 15 min. before we got there, then walked a bit around the plaza.
After a spot of shopping, we walked several blocks to the United Nations and went on a tour. Here's the General Assembly room:

And me outside the building:

Afterwards, we made our way to Little Italy, via Grand Central terminal, for some Lombardi's pizza. We then split up: Tommy and Heather went up the Empire State Building; Lisa, Tiffany and I did some shopping nearby.

Saturday, we started the day down in Lower Manhattan. Heather and Tiffany got on the ferry to Ellis Island. Lisa, Tommy and I got on the Staten Island ferry and rode it back and forth to get a view of the Statue of Liberty and the city skyline. We met up with Christine, got some excellent cheese steaks at this hole-in-the-wall, Cordato's, near Ground Zero. We then walked to Ground zero, over to Wall St. and down to this famous bull statue. About 300 people were also there at the same time...okay, not quite 300, but it sure seemed like it. It was very difficult for anyone to get a picture by it without getting half a dozen other people in the picture with them. Crazy.

From there we went up to Canal St. and experienced first hand a Chinatown knock-off sweatshop that could only be seen by following a skinny Chinese guy down an alley, around the corner and through a back door, up 4-flights of stairs and through another set of doors. We were all in shock, not expecting such an experience in search of a Coach handbag. The thing that made it all the better was the pile of fake labels lying near the bags.

Christine left us after that memorable moment, and we made our way over to the Brooklyn bridge. We walked across it, a little over a mile long, beginning on the Brooklyn side. It was a really nice walk, in spite of all the walking we had already done that day.

We stopped back at my apartment for a bit of a rest, then Tommy, Heather and I made our way back to the Brooklyn bridge for a night view of the city. I tried to get a good shot of the city. Unfortunately, this was the only picture that wasn't blurry.
Sunday morning, Tommy left to head to Boston, and the girls and I went for a walk through Central Park before church. Here, at Strawberry Fields, the "Mayor of Strawberry Fields" nicely decorated the ... not sure what to call it .... mosaic perhaps??... anyway he decorated it, as he does every day, in memory of John Lennon.
We also walked over to Balto, for the sake of Heather and Lisa's school kids, sat for a while, then made our way to church. It was an absolutely gorgeous day, as it was the other days they were visiting. Later that afternoon, we said our goodbyes.