New York, New York

This past weekend Ben and I flew to New York for a two day visit. Yankee and Shea Stadiums are being torn down after this season and Ben wanted to see some games before that happened. We met up with our friends, the Clements, and a friend of mine (Emily)  that I worked with in Utah whose husband goes to med school there. We were able to explore Saturday morning and evening and Sunday morning around the two afternoon games we went to. New York is everything I thought it was going to be: ginormous, amazing, smelly, exciting, confusing, and a favorite city to explore more of in the future. Here are some things we saw/did.

This is actually when we got back home to Chicago. The Blues Brothers were there to greet us. 

The Clements in New Jersey where we parted ways. = (

My friend Emily that we met up with in Chinatown for some foreign/unknown food and chit chat. 

Sunday afternoon we went to Shea Stadium to see the Mets play the Braves before we headed back to Long Island to catch our flight. If we ever move to New York I'd definitely become a Mets fan over a Yankees one. They got much more into the game and were friendlier. Not to mention that I like their colors better too! =)

Sorry, we're kind of blocking the field here. But you can see the new Met's stadium on the left hand side of the picture.

Wouldn't you want to hug that guy too? We found pictures of their lovable mascot everywhere and had to take pictures of him. 

Times Square - cool to look at but hated walking around with the slew of people. Not to mention that I got in a little tiff with a street vendor. Punk.

Saturday we went to see the Yankees. I thought it was really cool to go see them play once here (even though I hate their team). But the stadium has so much history - and it was the ugliest stadium I had ever been in or seen in my life. It's a good thing they're tearing it down (sorry, Ben and sorry Yankee fans).

Alex Rodriguez played for the Mariners for years before selling out for a huge/record breaking deal with Texas and then the Yankees. I am not a big fan of his. A few fans saw me make this face and just about popped me a good one. Oops!

I got goosebumps when I saw Lady Liberty.

Yep, right as we turned the corner to see Times Square it started to rain. Luckily that only last about an hour or two. 

Teeny tiny Statue of Liberty behind us to the left.

We spent quite a bit of time at the World Trade Center site. This is all of the construction going on down there. They have approved plans to rebuild that should finish up in 2012. We went only two days after Sept. 11th so there were a lot of flowers/posters still up. This was the biggest thing that I wanted to see in New York.

Wall Street

This was also on Wall Street and where George Washington took his oath to be the first president.

Some things left up at the WTC site.

Trinity Church - after we rode the subway in and turned the corner, this is the first thing I saw - so amazing. I love historical buildings and architecture - Ben had to pry me away from this thing to see the rest of the city.

It's also where the treasure was buried under in the movie National Treasure (side note).

City Hall Park

New York was AMAZING! I'm glad Ben and I are so close (2 hour flight) so that we can see it again before we move away from Chicago in a few years. I would definitely love to have several days and walk around all of the neighborhoods and buroughs to see the cultural side of the city as well. I have to admit that I did not enjoy "New York-style" pizza though. It pales in comparison to Chicago's deep dish. But New York was just swell.