New York City is Wicked Cool

The original plan was to commute into New York City every day.  We realized quickly that we would make better use of our days there to stay in Manhattan near everything that we wanted to do.  It was well worth the expense, which won't be felt a month from now. Our memories made there will remain forever.  

We learned as a family how to navigate a very intimidating subway system.  This paid off.  The kids faced their fears and now have this mode of travel down pat.  Its hard to talk to your kids about the good without including the bad and the ugly side of life.  We choose to shield our kids from experiencing dark things until we are forced to be honest as they ask questions.  New York's story is full of hope and all the possibilities a person can achieve in our great country.  The city also has a dark story that includes a lot of sadness and loss.  We talked about all of it.  The kids know that people kill people now. "Don't stand near the tracks kids, people have been pushed off the subway platform and killed" or "people in other countries hate America and that's why they flew those planes into the buildings".  They need to know these things but we hate to be so pessimistic about life. They know that evil exists in our world. It was a tough few days in this way but we are so grateful to be the mentors to these two young minds. 

Everything we did was perfect, almost as if we planned it that way.  We were open to let the city happen to us.  We walked alot.

We immediately walked the two blocks from our hotel over to Central Park and spent our first four hours exploring the trails through the park.  We made our way toward 5th avenue and our ultimate late evening destination at Times Square.  We crossed through Rockefeller Plaza and then ate dinner at Bill's Burger Bar.

The next day we spent midday at the 911 Memorial and Museum that has become a peaceful reminder of the evil that exists and the fragility of life.  The kids were fascinated by all of it and of course we found ourselves explaining really complex issues to them.  The kids are having a tough time sleeping lately due to experiencing this exhibit.  They will remember it I am sure.  

We headed back to our hotel to quickly freshen up.  Our evening was a quick bite at an Italian restaurant adjacent to the Gershwin Theatre where we saw the latest Broadway production of Wicked.  What a show for our first broadway experience.  We now have a new soundtrack to listen to on our long car rides..."Defying Gravity" is a favorite!

Friday morning we woke up late and rode the subway all the way to the end of Manhattan at Battery Park.  There we were able to look out in the harbor to view The Statue Of Liberty, our first destination on the harbor cruise over to both liberty island and ellis island.  We enjoyed walking the islands and listening to the walking tours on audible recordings.  The kids did amazing to stay on task with the tours and wrote about this experience on our ride back to New Jersey on Saturday.

After porting back in Manhattan we headed over to the financial district and Wall Street to rub the bull and see the New York Stock Exchange.  The markets rebounded from a huge selloff the previous two days so everyone was clamoring to rub the bull for good luck!

There is never enough time to see everything so we leave feeling inspired with more left to come back to see later.

Peace and Love