10 Things We Love About NYC

Disclaimer....This is long so we don't forget our great memories and adventures.

Number 10: The American Museum of Natural History
Although this place was absolutely enormous, we somehow breezed through in about an hour. This doesn't mean we didn't fully enjoy it, we were just tired beyond description that day and Justin & I are both somewhat A.D.D.-ish. We probably could have spent weeks there and still not seen everything. Awesome! This is the museum that Night at the Museum was filmed in. We recognized several of the exhibits.


Number 9: Culture
This is something Utah is definitely lacking. We loved Little Italy, Chinatown, Greenwich, the diverse group of people, restaurants, and activities.

Number 8: Time Square
How can you not love seeing the traditional time square. It is so much better in person and is a place you can always find something fun going on.

Number 7: Central Park
What a great place to...relax? We had fun riding the carousel and walking around. However, this was our first day in NY and I had gotten 1 1/2 hours of sleep the night before on the plane & Justin had gotten Zero. Also, I wasn't used to walking EVERYWHERE I go. So I was slightly exhausted and getting all sorts of nasty blisters. We kept going though because we just didn't want to miss out on one dang thing! Love Justin's enthusiasm in the center pic.


Number 6: Crowded Streets
I'm a total city girl and Justin loves it too, so we couldn't have been happier than on the streets wandering around jam packed alleys & walkways! We also loved the crowds of people, lights, honking taxi's and random character sightings. We saw the tin man, Elmo & Spidey. Justin & I are thinking about quitting our jobs.


Number 5: The Subway
What fun entertainment they were for us. We got to see a breakdance show and apparently you don't have to be very good to make a large sum of money doing this. You just have to have a super ripped African American guy walk around the circle holding a bucket for money and you have yourself a great job. One guy challenged the dancers and lets just say he got booed. We also loved the diversity and variety of people found while riding the subways and the music while waiting. Asian music, playing drums on buckets-my personal favorite, guitar, etc. It was a full fledged show.

Number 4: The Criminals
We loved them all! The illegal purses being discretely sold from a card to the more visible ones who sell them in huge laundry sheets and then ditch them to run from the police. I only wish I was a quicker shot for some great pics. I especially loved the guy who stopped to steal several purses from the illegal purse sellers while they were being cuffed. He looked at us, ran around the corner to shove them in a bag. We were just glad he wasn't worried about us being witnesses to the crime.

Number 3: Broadways
We saw two Off-broadways since our top choice Wicked was sold out. We tried to get into the Conan O'brien show, but arrived in the big apple just one hour too late to snag some tics. We opted to do the standby thing but our lucky numbers 96 & 97 were just too high. Oh well, were always looking for excuses to go back.

The Fantasticks was fantastic for the first half and then got a little too bizarre & abstract for us the second half. The talent was phenomenal though.

Altar Boyz was completely horrid the first 20 minutes. It was basically a show mocking boy bands which we thought would be right up our alley. It took a little while to get used to their style, but once we did the latter part of the show was pretty hilarious. The boyz sang and danced to topics like abstinence and other religious values. They sang songs like "Girl, you make me want to wait" and "Church Ruelz".


Number 2: Shopping, Shopping, & More Shopping!
Since all the NY stores are magnified by 20, you can pretty much find about anything you want there. That is why I was in heaven when it came to shopping. Filene's Basement was my favorite place to shop. We found it our last day there and so we only had an hour. I could have spent much longer there. A must for all you shoppers out there!





Finally the TOP Thing Justin and I Love About NYC: THE FOOD!!!!!! Luckily my friend Amy is from NY and gave us all the real New York Favorites instead of all the trendy tourist spots.

Carnegie Deli: is for the die hard meat lovers out there. What you get is an ultra- thin slice of rye bread and seriously about 6 inches of freshly sliced meat of your choice. I got to try one of the easterners favorite- egg cream soda (selzer, whole milk & chocolate) very interesting to say the least. They are also famous for their incredible cheesecakes.

Lombardi's: 1st pizzaria in the US. Still use coal ovens and use fresh mozarella cheese. Amazing pizza! We learned a pie is the same thing as a pizza in NY.

Max Brenner-Chocolates by the Bald Man: If you love chocolate there could be NOTHING better! The only place I have been where the dessert menu is 8 times the size of the food menu and where you can even order chocolate soup. I love this place!!!

Amy Ruth's: My personal favorite!!!!! Unfortunately for Justin, I went with my fun friend Amy so he had to miss out on this one of a kind outing. Amy Ruth's is located in Harlem and upon arrival it was very evident that, besides one other girl in a packed restaurant, we were the only white people in sight. The ambiance was perfect, the music, the ladies and men wearing sunday dress & hats, and the food of course was downright incredible! This place was an authentic soul food restaraunt which served everything from Waffles with Catfish, fried okra, pork chops, grits, fried chicken to bread pudding and rum de rum cake. I had a waffle with fried apples and a homeade biscuit on the side. My mouth is still watering!