New York, New York

Chels’ parents moved to New York while we were away in Samoa, so after spending some time with my family in Los Angeles we hopped on another plane to visit them in out on Long Island. I guess you can say that we are officially bi-coastal!

We flew into JFK a little too late to see the city on our first day, but we did have time to grab some authentic New York style pizza at a little Italian joint near where her parents were staying. Delicious.

First NY "Pie" we tried

We were tired from traveling all day and wigs definitely happened

The next morning, we took a drive into the city to do some exploring with Chels’ mom and sister. The city was great; the drive was not. Thankfully her mom drove. I think the experience scarred us from ever driving into the city if there was another option (the train is a much better alternative).

Our collective first impression of the city: this place is GINORMOUS! The city was much bigger than I could have even imagined. Our collective second impression: honestly we were a bit underwhelmed. It is hard to grasp all that the city had to offer when you first touch down on the ground. At least for me, appreciation for the city has grown over time after seeing more and more of what it has to offer (and I can tell that we are just scraping the tip of the iceberg). Since the buildings are so tall, you can't take everything in at once like you can in some places. However, when we started walking and realized that each turned corner and each new block was almost guaranteed to offer something magnificent our appreciation steadily grew. Needless to say, the feeling of being underwhelmed didn't last long.

We checked out a few of the sights, knowing that we were coming back in a couple of weeks to celebrate my birthday in the city. On this first foray into the Big Apple, we ate a hot dog off of a cart, had a slice of New York pizza (one dollar slice), walked down Broadway and through time square, visited Madison Square Garden, took a subway to the World Trade Center and admired the beautiful memorial, walked down Wall Street and took a picture with the bull (touched his testicles because the line for the head was too long), then finished up the day with a walk through the park.

Overall it was a great introduction to the city. I had heard mixed reviews of NYC, but I must say that my first experience was nothing but positive (other than the traffic which can definitely be avoided). The people were (surprisingly) friendly, the streets were relatively clean (less trash than Samoa and about the same as LA) and it was pretty easy to navigate (walking and on the subway). On the way out we drove down Broadway and saw Times Square at night. All I can say is WOW. It was hard to leave the city, but a great going away present seeing everything lit up.

-S

This only lasted for something like 10 minutes before she took it off

Times Square! Check out that photo bomb 

Even though True Blood is becoming increasingly terrible, we've watched it from the get go and thought this was awesome.

Wall St.

Pictures don't do the 9/11 Memorial  justice

One World Trade Center

Zuccotti Park

Zuccotti Park in the aftermath of 9/11.

A pretty neat World Cup billboard

Time's Square at night

 The following day we took a trip out to the North Fork of Long Island.  If you look at the map below of Long Island, North Fork the Northern peninsula at the end of the island. Where we went is the Eastern most tip. Long Island is the entire island and it's divided up into separate boroughs//counties.

This is pretty goofy 

 Sideways hats

Don't know what's happening here

Inappropriate

:)

Happy Birthday USA!

We spent The United States of America’s birthday at the beach. It was a great 4^th of July, probably one of the best that we have had.

We did some extensive beach cruising, starting in Redondo Beach with a short ride to The Cheesecake Factory where we enjoyed some happy hour food and refreshments. Then we hopped back on our bikes and trekked all the way over to Manhattan Beach down past the pier. We stopped for some swimming and body surfing, and surprisingly the water was not too cold. After we got tired of swimming, we hopped back on our bikes and slowly worked our way back to Redondo.

Once back in Redondo, we locked the bikes up in the car, got out our beach chairs and set up to watch the fireworks. We had prime seating for what turned out to be a decent firework show. We had a view of all of the fireworks down the coast from Redondo Beach to Santa Monica. It was a fun and romantic way to spend our 4^th of July evening. It was a great end to an overall great day.

-S