City explorers

I slept so well in this hotel room that it was 9:30 a.m. before I was awake. Whoops! I got up and at it quickly after that and we headed out for a day of exploring parts of the city that we'd not seen in previous trips. We wanted to see NYU's campus so we started the 3 mile walk that way.

Lunch and some emails 

A pretty church near NYU's campus

We grabbed some lunch at a hummus spot (yum!) near campus. We stopped in the bookstore but the school's color is purple which is my least favorite so I did not buy a shirt. Also, the bookstore wouldn't let me pee (I hate having to pee in big cities) so I opted not to do business with them. So there, NYU! Ha! :) (Note: we ended up having to buy a Starbucks drink to use the bathroom there. Sigh.)

From NYU we walked down to One World Trade. We were going to go the 9/11 museum today, but the weather was just so lovely it seemed silly to spend hours inside so we kept moving.

One World Trade

The view from Battery Park

We walked down to Battery Park which is just lovely. We'd always heard that riding the Staten Island ferry was worth doing because it was free and offered awesome views of the city so we did that. It was great and I cannot believe it is free! The views promised did not disappoint.

Lower Manhattan from the Staten Island ferry

Lady Liberty

Jackson with Lady Liberty!

Once we finished with the ferry ride we decided to walk to Brooklyn to eat an early dinner at a pizza place we loved last time we were in town.

Crossing the Brooklyn Bridge

Ok, people romanticize crossing the Brooklyn Bridge. They should not. It sucks. It is so crowded and people just suck. They stop in the middle of the walkway and just hold up all progress to take selfies. There is a bike lane that the bikers take very seriously (read: the bikers are assholes). The whole thing has been ruined by selfie sticks.

Dinner spot in Brooklyn

Such a loving look at the pizza

Sadly, our pizza place was not as amazing as we remembered it being. We did still enjoy it, but it just was not life changing as it has been previously. After our early dinner we headed down to the waterside park. I had a famous Brooklyn Creamery ice cream cone (so good!).

"I'm going to pretend to photograph you, but
I'm really getting the monks!"

My handsome date

We hung out by the water for a bit before crossing the Brooklyn Bridge again. That was my last time walking across that darned bridge. Ever. It sucked. We got back to Manhattan and mapped that it was 3.6 miles to our hotel. We'd already logged over 11 miles so we opted for the subway. We took the 6 train to Grand Central station. It is always really fun to come into Grand Central. It is such a gorgeous place! We wandered back from there to our hotel to settle in the for the night. Jackson needed to catch up on some work stuff so I watched The Martian (really great!!). 

Adorable little worker bee

Tomorrow we are headed out to Long Island to visit some old friends from high school. It should be a great day!