Monday in New York...

We had such a fun time in New York! We decided to share our day by day activities with you all!

Charles and I landed in Newark around 1:00 p.m. Monday, picked up our checked bag, caught our Dial 7 car, saw just a tiny bit of New Jersey, drove through tolls and a tunnel and finally made it to our hotel and checked in. We stayed at the Holiday Inn Midtown and were pleasantly surprised with the size of our room. We dropped our bags off and headed back out to explore the city!

The MoMA was first up on the itinerary. While walking there, we passed Famous Original Ray's and stopped in for a quick slice of pizza for lunch... We then were off to the MoMA...

We saw so many pieces of beautiful and interesting art.

Charles really liked zen tv... While I enjoyed seeing Warhol's Campbell Soup Cans...

Van Gogh's Starry Night which was my favorite...

It is even more impressive and expressive up close.

I enjoyed seeing all of the Van Goghs...

the Seurats...

It just amazes both Charles and me how he could create something so beautiful using just dots.

The Johns pieces...

The Pollocks...

The Picassos...

The Munchs...

The Lichtensteins...

The Frank Lloyd Wright sketches and models...
and the installations such as the helicopter...

and the Flavin Monument...

We were also able to view the Tim Burton Exhibit which was really interesting...
We saw so many sketches, sculptures and storyboards from his many movies. We even saw Edward Scissorhands' costume and other items from that movie.

We then went out to the sculpture garden and had our picture taken with the reindeer...Then had fun taking other pictures in the garden...
and viewing the pieces in the garden.

After our visit to the MoMA, we walked toward Grand Central Station. We passed the New York Public Library and saw its guard Lions...and saw the Chrysler Building lit up beautifully...before we made it to Grand Central...

We went inside and looked at the beautiful painted ceiling... the grand staircases... took pictures in front of the four sided clock in the center of the terminal...
walked through the holiday bazaar and took a little rest break...
After exploring a little more, we enjoyed a piece of Strawberry Shortcake Cheesecake at Juniors...Then saw the train platforms...
Tried out the whispering gallery...
It really works!!

We stopped at Zaro's before leaving to pick up a couple of black and white cookies...

They were huge! (Therefore, they turned into breakfast a couple of days...) They were delicious!!

After leaving Grand Central...
We walked past the diamond district... Wish I had won the lottery before the trip because I found pretty diamond pieces in each and every window!!

We walked past Cartier's...

And stopped to look at the windows at Lord and Taylor's. They were absolutely gorgeous! I have always wanted to see the stores' Christmas windows and was as excited as the children looking at the windows!!

I loved this Lord and Taylor's window. It has a couple ice skating, a chestnut vendor, the store all decorated for Christmas and a Christmas tree - everything I think of when I think of Christmas in New York!

The other windows were really pretty too. I liked this Nutcracker window with its revolving stage of the ballerina and other characters from the Nutcracker...The gingerbread window was really pretty too...as was the Victorian Christmas window...and I also really liked the window filled with toys of all kinds... I was so excited after seeing these windows and became even more excited when we came upon Macys...
It had two sets of windows. The first ones we saw were a series which followed a child's letter to Santa. The first window in this set actually let the child digitally write a letter to Santa and then see all it goes through before finally getting to Santa - if had had been a good child.

Of all of the windows in this series, I really liked this one...The teacher elf is keeping a tally of how many letter authors are nice, naughty, naughty but trying really hard to be nice!

I also liked the final window in this series - Santa reading the letter and checking his list!We then saw the other set of windows which I just loved! Each window was a scene from Miracle on 34th Street!

I really liked the Macys Thanksgiving Day Parade window and got even more excited about seeing the parade!and, of course, I liked the window showing Virginia pulling on Santa's beard...And Mr. Kringle in the courtroom...We then saw the spot (marked on the green carpet with the red Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade mark) where performances are televised during the parade...
and saw Sailor Mickey...and went inside Macy's and found the mailbox for Santa Mail...We then left Macys...
and walked toward Times Square...
We soaked up some of the excitement of Times Square and then headed to the ESPN Zone...

for dinner and Monday Night Football!

It was pretty funny -- they had tv's everywhere - even above each stall in the restrooms -- so you never had to miss a single play! After a good dinner, we walked back to the hotel. We visited New York during a rather warm for that time of year period. The hotel only had heat, so we opened up our windows (and noticed that many other rooms had their windows open too) and hit the hay for some much needed rest.

We had a wonderful first day in New York!