Monday, August 22, 2011

Trip Tease: Part 1- Jet Set to NYC and Jersey!

Wow! What a weekend. I know I should be in bed because the bags under my eyes are heavier than my unpacked luggage right now, but I'm excited to share with everyone about our weekend trip. It had its highs, and it certainly had a few unpleasant lows.

The purpose of this trip: congratulating my husband's sweet cousin on her upcoming nuptials. Teresa and Todd are getting married in SPAIN! Though I had only met her once before, Teresa means a lot to me. Tim and I got married and she and her fiance made the long journey "Down South" for our wedding. (PS- they also bought us our favorite dishes for entertaining- which unfortunately we haven't been able to use since moving back in Columbus). In fact, we were just overjoyed with the large turnout from his entire family. So we made a promise to ourselves that we would try and travel more to see his family and celebrate special occasions with them when we could afford to. So when we got this adorable handmade card, we decided yes! We would make this work.

And here is how it all went down...

Thursday
Tim and I packed up and headed out to Atlanta around 3. Our flight was supposed to leave at 7:45ish. Well...it ended up finally getting there around 9:40. I think we sat on the plane a bit and took around closer to 10. We landed around 12:40, waited in line for a transit to get to the rental car place, and waited in line there til close til 1:30. I think we finally got in the car and on the road by 2, and somehow I'm looking at my phone and I went to bed after calling my parents at 3:23 a.m.

Lessons learned- 1) NEVER FLY UNITED/CONTINENTAL... 2) Never fly into Newark 3) Never rent a rental to drive into NYC. This was the creepiest experience of my life. On the plus, we got a super upgrade to a nice Ford SUV. I think it was the Ford Edge. Pretty spacious. 4) Garmin cannot be trusted up North, especially on the Jersey turnpike. She gets disoriented very easily, cranky, and takes you through the smelliest, worst parts of Jersey City. 5) If you do rent a car to drive into NYC always get a hotel with valet. It was worth the $70!

We stayed at the Wellington Hotel.

Wellington Hotel- NY, NY
It was overall a decent hotel. Very pretty on the inside lobby and outside. Old and classic looking I suppose. Our room was tiny tiny tiny. But, of course who needs a big room when all you do is sleep in the room. It was unfortunate that when we first arrived our room was "unclean and used," but our bellman quickly took us back to the counter to get a new room.

Wellington Hotel - Standard Queen Room (yes the bed took up 85% of the room).
The best part of the hotel is that it really is centrally located for a lot of good tourism spots. They have this great list on their website that sort of sold me.

Friday
Believe it or not we were up and out the door by about 8:15 a.m. We wanted to take full advantage of our 24 hours in Manhattan! We walked and walked and walked and walked. Here are just a few of the things we saw on our long walk in the city:

Times Square

More Times Square

M+M store in Times Square

Central Park

Timmy at Central Park

Time took a photo of me looking at the buildings next to Central Park.

Pretty flowers!

Me at Central Park!

Madison Avenue!

For Mel and Chris... <3

I really thought Tim owed it to me to buy a piece of Tiffany jewelry... *sigh*

Yummy cakes in a bakery window near out hotel. I'll have to look up the name.

I'm a bad tourist...I have no idea which church this was...but it was pretty!

I love this!

Curses! It hadn't opened yet. It's still under construction.

Grand Central Station

The REAL DEAL for Mel and Chris <3

My hot hubby chilling in Bryant Park!

Me in Bryant Park!

Naked Cowboy!
 
Home of AVENUE Q! I finally got to see it!

We ate dinner here after the show.

And late night dessert!

The best butter-creme icing ever!
Friday was the most exhausting day!

Saturday
On Saturday morning we woke up early, packed, and headed out to find our way to Newton, NJ. That's where out hotel was. Its a very scenic, green and quite part of New Jersey. We liked it. We checked in and got ready to go to the reception for Teresa and Todd. It was amazing! So much fun. I love catching up with people. It felt really natural and it was good to see everyone enjoying one another. My only regret...Tim didn't request our song...and he refused to dance :( I bet if they played our song we would have started shufflin :) I thought the location was sweet and beautiful! I love seeing people in love!

Like these kiddos! (That's my husband's parents showing everyone they still have the "passion" hehe)

Aren't they sweet? :)

Tim and I at the reception!

Pretty girls! Sarah, Me, Katie and the Bride to Be Teresa!

Sunday
This was the nightmare. And it wasn't because of the Sangria  from the night before...it was like the weekend finally caught up with us. We probably walked over 12 miles, slept a handful of hours, laughed and had a good time for hours on end. But, Sunday morning turned ugly quick. I woke up feeling pretty bleh, but I snapped into a sobering reality when the call came at 10 a.m. our flight to Atlanta had been cancelled. We packed in a rush and skipped going to an apple orchard Tim had picked out. All we could think about was getting to Newark International to try and catch a flight home. After a gruesome 12 hours in the airport waiting we boarded a plane, only to arrive in Atlanta after midnight, wait on our luggage to arrive at 3 a.m. and finally hit the pillow at home around 5 a.m.

Whirl wind overview of a whirl wind weekend I know! But, I've got a few other plans for entries, so you'll just have to check back later. I hope the photos didn't explode your browser! I'll be posting more plus these on facebook soon.






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