Alex and I had a fun filled day in New York City yesterday. It was the first time I've been in the city without someone who knew their way around better than me. After the first subway ride, though, we got the hang of it. The city is overwhelming a bit - so much to choose from and we had so little time. In a way I felt paralyzed trying to make decisions over what to do next. We were dropped off on 49th St. and 6th Ave., close to Rockefeller Center, around 11:30 a.m. and we first headed into the NBC Store to buy tickets for the NBC tour at 4. Then we trapsed off to find the subway. We wanted to take the 6th Ave line (red), since it went straight down to the WTC site. It took us a while to find it, and we ended up in Times Square (see above). I'd never been there before and actually hadn't intended to go there this time, but what a sight to see! We bought some coffee at a Starbucks and finally found the subway station. After trying to figure out how to buy day passes, we made it to the tracks and on the 1 train. Unfortunately, after we got on, we found out that the 1 didn't go beyond 14th Street yesterday and that we'd have to switch to a 2 or 3 train, which still would only take us as far as Chambers St. Of course, I was all confused and could barely hear what they were saying, so we got on a 2 and then got off again too early, got on a 3 and then got off at Chambers. Needless to say, it took us a little while! But, Chambers St. turned out to be a good stopping point and was a quick walk to the WTC site.

How depressing that was. :( I've only been to NYC once since then - in the spring of 2002 when they were just cleaning up the mess. I didn't go down to the site, though. Just being in that area gave me chills. It was filled with lots of somber tourists, some of whom were crying. Alex asked how the terrorists could have gotten in there between all those tall buildings to hit the towers - I reminded him that they were twice the size (or just about) of all the other buildings in the area. It's hard to imagine those solid buildings falling down, even though I know it happened.

We then moved on to happier things - going into Century 21 Department Store, which is right next to the WTC site. What a great store! It was crowded, filled with a huge inventory of designer items, and unbelievably cheap. Definitely the place to go for bargains. I didn't want to spend too much time there (Alex would have killed me!), but I got a hat and gloves for me, and mittens for Kate. Alex found himself some new earphones at a great price.

We separated from my coworker Beth and her daughter, Cara, at that point, because we wanted to head up to Chelsea to a French Bistro that I had found on the web (Pastis) - Alex wanted French food while we were there. He and I quickly managed the subway on our own (yay!) and found our way there with little trouble. Unfortunately, it was an hour wait, and it was already 2:30. So, we left there and ended up spending quite a bit of time just wandering, walking up to the 23rd St. station. We got back up to Rockefeller Center with a 1/2 hour to spare, grabbed a quick bite at Sbarros, and then headed off to our NBC tour. We still held out hope that we'd get some real NYC food after the tour. The tour was more scripted than I remember it being last time, but was a nice chance to sit down for a while, and was fun, too. We saw some new psychologist's studio - I guess he's on Fox, but rents the space from NBC. Then we saw Conan O'Brien's studio (which is amazingly small, to the point where they do things to pretend he's further away from the band than he really is), and the SNL studio. Unfortunately this is an off week for them so we didn't get to see the cast rehearsing.

After that, we thought we'd find a great place to eat and started heading up 5th Ave, where we met up with Beth and Cara at H&M briefly, but then headed back out to find food. Um...note...there aren't any good places to eat around Rockefeller Center. We ended up eating at Ben & Jerry's (ice cream for me, chain-restaurant cheesecake for Alex). We weren't the only ones on our bus who did the same thing - I think we all wanted to be close to the bus for the 6:45 pick up and hoped to eat in the area, but didn't have much luck.

Oh, I also picked up a fake Prada purse from some guy on the street. LOL. Cara bought one earlier, and it gave me the confidence to give it a try. I started talking to someone outside of H&M, but then a cop came and told him to get out. Of course, they just move a block away. A little while later there was a group outside of the NBC store and I got one there. Everyone was buying them!

And that was about it - a 4 1/2 hour bus ride (with painful, cramped legs and knees) and we were home. It was a fun day, but I look forward to doing it again with a little better understanding of where I want to go and how to get around.