I DON'T WANT CIRCULAR ORBS IN MY FRONT YARD!!!

Disclaimer: This post is going to be fairly long, it's all about my trip to New York, so if you don't have to time to soak it all in, come back later! I want you to get as much out of this as I did! Although it's not EVERYTHING that I learned, it's a lot and I think that you'll appreciate knowing it like I do!


I guess I should start at the beginning...we got to the Nashville airport pretty close to 4:30 a.m. on Wednesday (6/23) morning. That was rough!! We sat in the terminal for a REALLY long time! Scooter and I think the people sitting near us were Italian...we're not entirely sure though haha.
Then we flew to D.C.
While we were waiting for our connecting flight, we stopped at a little restaurant near the bathrooms. Momma and I ordered a Chicken Fiesta Wrap that came with Mexi-Ranch Sauce..or so they said. When the woman brought our food there was nothing fiesta about it..I'm not sure what she gave us but the wrap was gross and the sauce was buffalo and ranch sauce. I HATE BUFFALO SAUCE!
The airport intercom people kept telling us that all the militaries could go to the USO lounge!!! Sounds exciting to me!
We finally boarded our plane and left for New York 3 hours later.
Upon arriving at JFK, we began the mad search for our luggage. I'll tell you exactly where to go: walk straight for a long time, turn right, walk straight some more, go down the escalator, walk straight, go up the escalator, walk straight, for a REALLY long time, then go down the escalator....again. TA-DA you have now arrived at your luggage...geez.
Then we waited for the shuttle for a long time where I found this contraption:

Momma says it's for leaning..she may be right because this was VERY uncomfortable. Man..I look tired...lol


Anyway..after we got to the hotel and settled we went to Applebee's where I people watched. That was FUN!!


The next morning we got on a bus and rode around the city. We got out at Ground Zero and walked around. Did you know that the Twin Towers were 110 stories tall and in a matter of 38 seconds were reduced to 7 stories of debris!?!

This church, St. Paul's Cathedral, was used as a Relief Center after 9/11. (You can look at my other pictures from here and ground zero here) It was also the place where George Washington worshiped.

We looked around inside for a little while and then walked on to the Trinity Church where this sculpture stood:


Here's the story! Before 9/11 there was a HUGE Sycamore Tree that stood in a corner of the courtyard at St. Paul's Cathedral (that church up there). The tree was struck by debris during the attacks on the World Trade Center BUT it hit the tree in a way that the tree fell and protected the church from any debris (HOW COOL IS THAT!?!??! doesn't that just touch your heart!?). So people of the city (head honchos, I guess) dug up the roots of the tree, a sculptor put them back together and made a caste. Now, I'm not sure if this is the caste or if this is a sculpture replica OF the caste..either way it's REALLY cool. 


From there we went to Thames St. This is where the city builders decided they needed to start making the buildings at different heights and in different shapes because, as you can see below, there's no sunlight!! (this picture is looking up at that bridge thing lol) Our tour guide said if they hadn't made that decision, New York would be a city of dark alleys and corners, like Gotham City.

Then we walked down Wall St, saw the Bull and the place George Washington was inaugurated.
After that we went down to Battery Park where this large ball of metal greeted us:

This was once a perfect sphere sculpted by Fritz Koenig that stood between the Twin Towers. It was made to represent World Peace. During the attacks on the towers it was obviously destroyed. Here's a picture of what it looked like before:all of the black that you see in the first photo was caved in on itself. They tried their best to reconstruct it and this is what they got. The sculptor said that what it is now is a better depiction of World Peace than his original was. 

Sidenote: I mentioned earlier that the Towers were 110 stories tall. Maybe this will help get a better idea of just how talk that really is:  take this building, add one of it on top of it then add another half of one and you've got the 110 stories. From what I remember, the Empire State Building is 116 stories..I'm pretty sure...so they were only 6 stories shorter..which to me, isn't that much.

Back on track: so, after we saw the sphere we hopped on a ferry to Ellis Island. Here's a picture of Lady Liberty from the ferry. She's a beauty, ain't she?

Later that night, we went to Wicked. It was AMAZING!!!! No foolin!

 The next day we went had a tour at Radio City Music Hall and got our pictures taken with Candace, a Rockette!! She was really nice! We also toured Carnegie Hall but that wasn't as exciting and we couldn't take pictures.

We went to Times Square that night where I got my picture with an NYPD officer. 

hahah! He looks thrilled, right? lol

The next day we went to the Empire State Building and to the concert at Carnegie Hall that night. It was a gooood time!! :)

Here are some fun facts!

-They have LOTS of acronyms for places it's cool

              -SOHO: South Of HOuston (pronounced How-sten)

              -Tribeca: TRIangle BElow CAnal (street)

              -NOHO: North Of HOuston

              -FIDI: FInancial DIstrict

              -Nolita: North Of Little ITAly

              -Dumbo: Down Under Manhattan Bridge Overpass

-The Mariners beat the Cubs 8-1 while we were there!!!

-The cast of the movie Grown Ups was right around the corner from our hotel and we didn't even know it until the next day! MAN I wanna see that movie!

-Our tour guide hasn't owned a car since 1984!! The traffic is CRAZY and paying to park there is like paying rent on an apartment!

-All of the high schools there are trade or magnet schools. So kids have to decide in MIDDLE SCHOOL what they want to do with their life...isn't that NUTS!?!? Man oh man.

-Broadway runs all the way from about 1/4 mile from the Hudson to Albany!!!

Here are some of my favorite pictures that I took.

1. The window cleaners!!!

2. My favorite flag out of all the ones I took pictures of, it's made up of names of people who lost their lives during 9/11. It just touched my heart.

3. The man sleeping!! HAHAH!

4. The Washington Monument and Jefferson Memorial. As we were getting ready to leave D.C. on our connecting flight home, I looked across the aisle out the window and saw this and thought it was so cool!!

Well. That's all I've got. But PLEASE go look at my pictures on facebook! facebook.com/jbandle I'll make it so everyone can see them even if we aren't friends. I want to share this experience with anyone who will listen/read! 

Oh, I bet you're wondering about the title. Well Scooter (my sister) and I were walking around the D.C. airport the first time we were there and she heard this guy walk past us on the phone holler that!! HAHAHAH!! I thought it was HILARIOUS!

LAAATER.