Friday, March 23, 2012

{Travel}: Spring Break Trip, New York Day Two.

One thing to know about me is that I love a good zoo. Here in Memphis we have an awesome zoo and I love going to visit. We were members growing up and Jake and I were members until medical school took all the fun away from our lives. So whenever I travel, I love visiting their zoos. I've been to the DC zoo, the New Orleans zoo, and the Berlin zoo. With that in mind, of course when I found out that Wednesdays at the Bronx zoo are free, I knew we had to go. And Elise happens to be a big fan of the Bronx Zoo cobra (the one that escaped - he has a twitter) so we had to go visit him.

After waking up in luscious, plush Marriott beds (no lie - so comfortable), we packed up and checked out before using Eric's handy iPhone app to find out which subway to take and where we should catch it. Having an Apple Genius comes in handy! We took the express to the Bronx, which took about 30 minutes. A longer walk than expected later (our guide said it was two blocks from the subway), we were there!

We only wanted to spend about two hours at the zoo and we had heard that you could easily spend an entire day, so we were strategic about what to see. Of course the cobra was on our list, as well as the grizzly bears and tigers (Elise is a very loyal basketball fan). We wandered around, saw the animals, and mostly just enjoyed the weather and each other.







After getting our fill of the zoo, we hit up the subway again and rode down to meet Claire for lunch and a little afternoon on the High Line. It is worth mentioning that the subways were clean, very inexpensive, easy to navigate, and not scary at all. Way to go, NYC.

So we asked Claire to find us an authentic New York pizza place. She took us to Artichoke's, which she says is not touristy and it is where the New Yorkers go. It was down in Chelsea/Meatpacking area and was good for us because the High Line picks up right there.


Not only was this place very chic, we felt extra special because it was Pi day (3/14) and we were eating a pizza pie!

After sharing a huge (18 inch) pizza, we were stuffed and wandered down to the High Line. It is an urban park made out of old rail lines that ran above the city. It is really cool because you're about 10 stories up from traffic and have a birds eye view of everything. We started it by sitting in this amphitheater where you were sitting over traffic and felt like you were floating above it.



After hanging out for a bit, we walked the High Line. It was a cloudless, 70 and perfect kinda day and a good way to say goodbye to my short stint in the Big Apple.




After walking the High Line and dropping Eric by the train station, we had about an hour to kill before our train left for New Haven. Elise needed to get some makeup at Macy's (there isn't one in New Haven) and it was the perfect opportunity to check out the HUGE Macy's (it is 10 stories high). We didn't even make a dent in it, but it was definitely exciting to explore the famous Macy's of Herald Square. The original wooden escalators were still in operation so we rode those for kicks. We also took advantage of the Starbucks on the 3rd floor and plopped down to have a bit of girl time before heading back to New Haven.


After saying our goodbyes and thank-yous to Claire, we got on our train and were on our way back to New Haven and life at Yale. New York City was a whirlwind of fun and catching up with great friends. I didn't get to do everything I wanted in such a short stint but it was a perfect first experience and a good dipping of the toes, wet and ready for the next NYC adventure.

Until next time with my last installment of the Spring Break Saga,

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1 comment:

Natalie said...

The High Line looks awesome! I'd heard of it before but didn't realize it was made out of rail lines OR so high up! Glad you had a fun trip, NYC is an AWESOME place. :)

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