The Mother of all Blog Entries

It's hard to believe that we only have 2 months left in Windsor. We planned a little vacation, and since our time here is nearing an end we figured we'd take an opportunity to go for one final visit to Toronto. On Saturday (May 19 - our 6th anniversary!) we kissed Dixie goodbye (she was in good hands with some friends from church) and left for a taste of the big city life. We stayed with Dan and Daina, and had a great visit with them and with Dustin, Lisa, Alexander and the whole TO crew. This is the view from Dustin and Lisa's apartment:

They have an awesome view of downtown and Lake Ontario - too bad there's another building going up right in front of them...

We stopped in at Sugar Mountain while we were downtown - not as good as Welch's in Banff, but pretty good!

On Monday we crossed the border into New York state on our way to Pennsylvania for a visit with Courtney, Rae, Matthew and Marcus. It was about an 8 hour drive, but the scenery is beautiful! It is so green out here (unlike Calgary, which I heard had snow on the long weekend - typical).

We arrived in Lancaster at about 8:30pm, and had a chance to catch up with Court and Rae. Murray and Courtney have known each other since kindergarten - they have been through a lot together, and Courtney was the best man at our wedding.

On Tuesday we checked out downtown Lancaster. Lancaster is in the middle of Amish country in southeast Pennsylvania. It has lots of historic buildings with a big farmer's market full of home-made crafts and treats and loads of farm-fresh meats and vegetables. I even managed to find rock candy! In the afternoon we took a horse-and-buggy tour with an Amish guide.

On Wednesday morning we packed our suitcases and set out for the REALLY big city of New York. It is amazing to me that you can go from the heart of Amish farmland to the middle of Times Square in 2 and a half hours.

Crazy bumper-to-bumper traffic, lots of smog, and absoloutely no personal space were part of the whole NY experience. This sign made me laugh because everyone honks anyway - I'm pretty sure there is no way to monitor it.

We checked into our hotel, which was hardly big enough for 2 double beds, and the regular price was over $450 a night. We got a much better rate and comforted ourselves with the fact that we wouldn't be spending much time there - it was really only a place to sleep. We set out right away to squeeze in as much sight-seeing as we could in 22 hours. Our hotel was one block off Broadway at Times Square, which was perfect for us to park the car and walk/cab/subway to wherever we needed to go.
We walked through Times Square, saw the Naked Cowboy (not as hot as our Alberta boys, but maybe I'm jaded...), then hopped the subway to Ground Zero. I don't know if they still call it Ground Zero, or if it's the WTC site, or what, but we went there. They have done a lot of clean up and construction, but some of the surrounding buildings are still badly damaged.

9/11 is still a huge part of life in NYC - especially on Manhattan.

We raced back uptown to get in line for standby seats to see David Letterman. We popped in to the Hello Deli which is owned by Rupert (the Guy in the Bear Suit, among other things...) Murray got his picture taken with Rupert. Unfortunately for Murray they only needed to fill 7 seats, and he was 10th in line. Feeling somewhat rejected, we decided to check out Rockefeller Center (notice the American spelling!) and the NBC studios. We got to see the studio where Saturday Night Live is filmed, which was really cool. It looks huge on TV, but the main stage is pretty much right in front of the audience. I would love to come back in the winter and go skating on the ice rink and see the famous Christmas Tree.

We went even further uptown to Central Park. We passed Trump Tower, Tiffany, and the Plaza Hotel - all the NY landmarks! There were plenty of horse/carriages waiting at the park entrance, and it was pretty reasonably priced, so we went on a guided tour. The park is really nice - lots of people running and relaxing under trees...hard to believe you're in the middle of the city. I didn't know cars could drive in the park, but they can.

Our next stop was the Empire State Building, which, I understand, was built as a make-work project during the Great Depression. It is an incredible building with amazing ArtDeco style. The sun was setting and it was beautiful!

In the top right-hand corner you can see the Statue of Liberty. We didn't go there, but we saw it from Manhattan. It is not nearly as big as I thought it would be. I guess I had an idea in my head from seeing it on TV and in movies...cool to see it anyway.

We found an awesome barbecue place for dinner called Virgil's. They actually give you a towel instead of a napkin. Yummy smoky pulled-pork sandwiches!

We spent much of the evening in and around Times Square. It's the best place to go and people-watch. And let me tell you, there are some really unique people to watch! It was 'fleet week' for the Navy - they had docked 8 ships and so the whole city was full of sailors on leave.

We stayed up REALLY late (okay, 2:30 is really late for me). We checked out a couple of bars/pubs, and I must say, I was pleasantly surprised with how un-pretentious it all was. I was expecting to have to pay huge cover charges or get turned away because we weren't dressed up - maybe I've watched too much Sex and the City.

The next day was definitely the highlight for me...

I got up REALLY early (I think I might have gotten 2 and a half hours of sleep), Murray and I got ready and headed down to Chelsea TV studios to try our luck at getting standby seats to see Martha Stewart. (as an aside, I had become quite a pro at hailing cabs by this point...I felt like a real New Yorker!)
We arrived pretty early and ended up being 6th and 7th in line. The helpful intern-looking girl told us to come back at 9:30 and we would find out if there were still seats to be filled. I was SO excited when our numbers were called and we were ushered in to the studio. Audience members were instructed to spit out their gum (?) on the way in.

I was even more excited when we were seated front row in the VIP section! It was the last taping of the season - we saw Donna Karan (the fashion designer behind DKNY) and Lorraine Bracco (the psychiatrist from the Sopranos). After the live taping was done, there were a few more segments taped which will run on Thursday, July 19 (since they don't have live shows during the summer).

We got a free nailpolish and an aromatherapy set, which I will treasure always.

We were about 8 feet from Martha! I'm sure if you read my blog, you probably know me and know how much Martha is my idol. I love her.

The rest of the trip was a blur - literally. We were really tired after all of our adventures. The drive back to Windsor was about 9 hours, but the scenery was beautiful. We drove through some "mountains."

There were even tunnels like in the Roger's Pass...

Pennsylvania is a beautiful state, and I'd go back to NYC in a heartbeat!