Carnegie's

I've been waiting for Bob to run this errand for me, so I could post this pic.

So, on my next-to-last day in NYC, my brother, Chad, recommended I try out Carnegie's Deli. We'd already made plans to go eat in the Hell's Kitchen area on Sunday (we had yummy hamburgers!), so I went by myself on Monday afternoon before I flew out. I regretted not bringing my camera along for the ride.

But I told Bob he should go try it out just to see the sandwiches they serve there. He thought I was exaggerating, the bum. However, he was kind enough (thank you, thank you) to photograph his sandwich for me, just so I could share it with you all. JSKY, that's a small sandwich. When I ate there, I'm not kidding when I say I peeled about 2/3 of the meat off my sandwich, just so I could get it into my mouth.

Chad says the cheesecake there is pretty yummy, too. He wanted me to bring some home for him. But alas, Bob and I were both too full to try it out.

And they say everything is big in Texas!

Tracy's Top Ten: NYC Edition (give or take a few)

In no particular order...

Rockefeller Center, all of it.
And especially the little chocolate shop
that's just off to the left of these fountains.
Oh yeah, and the bakery I found on the last day.
NO, there is NOT a theme here!

Seeing the city lights from up high
(even though I'm afraid of heights and it was really cold).

Macy's Flower Extravaganza, or whatever the freak it was called.
See! That's me under that flamingo constructed entirely of flowers.
It smelled so good in there!

Bryant Park.
Oh, how I was itching to go sit on a bench and read in the sunshine!

The totally insane toy stores, F.A.O. Schwartz here.
Darth Vader is made almost entirely of Legos.
In Toys R Us on Times Square, they have a Ferris wheel.
Yes, inside.

Getting on the U.S.S. Intrepid.
I know, I'm weird.
I'm a girl, and I like military vehicles.
And military war stories, too.

The subways--I loved 'em.
And I loved walking everywhere between subway stops.
Bob and I made a man on the subway laugh at us.
We were taking pictures of each other.
We do that.
Make people laugh, that is.

Seeing the building where all those Law & Order shows are made,
or scenes from them anyway.
Not that I watch them anymore.
But it was still really cool. :)

Watching Bob sleep in Central Park.
I wanted to sleep, too.
But I wanted to talk to my Mommy on the phone more.

The bridges. All of them.
Walking up the Brooklyn Bridge was one of my last-minute harebrained ideas.
I ate a really big lunch afterward at this great place in Chinatown.
I don't know why the bridges fascinate me so much, but they do.
Maybe I should have majored in bridges....

It's still spring in NYC right now!
Tulips, daffodils, trees in bloom, oh my!

The graveyards fascinated me, too.
They always have, but especially the NYC ones.
This was a little bitty church yard.
I liked the ones that had humongous monuments piled on top of each other.
That was cool!

Being with my honey at really cool places.

And of course, coming home at last,
to my babies, and my mommy,
and knowing my honey's coming at the end of the week.

The View from Up Here

This was the view from our room on Saturday night. We were on the 11th floor in a hotel across the East River from Manhattan. Isn't it gorgeous? I didn't do anything to this picture but crop the bottom and blur out a nasty neon sign from the building next door.

Now you want to ask me what Bob did to get this picture.

Oh, I'm so glad you asked. Did you know that apparently hotel rooms in Queens on the 11th floor have windows that open. Nice. There aren't any screens on them. Nice. They're really hard to close. Bob got up in the window sill to close it. Have I mentioned that I don't like heights?

All in all, though, the picture was worth my husband risking life and limb. {Eyeroll}

In Honor of Sariah

I was missing Sariah so much that on my first solo afternoon in NYC, I decided to pay tribute to her love of quackies by taking a NYC Duck Bus-Boat Tour. Crazy, I know. I'm certainly not a very refined tourist. Bob's work friends think I could have at least picked a Screamer, whatever that is. But no, the quacker it is for Tracy. It started out as a bus, but then became a boat. The middle of the tour was the Aqua-Theater, where they showed us a little film about NYC while they washed off the bottom of the bus, so it could be an environmentally safe boat (the company got sued by some environmentalists a few years back for putting nasty city buses unwashed into the Hudson River; I did think the guide's point that when it rains all the nasty city bus stuff washes into the Hudson River anyway was a valid point, too).
I think my tour guide felt sorry for me because I was apparently all alone in NYC. Of course, I wasn't. Bob was just at work. And I kind of liked wandering around without anybody to get in the way of all my harebrained ideas. Anyhow, the tour guide really liked having me pose for pictures. It was worse than going to a professional photographer.

I was especially impressed when the guide sang "Oklahoma" for me (that was the only line he knew), and then nicknamed me Oklahoma, and then let me drive the Duck Bus-Boat. I even got a certificate for being a Jr. Captain, appropriately made out to "Oklahoma."

Souvenir

We all know how much Sariah cherishes her beloved quackies. So, instead of bringing her back a t-shirt or some other souvenir from NYC, we brought her back this crazy, giant, polka-dotted rubber ducky from F.A.O. Schwartz. It was ridiculously overpriced, but the store was great fun, and we knew Sariah would love this best of all. And she does. But not as much as her specially colored handpicked M&Ms. Which is why she was taking a bath.