Our fun New York trip!

Over 300 of us from the High School (band, orchestra, dance, drama, drill team, etc...) embarked on a 4 day trip to the big city and what fun awaited us...

click on any of the collage photos to enlarge them...

DAY 1

~ We got to the airport at 5:30 pm for our 8 pm flight to Long Beach, CA on April 15th-we had to back track a little before our "red-eye" flight to NYC- which then left at 11:00pm from Long Beach-

~We arrived in NYC at 3:30 am (Utah time) 5:30 am (NY time) and hit the ground running. We weren't allowed to check into our hotel rooms until 5 pm that night because there were over 300 of us and it was too confusing I guess? Gurrr! We had an eye opener to the subway system right off--busy is an understatement with all of the business people heading to work. We all bought "metro-cards" that allowed us to use the subway as much as we needed to for 7 days. - We were able to put our luggage in a holding room at our hotel-"Hotel Pennsylvania"right across the street from Madison Square Gardens and then went to our first attraction which was the Empire State building (only a few blocks from the hotel). It was an awesome view up there with visibility of 25 miles (so they said). Chelsea got busted for making a paper airplane to throw off- oops!

~ Chelsea and I saw "Phantom of the Opera" at 2 pm on the first day we got there and it was amazing! Too bad I fell asleep in some parts but after a "red-eye" flight and 15 minutes of sleep in a 24 hour period I couldn't help it. I really wanted to sleep on the plane but wasn't able to for too long-- This trip was arranged by "American Experience" travel and I'm sure they had a big job with 325 people to schedule for but come on-- Our only 2 broadway shows on the same day with no sleep wasn't right! Chelsea kept nudging me to wake me up--

DAY 2

On day 2 We went to "Rockefeller Plaza" where they film the today show and we hung around the side as they were filming-- I guess there is a show that they film in the morning with Kathi Lee Gifford that they don't show until 1 pm each day and that was why noone saw us on t.v.-- It was fun to see Tim Conway who was their first guest-- I have always loved him on the Carol Burnett show--We spent the rest of day 2 messing around and seeing stores like FAO Schwartz where they have the big piano from the movie "big" (which is only $250,000 if you want one) and American Girl and Tiffany's, Trump tower, St. Patricks Cathedral (the oldest building in NYC), the Disney Store, Juilliard school, etc... that night we went to the Mets game and it went to 14 innings against the Washington Nationals and the Mets won-- that was fun--

DAY 3

On day 3 we started our day out with a Ferry ride out to Liberty Island where the Statue of Liberty is and I thought that was pretty awesome-- we then went to the island next door which was Ellis Island which is also awesome and pretty eye opening as to how many immigrants came through there. From 1892 and 1924 there were 22 million immigrants that came through that most of us are probably descendants from--It was a neat experience!

A little battery acid in the eye never hurt anyone!

Okay- so no trip is going to go without some drama right? After we got back from the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island tour we wanted to go through the Financial District- We went to see the New York Stock Exchange building, Wall Street, etc... As we were visiting inside of The Federal Hall Memorial building where the Bill of Rights was passed and George Washington was inaugurated as our first president, one of the girls in my group opened her camera and a battery was leaking (or some crazy thing like that) and she got battery acid in her eye, I don't know how but that's beside the point-- She went to the restroom downstairs where I helped her flush her eye out and a few minutes later, 4 swat guys in full uniform including some pretty big guns came in to see what was going on because they heard someone's camera "exploded". They helped Morgan flush her eye out and then she got to go in an ambulance-- ($1500 dollars later) There was some pretty heavy security in NYC because the pope was in town that morning and the next day--Wow-- What a story she gets to tell her kids huh? This is the same girl who on the band tour last year broke her arm just before going in to Disneyland. She is ok and her eye didn't have any permanent damage.

After our fun and interesting day in the financial district-- Chelsea and I had a dinner date with my Aunt Christy who lives in upper West Manhattan. It was fun to see her again-- It has been awhile since she moved there (14 years) and I've only seen her a couple of times since she moved. She met us at our hotel and after a quick subway ride we went right to dinner at a yummy mexican restaurant called "Mama Mexico"- I liked the name because I was nicknamed "Mama Macula"on this trip by the kids I was chaperoning-- we had fresh guacamole made right at our table and it was fabulous as well as the salsa and chips-- and of course the chimichanga's--

Fresh guacamole anyone?

yummy chimichangas!

The pink blossoms were amazing!

Central Park

Another beautiful photo that Chelsea took at Central Park

We went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art after our walk through Central park and down 5th Ave. and while at the museum, Chelsea found an interesting art display she had to take a picture of-- it was cool! -This is an amazing museum that everyone needs to experience if you go to NYC--It was dark when we left the museum and we said our goodbyes to Christy(thanks for a wonderful time) and took a bus down to our street-- the streets were filled with a lot of T.V. crews since the Pope was in town. What a fun day--

OUR LAST DAY

Day 4(our last day)

We went to China town down and went to Canal St. and bought some jewelry, hand bags and of course "I love NY" t-shirts among other stuff you would buy in China town. We had fun and it wasn't as scary as I thought it would be-- there are always rumors that you would get mugged or taken to a back room somewhere and forced to buy stuff- You have to be careful but the reason you would go in a back room is because they are selling knock-off's and legally can't sell it in their stores. Anyway, it was an experience!--after shopping, we found a yummy chinese restaurant and we all got full to say the least. The food was amazing-- we were well taken care of by the manager-- I think he felt bad for us because we had no clue what we were doing or how to order-- anyway after eating we headed back to the hotel-- Chelsea wanted to go shopping down 5th Ave. so a few of us took off to do that but I have to tell you it had to be window shopping since most of the stores she wanted to go to were all of the really expensive stores like Tiffany's, Cartier, Louis Vuitton, Prada, etc... It was fun to look for sure!!!

We got up Sunday morning and got a bite to eat at a place that served eggs that were already cooked that they microwaved --over easy eggs which was hilarious--(blah!) but I have to admit, that was the only bad meal I had the whole time! Chelsea hated her toast and had to take a picture--

After breakfast we headed out to the airport at 11:30 am on buses and spent the rest of the day travelling back home--after a 3 hour lay-over in Chicago we were finally on the last stretch and arrived in SLC at 9 pm--That was fun and would highly recommend NYC to everyone--the last picture in the collage above was what NY looked like as we were leaving-- we were so lucky to have 70 degrees and blue skies for most of the week--FUN FUN FUN!