My First Trip to New York City

I have finally made it up to New York City! My co-worker Jami and her boyfriend wanted to go up to New York and I asked if it would be cool if I came along as well. It was Saturday night of July 14th 2007. It was a long trip but we made it safe. They dropped me off at Tony Barnhart’s office/apartment complex and they drove to their hotel. I hung out with Tony for about an hour just catching up and decided that I needed to hit the sack so we could wake up and start off the day with some good breakfast and some good spiritual learning.
That is exactly what we did. It was a beautiful morning on the 15th of July 2007 and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. We woke up, got ready for church and ate breakfast at this really adorable diner that was in his neighborhood. It was all retro and the food was awesome. Good French toast and potatoes and eggs. Yummy! After eating we drove back to the apartments and picked up Preston, Sheena, Gwen and Amanda to go to church. We arrived at the church building which is also the Manhattan Temple. It was really cool to see a temple right in the middle of New York and see how much it stands out from all of the buildings around it. It was awesome to see.
We just went to sacrament meeting and then we all changed and went our separate ways. Tony and I split off and headed to Times Square and the Empire State Building and the rest of the group headed to China Town to do some shopping. Times Square was exactly what I thought it would be. It ROCKED! We headed to the Empire State Building and waited in line for about 5 min and then realized that we wouldn’t have enough time to do this today so we left. We had to meet up with 2 other offices in the NY area to play Football in Central Park. I believe it was NY East and NJ North. I could be wrong though. It was a blast. We hung out in Central Park and ate pizza….yes I know I don’t like pizza but it was there and free and I was hungry so I ate it. It was a cheese stake/sausage and onion and pepper pizza. It was way good. I’m one of those people that likes a lot of flavor and when it comes to pizza it HAS to have more than just 1 topping. Preferably 3 or 4 is what I like. I am in love with the BBQ pizza from Papa Johns. Anyway. We all met up and played a fun game of football. Well the guys did. Office against office. We had to play on a dirt patch outside of the gates of Central Park because apparently they don’t allow “organized” games to be played on the huge grass area. Although there was a road block the guys still had fun getting all dirty and muddy. I didn’t even play and I was covered in dirt. It was gross. Haha. Then after that a bunch of people, even some of the girls, played a quick game of soccer.
After a tiring day of walking around and playing sports and goofing around we decided it would be best to go back home and shower! So that is what we did. There is nothing better than taking a shower and washing off layers of dirt and grime and getting out of the shower and feeling squeaky clean. Haha.
Shortly after that Tony drove me back to Manhattan to meet up with Jami and Dave near Grand Central Station. It was a long drive back because we were all 3 dead tired of walking around and site seeing. Jami and Dave did one of those double decker bus tours of NY and had a blast. It was close to 11:30 before we got out of Manhattan. Around 2 AM Dave decided it would be safe to stop and take a short nap to re-boot. We stopped and slept! We woke back up and headed back on the road around 3:45. Jami decided to give Dave a break and drive the rest of the way. I stayed away/forced my eyes to stay open the rest of the way home so make sure that Jami was okay and that we weren’t going to drove of the road or hit anyone. It was hard. I can’t imagine how hard it was for her having to force herself to stay up while driving. But we made it home safe and sound. I got ready for bed and hit the sack around 5 AM.
It was an amazing trip but of course was not long enough. Next weekend will be just as fun if not better……to be continued