Palmyra

At a ridiculously early time on Monday 25th March we checked out of our gorgeous New York Hotel. Check out was a bit sketchy though as no-one was answering phones or were at the front desk downstairs. Being the control freak I am I started panicking. Pete basically ordered me to go sit on the lounge with Will and wait :-(
Trusty Pete and Sim managed to find someone and get us all sorted - including removing the extra 50 odd bucks they wanted to charge us for the mini bar stuff we hadn't consumed.
The trip to the airport in the taxi was really quick and we were checked in quite quickly too.

We were all feeling a bit melancholy as we just weren't ready to leave New York City. However, I was looking forward to going to Palmyra and visiting a very significant place in the history of our church. More on that to come...

The flight was an hour as we were still in New York State. We picked up a very roomy SUV and loaded into the car for the trip to Rochester (about 25 mins from Palmyra). We were all so exhausted from our early start as you can see below :-)

 It had snowed a lot more in Palmyra than New York and it was lovely to drive through the countryside, surrounded by snow.

Our motel was quite impressive considering the pittance it cost to stay! We unloaded out gear and popped around the corner to a diner. It was one of the typical chain diners all over the US, complete with bizarre items on the menu. 
I'm happy to say none of us tried the bacon desserts - though Pete was intensely curious about what it would have been like.

I really enjoyed my pancakes and scrambled eggs and we loved that the entire meal cost about 25 bucks for the 4 of us. 

We then made our way to Palmyra, with Will quickly falling asleep in the car. Driving into Palmyra we noticed it was eerily quiet and a bit of  dead beat type place. We saw a lot of dilapidated buildings and trailer park homes. We got the impression that it is a struggling community, mostly farmers and little industry. Yet, you drive along and suddenly see one of beautiful church Temples and churches...complete with picturesque scatterings of snow!

Pete and I decided to visit the home of Joseph Smith (a modern day prophet who restored our church in 1830). He is someone we as members revere and honor greatly. Sim stayed with Will in the car for this visit which allowed Pete and I to take our time. 

The original homestead was destroyed but everything has been replicated as best as possible and it's interesting to see how people lived in the early 1800's. 

I think these shots are from Joseph Smith's families second home...

We then took a walk through the sacred grove. This is the place where Joseph Smith received instruction from our Heavenly Father to restore our church. It was cold and the trees bare, but there is no doubting this is a special place. It had a haunting kind of feel to it...

There is a lovely video that talks about the history of our church. Feel free to take a look here. 

We got back to the car after a fair while and Will had only just woken up and was watching The Lion King with Uncle Sim. We had heaps of time to wander back into the sacred grove with Sim and Will joining us this time which was really nice. 

I felt so grateful that I could visit this special place with my loved ones. 

By the way, the band-aid you see on Will's chin is due to him getting carpet burn playing on the hotel floor in New York City. He kept picking at it so we stuck a band-aid on :-) 

We drove into the township of Palmyra to visit the Printing Press where the Book of Mormon was published. We had a lovely sister Missionary take us on a shortened version of the tour. Winter is a very slow season in Palmyra so we didn't have to wait anywhere and had each place pretty much all to ourselves. I'd love to come back during summer when they hold the Hill Cumorah Pageant. Apparently the small town makes enough money in that week to sustain them throughout the year. 

The tour was really interesting and we got to see and touch a lot of the materials. Will loved those parts of the tour. Apart from occasionally bolting away, he was pretty good. Sim and I had a lovely experience at the end of the tour reflecting on our childhood and growing up in the church. I can't remember what the Sister Missionary asked us but it stirred up a lot of emotions in both of us. 

Our last stop for the day was to the Hill Cumorah Visitor's Centre. We didn't do a tour as such but looked around and watched a lovely video presentation about the family. This one featured a fair amount on Father's which struck a chord with Sim and I again. It was nice to leave the cinema room and just chat to the Missionaries who volunteer there. There was a lovely older couple and 2 sister Missionaries. Will flirted like crazy with the sister Missionaries and stole a muesli bar from one of them! Cheeky boy!

We enjoyed seeing the Christus statue and Will was particularly fascinated by it, exclaiming "Jesus, Jesus." The photo below captures the awe and it perfectly sums up our uplifting experience in Palmyra. 

Ni Nok 2

Saturday (23rd) morning we caught a cab down to the wharf for a harbour cruise to the Statue of Liberty. Unfortunately, due to Hurricane Katrina, the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island were closed while they did repairs. We were pretty bummed to find this out when we were planning our trip but we still thought a cruise would be fun.

It was so so cold. We got a hot chocolate when we got on the boat and tried to warm up a bit while we waited to leave. Pete got a hot pretzel and it was really ordinary. It's just salty bread and we weren't impressed. I remember having one in Vienna when I was 16 and I enjoyed it but maybe I'm just more sensitive to salt these days. 

We got good seats inside the boat and spent most of the cruise indoors. It was a beautiful sunny day and the views were great.

Ellis Island

We did go outside for a few photos but it was seriously so cold because of the wind and being on the water that we didn't last very long out there. 

Somewhere Pete really wanted to go while we were in New York was the Intrepid Sea Air and Space Museum. The Intrepid is the amazing Aircraft Carrier in the photo below. It has been converted into the coolest looking museum. It was a 5 minute walk from the pier we caught the harbour cruise from so it was perfect doing both things in the one day. We got to the Museum about 11:15am and spent a few hours there. We could have stayed even longer - especially as Will absolutely loved it but we just didn't have that much time to spare and Will was needing a nap.

The deck is filled with different aircraft and Will enjoyed looking at all the planes. 

It was the stuff inside that Will really loved though. The museum was packed with interactive displays. Will was in his element climbing into helicopters, fighter planes, rockets, boats and all sorts of things. We all enjoyed this museum way more than the Smithsonium in DC we attended a few days later. That may be a big call, but for little kids I think the Intrepid kicked butt over the Smithsonium - especially for toddler aged kids. 

We were so impressed that Will laid down like he really was injured and stayed there for a good minute or so. 

Will loved getting in the "Space Rocket." I didn't feel like crawling in there but Pete was happy to oblige. 

This boat sat on an inflatable raft that moved from side to side. Will couldn't get enough of it

This is as close as we could get to the Space Shuttle Pavillion. It just wasn't good luck for us with things being closed. They were doing repairs on her also due to Hurricane Katrina so we couldn't go in unfortunately. I guess we'll just have to go back to New York someday. I really really hope we get there again. It is the best place!

Pete and Sim did a tour of the USS Growler (submarine) while I continued to entertain Will inside. We didn't think a tour in a sub would be suitable for a 2 year old and there wasn't really anywhere to keep the pram. Sim and Pete took ages but I was still able to entertain Will inside the museum for another hour which is pretty phenomenal. Sim then took Will home for a nap and Pete and I stayed on at the museum for a bit.

I was a bit grumpy while we were waiting to go in the sub. We queued for about 40 mins and I was so hungry by that point as it was 1:30pm. I am one of those people who get grumpy when hungry and being pregnant probably exaccerbated my grumpiness. Pete is so patient with me though and kept saying it'll be worth it and we'll not be coming back. My dad also served in the Navy as a radio operator in a Submarine so I really wanted to see what it was like to be inside one.

I imagine Dad would have been sitting in a similar room to this. I think he told me it was smaller on the sub he was on!

Pete and I had planned to go to Madame Tussauds Wax Museum but I was just so tired and hungry I wasn't really keen to go anywhere after our busy morning. We stopped to get lunch at a place Peter picked. A very American looking greasy burger/rib joint right near Madame Tussauds. Well, to put it bluntly it was revolting and remains the worst meal we had in the USA. Pete got ribs and they were average. I ordered some crispy hot wings and they were bland and just greasy. I barely ate one. I ate Pete's cornbread which was actually nice and ordered a corn on the cob. What was really poor was the service. We just could not get a waiter to attend us and then trying to pay the bill was a nightmare. They didn't seem to accept cash for some reason. I didn't even tip them I was so unimpressed!

Here is my meal. It looks like it'll be tasty but it wasn't... the face is because I wasn't expecting the wings to be that enormous!


Of course this did nothing to help my moodiness but we pressed on to Madame Tussauds. I really didn't enjoy it. Pete reckons if I was in a better mood it would have been more fun but I still think it was a bit boring. Other than standing next to the mannequins there was nothing interesting to do. We were lucky to have stayed there for more than 45 mins.

I still don't think I'd go back there if we're ever in New York again. We still took a few photos and tried to get into the spirit of things.

Of course everything is supersized in the US. This syrup was in the random candy store in the middle of the wax museum. It was a bit strange if you ask me.

After the wax museum Pete was still keen to go to Ripley's Believe it or Not museum but I thought I should get back and let Sim have some time. Here's a photo of Pete. I felt kinda bad letting him do stuff on his own but he didn't seem to mind and ended up doing a bit more wandering around Times Square which was good. 

One of us took this during a walk. I just love that no matter where you are in NY you just have to look up and you get an amazing sight like this. I love the Chrysler Building. I think it's my fav in NY. 

I got back to the hotel about 4pm so we could let Simeon have a big night on the town. I wanted him to have at least 1 night and a whole day to himself so that was Sat/Sun. Sim did have a VERY big night on Saturday night making friends with locals at a few pubs and some other things.

Sunday: We had a bit of a lie in Sunday morning and went to church around 11am. We caught a cab there even though it was really close. What was cool is that you're just walking down Broadway and you look up and you're like, Oh a church building. It is squeezed right in the heart of a shopping district and is the church temple for New York as well. 

By the way, I took this during a walk to do some shopping on my own one evening. I went right past it and had to remember to look up to notice the statue on the top. 

Most of you reading this would know that we are Mormons. I love that no matter where we are in the world, church is the same and the people are friendly and we get to make Sunday worship part of our holiday experience. We usually just attend the sacrament portion of the meeting but it's still nice to go each week. 
We walked back to the hotel after church and got lunch and let Will have a little nap.

Actually Pete got a hot dog on the way home. I had a bite and it was ok. Definitely nothing special but we can now say we had a NY hot dog :-)

We caught up with Simeon who emerged from his room about 12:30pm just a "touch" hungover. He was trying to remember what he got up to the night before. Gradually things started coming back to him and I was glad he didn't get too crazy on us. Not like his time in the USA last time hey Sim!! Sim did his own thing Sunday which I think involved a lot of shopping. I think he did more than all of us combined and his credit card definitely felt it too ;-)

We then enjoyed a walk through central park. We had really been wanting to get to Central park and have a big walk around but were just so busy with all our other plans and the cold weather probably didn't help. We only got a small taste of the park, especially since we were running late to get to the Museum of Natural History. Central Park is another place with a great vibe though. There were heaps of people running and I felt guilty that I hadn't ventured out for a run even once during our stay. If it was warmer I would have loved to do a run or some yoga or tai chi in the park. Within a few days of being in New York I kept saying to Peter, you realise we are going to HAVE to come back someday! Someday soon!

This is Will and I after he spotted a garbage truck in the park!

Various people do random stuff. These bubbles were pretty cool though.

We made it to the Museum of Natural History at about 3:50pm. It closed at 5pm so we were really pressed for time. Pete and I were really keen to come here but were quite disappointed really. I think it had a lot to do with us being on such a time limit and Will deciding he wanted to run around like a crazy toddler! Still, it was seriously the only day of our holiday when he went a little nuts...and by nuts I mean he was probably just acting like a regular toddler ;-)

Will did enjoy the dinosaurs though

Me no dum-dum. You dum-dum! You bring me gum-gum?! Ha ha

I can't remember much else but I think a trip to a yummy restaurant we'd already been to for their New York cheesecake occurred. We had a relatively early night as we had to get up by 4am to get to the airport for the next leg of the trip - to Buffalo/Palmyra. Our time in New York went so fast but we actually felt like we did the major things on our wish list. It's hard to chose my favourite thing about New York. Everything is great. There is something for everyone in New York and I just loved the vibe of the place. It's hard to describe the atmosphere of a city. I feel the same when I'm in Hiroshima, Japan. I feel like that is a special place, so different to most Japanese cities...probably for obvious reasons. I'd like to go to Nagasaki and see if there are similarities...anyway, I'm getting sidetracked here.

New Yorkers were incredibly friendly in our experience. It is so easy to get around and I think it's a really kid friendly place. Next time we go (I've decided we just have to) we are going to do; MOMA, The Central Park Zoo, Grand Central Station, China Town, Soho, The Highline, The Guggenheim and The Met. They're just the things I can remember right now. We got an awesome taste of New York but you could spend weeks there and still have hundreds of things to experience.

I had this post up today and Will, without being prompted whatsoever, pointed at the screen and said "Ni Nok mummy!" The city obviously had a great impact on him also and I'm so happy we had such an amazing time. It really was the pinnacle of our holiday and we long to go back there...definitely when it's a bit warmer next time. We didn't feel like we were inhibited too much because of the cold but we will be glad to have less to pack next time that's for sure.

If you have the dream to go to New York, just do it. I think it's a place people should go to once in their life. 

We fell in love with New York. Could you tell?!