E is for Errr?!

Oh well, I have been stuck on E for a few days now and it seems high time to move forward. I considered EWR (The airport that we landed in to get into New York/Jersey) - that sounded very forced, or "Excitement" - but that one seemed so mundane. So well, Errr it shall be ;).

New York Day 1:
We left cozy and warm Dallas to be rudely thrust into the cold winds outside Newark Airport. Though we were sort of prepared with warm jackets for the kids etc, that's not quite enough for a total feeling of comfort. We took a taxi to the hotel (which I discovered was not in the best location :( ), to settle in the room for a bit. After braving the cold to get a bite for lunch, we spent the evening with an ex-colleague and old friend enjoying the night view of New York as seen from across the river at Hoboken. Also included was dinner at a Japanese restaurant featuring a Hibachi show.

At Hoboken

New York Day 2:

We assumed our tourist avatars and went off reasonably bright and early on Day 2. The one saving grace of the hotel in spite of its slightly sad location was that they had a shuttle service to Times Square. Our first stop at NY was weirdly enough Starbucks as it was c-o-o-o-l-d! Waited in line for the 3+$ coffee (will not complain about CD prices again at least ;)), and hot chocolates for the kids, and then set out to see the American Museum of Natural History. Why we chose this one - it features in The Night at the Museum (that the kids had seen on TV) so they knew about some of the exhibits already :P. Plus I didn't think the kids would really understand or enjoy the art museums all that much. 

Yes yes dinosaurs again :)

Strike a pose!

I forgot to mention an interesting incident at the ticket counter - the lady at the counter told us that we could pay "whatever" we wanted to as we reached in the afternoon and wouldn't get a full day there. Needless to say, we were completely flabbergasted and had to have a quick discussion to arrive at a decent sounding figure. There was so much to see, and to do it some amount of justice we stayed until closing which was about 5:30. Then it was time to head off to find some dinner and hit Times Square in time for the bright lights and displays :).

The standard Times Square photo :)

We didn't hang around too long as we had an early start the next morning for our Niagara Tour.. more on that in my next entry, and caught the shuttle back to the hotel.