New York was fantastic! The first three nouns I can think of to describe New York are culture, lights, and energy. I know this blog is primarily about the West Coast but I have to give my East Coast followers some kudos for you have the liveliest and fastest paced city I have ever been to. Let’s just say I think I fell in love with your city. Everything from the food to the happy hours was extraordinary. I was only in the city for a couple of day which of course wasn’t enough time but, you bet I made the most of those 2 days.

First, I took the train from Rocklin County into Grand Central Station. The station is gorgeous and was crowded with passengers frantically trying to catch their trains, or patiently waiting for their New Yorker relatives or friends to come by and pick them up. We right away jumped into tourist mode and tried to see as much as we could in one day: Rockefeller, The Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, Radio City, Little Italy and the beautiful Natural History Museum. Of course along the way we stopped for some good eats like Shake Shack for a burger, Junior’s for Cheese Cake, and Capitale Grille.

The following day was all about good ol’ Time Square we went there at night and I walked it with a great friend during the day. We also managed to find our way down to the financial district almost getting lost in the subway system due to weekday closures. My friend was in the market for an apartment and while we were down there we visited one that was facing onto ground zero. Almost 10 year later and you can still feel the emotion and pain of that day. I don’t think there is a single New Yorker who didn’t lose someone or knew of someone who lost. It was very powerful. After we paid our respects we headed down to Wall Street where I saw the building in which our first USA President was inaugurated. I love the old buildings and coblt stone roads we ended up stopping at Ulysses for a bite and then proceeded to hop back on the subway and walked to Dallas BBQ for some well deserved drinks. After all that I went back to grand central, headed up north. While on the train I was going through all of my pictures, and I remember thinking to myself, “This is the first of many trips to the big apple.”