NY Bound

On Sunday, February 17, Tara and I left EARLY that morning to the Big Apple for a mission trip.  Yes, a mission trip.  The purpose of the mission trip was to help Ken Welborn, who heads up the Foreign Service Fellowship, and works with ambassadors of the United Nations.  He is in an office and has no administrative support.  

We worked Monday - Thursday from 8-5 doing computer and any other office support he needed.  The Foreign Service Fellowship puts together an Easter dinner and our goal was to get the invitations out and give him any other support for that dinner while we were there.  Last year, I had the opportunity to attend the dinner and it was such an awesome event.

This was Tara's first time to the big city, so we were hoping to get as much sight seeing in on Sunday as we could.  It happened to be one of the windiest I have ever experienced which didn't do well for the landing - we both weren't doing so good after that.

We survived the taxi to the hotel, grabbed some lunch (Tara was already learning the lack of Southern hospitality of there - they aren't mean, but they want your answer quick), grabbed our subway pass and headed out to see the big city.

Catching the subway

First stop was Battery Park to see the Statue.  Yeah, we were about blown away and Tara quickly found the Gray Line tour bus people and asked the details - SOLD!!  After our World Trade Center tour and of course a Starbucks we were ready for the tour bus.  The WTC tour was an awesome experience and something I had never done.  My first trip to NY when I was about 23, we had lunch on the top of the one of the towers, which is always a great memory.

Since it was so cold we were thankful for the tour bus and thankful that the top was covered.  It was still cold but not unbearable.  The bus took us all around lower manhattan and pointed out all of the major sites.  It was very enjoyable and a great way to see the city when you don't have a lot of time.

2 hours later we jumped off the bus and headed to Canal Street to try and find a bargain or 2.  After a long walk following a lady to get a great bargain to find out she only had pictures, we were ready for dinner.  My favorite - Little Italy.  I could eat Italian every night!!  Mulberry Street is where they all are and they all want your business.  Thankfully we picked a great one - Paesano's.

We survived the subway back to the hotel and settled in to our room around 10:00 to get ready for a few days of office work.  Day 1 was a success and I was happy with my navigational skills - Jason usually handles all of that and I never have to worry about directions - not this time so I was a little nervous.