We haven’t seen Jack Bauer yet, but it’s felt like a season-long adventure. There’s just so much to take in all at once. We’ve seen so much culture and diversity in a short period of time, it’s almost overwhelming.
Our flight was delayed an hour because of weather conditions at LGA. Weather conditions between ATL and there weren’t so hot either. Haven’t felt that much turbulence since Brad left Jen for that chick from Hackers. Finally made it to the city, but we have a 30 minute delay before we landed. And we land. And we have another 20 minute delay before the gate is open.
By the time we get our luggage and get out the door, we figure we’ll just hail a cab and head to the hotel. Not quite. There’s a taxi stand so we head toward the light. We then realize the line of people beside us weren’t just waiting. They were waiting for the same taxi stand. Another 30 minutes. We finally deciphered the address for the taxi driver, and were on our way.
The taxi ride wasn’t as exciting as hoped - riding with Adam is more of a thrill ride, honestly. We arrived at the hotel without event, just a little traffic and rain (are you sure we’re not still in Atlanta?)
The hotel is easy to spot, and after lugging everything up two flights of stairs and checking in, we finally settled in. After a little map checking, we set off to find food. We’re situated right between Little Italy and Chinatown, so there were a couple of options - chinese and italian. We wandered a little through Chinatown, as it’s hard to miss the bright colors, lots of signage, and unique offerings. Not quite ready to jump into something a little too exotic after such a long day, we hit the first italian place we saw. Nothing fancy, but good food, and a nice place to relax.
We finished dinner and wandered a little more through Chinatown, found what’s left of Little Italy, and stopped in a tiny Asian grocery store to grab some snacks for the room. We both got some unique crackers, candy, and tea (and some Coke - it’s kind of hard to come by up here).
Back at the room, we settled in for our first night in NY in our clean, sparse room on our slightly bumpy and stiff mattress (and $100 less a night than anywhere else). We slept til about 2pm and headed out for food. We stopped at a corner pizzeria for lunch and headed on towards Soho.
It’s a good thing we have bills to pay, or we’d have blown a mint in Soho. Every designer has a little boutique - it’s like mini 5th Avenue. We went to see St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral - absolutely gorgeous and built in 1809, second Cathedral in America and the first for the Archdiocese of New York.
We then continued on to visit the Guggenheim Modern Art site - it was on the map and on Google, however the fact that it’s relocated didn’t make it that far 
We headed back to the room as it was getting a little wetter out and we needed to decide where we were going for food. We found a lovely Cuban restaurant via the New York Times, Cubana Cafe. It was quiet, cozy, and the food and drinks were both served quickly and perfectly prepared. Adam says he hasn’t had anything close since Miami. All I know is it was delicious, warm, and just what we needed after running through the rain for several blocks and traversing the subway for the first time on our trip.
The rain had let up, so we decided to walk back instead of going up and down multiple wet staircases to take the metro less than a mile. Another exhausting day, but well worth it - exploring the city for four hours is much more exciting than sitting in coach for that long 
More to come…
adam&lydia