new york, new york

for molly's 13th birthday, we promised her a day trip to new york city with her best friend. we went on thursday. the city itself is amazing with an energy not easily described - the colorful people, the cabs, the buildings, the tremendous amount of activity... (blurry shot intended. hard to describe crazy, quivering, wondering, wild city without a blurred photo of same!)

we were exceedingly tourist-y this time around, beginning with lunch at the hard rock cafe. our waiter was cool (called me "baby girl," his tip increased by 10% simply because of the endearment) and we were off to the wax museum.

i won't bore you with too much of the waxy stuff, but it was pretty cool. here is our first shot of the girls with louis armstrong -- they were more excited when they saw stars like usher, but for the most part, they posed seriously campy with most of the pop figures. i was more excited when i saw Pope John II and Nelson Mandella (oh, okay...and Johnny Depp!) i was thrilled to act like i was friends with ernest hemmingway, however...

afterward, we went to one of the coolest make-up places around -- sephora. jimbo found his way to a record store while the girls looked at girlie makeup things and i found my way to the perfume area (love smells, did i ever mention that?) after being in there for a bit, we went outside and found ourselves being talked into a city-wide bus tour - 2 1/2 hours in length, takes you through manhattan and the outskirts like soho, greenwich village, brooklyn, little italy, chinatown...we could get off whenever we wanted at a designated stop and every 15 minutes a new bus comes along that you can re-board. not a bad deal.

we got off in soho :) and got bombarded by men selling "rolex watches" and "buds..." hooboy. found a vendor we liked and shopped a bit at a flea market, then it was back on the bus and through the rest of the city.

we went through the area where the twin towers were - our guide informed us that the media calls it "ground zero," new yorkers refer to it as the world trade center. it was very sobering, regardless of how it is referred to...we went through wall street, the seaport, and by the brooklyn bridge, which was also really neat to see in person. it reminded me, of course, of woody allen's "manhattan" -

did i mention i saw woody allen, too?

i am uploading some of my pics onto flickr - if you are interested in browsing them. they are nowhere near as good as all my photography friends i have met (in fact james - i took some shots of clouds and thought of you because of your beautiful panoramic shots you do...i could have used your help!)

it was an incredible day that ended with us going, again, to yet another touristy place: planet hollywood. it would have been non-descript were it not for the fact that marykate & ashley walked in behind us, and the two boys that are in a horrid disney show "the sweet life of zack & cody" were also in the building. i thought molly was going to faint dead away and she even tried to weasel her way up to the private party they were involved with, signing autographs.

to no avail.

we figured that was as good a time as any to end the day :)

next time, we are going strictly to the village and doing things that are off the beaten path -- the seaport looked amazing, too.

anyone want to go with?