New York City | Day One

I mentioned on Monday that my Grandma, cousin, and I went to NYC over Spring Break. My grandma and I have both been dying to go back and it's not a location that Thomas is really interested in so we thought it'd be the perfect girls trip. The weather wasn't very cooperative, but we made the best of it.

Poor Duke wanted to go too!

I made the mistake of booking a 6:30am flight out of Detroit, which meant that we needed to head to the airport by 4:30am. I won't be doing that again! I like early morning flights, but that was a little too early. Not to mention that it was all for nothing since our plane got delayed two hours and then the weather in New York was crappy so flights were grounded for another hour. Oh and I should mention that we were on a pretty small hopper plane with only 50 or so seats. I have never been happier to land!

Once we landed, we caught a cab and headed to our hotel to drop off our bags. We stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn Times Square and thought it was a great home base for our trip. Once our bags were in our room and our rain boots were on we set off to explore. We also booked our CityPass, which was an awesome money saving tool this trip!

First on our agenda was visiting the 9/11 Museum and Memorial. We headed down to the Subway and made our way down there. I was so proud of myself for learning how to navigate the Subway system this trip. Typically I'm considered what one would call directionally challenged :)

I thought the museum was beautifully done. It was respectful, educational, and not too long or short. Don't plan on eating there though. The reflection pools were heartbreaking, but beautiful at the same time. It was incredible to see Ground Zero/One World Trade Center, because the last time I was in NYC was in 2006 and it was still complete rubble.

Since we were starving and it had started to rain, we walked to the nearest restaurant which happened to be O'Hara's. Decent food and we loved all of the firefighter/police patches stapled to the walls. We even found a Livonia, Michigan patch which was crazy. After eating we were all exhausted and decided to head back to the hotel for a little cat nap. It ended up being both a great idea and bad idea at the same time.

As soon as we woke up from our naps, we set out to do a little more exploring. Our first stop was St. Patrick's Cathedral. The Cathedral opened in 1879 and has been breathtakingly beautiful ever since!

From there we made our way towards Grand Central Terminal. Grand it is... I was blown away by how big it was. We walked around for a while, checking out the market and food court area. I had quite a few Gossip Girl flashbacks!

By this point we were ready to call it a night. We had walked over eight miles so we headed back to the hotel. Since our hotel was in Times Square we got our first glance of it at night!