New York photos

Click below to see our pictures from New York City. Luckily, we visited before the transit strike, otherwise all the pictures would be of La Guardia Airport!

http://rlozado.freeshell.org/album/Vacations/NYC2005/index.html

How To See New York in Two Days

To celebrate our 5th anniversary, Ryan and I spent the weekend in New York City. Thanks to our friends and tour guides, Stacey and Shiran, we saw three of the five boroughs and got acquainted with Manhattan. I guess as a sign of our current media-obsessed society, we recognized many of the landmarks and buildings from various movies and television shows. Of course, that makes it all the more interesting when see one of those movies or shows and can say we've been there.

Here's a list of what we saw:

Friday: Grand Central Station, Chinatown, Wall Street, the New York Stock Exchange, the Federal Reserve, City Hall, the Merrill Lynch Bull, Ground Zero of the World Trade Center, Serendipity 3 (restaurant featured in the movie "Serendipity" and one of Rachael Ray's Food Network Shows), and the Brooklyn Bridge. We also took driving tours of the Bronx, Manhattan and Brooklyn, including a short visit with Shiran's parents in Brooklyn's Russian/Jewish neighborhood.

Saturday: the "Today Show" (we actually made it on TV), Rockefeller Center, Hyde Park, The New York City Library (as seen in "Ghostbusters" and "The Day After Tomorrow"), St. Patrick's Cathedral, Fox News Studio (we saw them taping), the Empire State Building, Radio City Music Hall, Trump Tower (where the "Apprentice" is filmed), Herald Square, Times Square, the famed windows at Macy's, FAO Schwartz (including the huge piano Tom Hanks danced on in "Big"), a giant Toys 'R Us with a ferris wheel inside, a three-story Disney Store, Central Park and the apartment of a friend who lives in Manhattan (great view from the roof). We also ate lunch at "Prime Burger", one of Sarah Jessica Parker's favorite diners.

Ryan's favorite moment: Seeing Campbell Brown, an anchor on the "Today Show"
Jana's favorite moment: Seeing the Gutenberg Bible at the New York City Public Library
Most somber moment: Seeing Ground Zero at the World Trade Center
Best food: Tie between Frozen Hot Chocolate from "Serendipity 3" and a knish (a potato pastry) from a street vendor

We are exhausted, but we had a fabulous time. Maybe someday we'll get to go back and take Sydney with us. Of course, we'll have to schedule in some "down time" and we definitely won't be able to walk as much as we did this weekend (probably about 10 miles total).

A HUGE thanks to our hosts, Stacey and Shiran. Without them, we'd still be down in the subway tunnels trying to figure out where to go and what to do.

Christmas Games

Here are a couple of fun Christmas games. The snowflake game is quite addicting and be sure to turn up the sound on the snowglobe one.

http://www.popularfront.com/snowdays/

http://www.i-am-bored.com/bored_link.cfm?link_id=14224


Merry Christmas!

Child of the Digital Age

It dawned on us yesterday that Sydney is the epitome of a child of the digital age. Not only will she never know life without the Internet, but she will also never know what it is like to have to wait to see a photo developed.

We took several pictures of her in front of our Christmas tree in hopes of capturing one good enough for our Christmas card. Several of the pictures were blurry because after saying "cheese" for two seconds, she ran toward us to see the result while the shutter was still in play. "See picture," she demanded after each shot was taken.

I remember the days when my parents would take one or two shots with the traditional camera having no idea how beautiful or horrific they would turn out. And then we would have to wait until the roll of film was full in order to find out; that could take up to three months. By then, we'd forgotten all about the pictures at the beginning of the roll. You know the kind I'm talking about: the pictures from that summer's vacation or the standard Easter picture with eyes that were red or half closed. When I look back at them now, they're not the prettiest pictures, but they're usually my favorites anyway.

Maybe when Sydney gets older, I'll pull out my old 35mm camera and let her take a few pictures that can't automatically be airbrushed or touched up. Of course, I'd have to be able to find that ancient thing called "film" first.