Blue, Red, Orange and Green Lines

For the most part, I’ve got the subway system down.  Everyone’s kind of been looking to me to lead us around.  My subway map is completely torn to shreds from use, so I really wish I had gotten a new one before we left the city.  When I was in New York last month, my friends and I stayed at a hotel about three blocks from Times Square, so we walked everywhere and didn’t bother with the subway.  It seems like such an integral part of living in the city, so I’m glad I utilized it this time around.

Empire State of Mind

It was my suggestion that we go to the Empire State Building at night to avoid the tourist lines and see the city lights.  It’s such a beautiful sight up there.  I happen to love heights, so any attraction that we went to that allowed to me to go to the top of something, I was all over.  We stepped onto an escalator to get to the second floor, hopped into a pre-programmed elevator to take us the the 80th floor, and transfered into another elevator to take us to the 86th floor.  It was chilly and you could feel the building sway a little with the wind.  We caught a taxi back to the hotel after.  No one really wanted to walk all those blocks back at 2 in the morning.

30 Rock

After seeing Liberty Island with the whole family, we all broke into smaller groups.  James and Eva had a date night. They had reservations to eat at Ninja. Chelse and Hilda wanted to go the Guggenheim and Victor and I wanted to go to Top of the Rock.  We could see Radio City Music Hall from the second floor and read that the Tony’s would be taking place inside it while we were in New York.  Cool.  I don’t remember how many stories we went up, but the elevator ride inside the Rock was awesome.  The top of it was clear, so you could see lights and a video all the way up.  The view was amazing.  It looked over Central Park and there were other escalators that you could take to go up two more floors.  Victor and I managed to get a couple of photos of us with the Chrysler Building behind us.

You Look Lost

I’m far from a girl scout.  Anyone who has ever traveled with me knows this.  I wait to pack until the last minute, I never have cash on me, and I’m absolutely horrible with directions.  Thankfully, we only managed to get ourselves lost once.  We were supposed to meet Chelse and Hilda for dinner (they ended up eating at Spice, a restaurant couple of blocks away from The Standard), but we missed our subway stop, had to get back on an uptown car, drop our stuff of at the hotel, and track a taxi down after we left Top of the Rock.  By the time Victor and I got to the restaurant, Chelse and Hilda were already seated at a table for two.  We had stopped at a gyro cart while we at Rockefeller Center, so weren’t all that hungry and just met up with them at the hotel before walking the thirty plus blocks to the Empire State Building.

Adventures from the Lone Star Bird

Time | Approximately 9:30 p.m.

Location | Chicago, IL

It’s been roughly 43 hours since Victor, Hilda, and I picked Chelse (and 27 bags of luggage) up from her house in Edinburg.

Within those 43 hours, we’ve driven to San Antonio, loaded into the Texas Eagle, took a bus from just north of San Antonio to Fort Worth, made friends with a brother and sister duo from Dallas (DJ and Alexis), and ate more peanut butter and jelly sandwiches than I’ve eaten in the last 10 years. I’m not the biggest PB&J fan, but I’m actually really glad that we packed a loaf of white bread and a jar of Goober with us because the cafe car on the train is ridiculously overpriced.  $6.50 for a microwaved hot dog?! $3.00 for a bag of chips?! I’d much rather munch on the free expired snack packs Amtrak so graciously offered us.

We’ve just arrived in Chicago and are all writing blog entries from the Chicago Union Station Metropolitan Lounge.  Our next train is set to depart from Chicago at 9:30 tonight.  Fingers crossed that we’ll stay on schedule. The washed out tracks in Texas put us about 5 hours behind.  It cut into our Chicago-exploring time (we originally had a 7 hour layover), but at least we won’t miss our connecting ride to the Big Apple.  I have a meal and the Lakeshore Limited rocking me to sleep to look forward to this evening.