new york, new york!

The husband and I took an impromptu trip to the big apple on account of Ms. Yvonne Strahovski was suddenly slated to be at the New York Comic Con.  Seeing as he runs a big Strahovski fansite and New York is only a 4 hour drive away, of course that meant we had to go!

We hit the road Friday at 5 am in order to avoid rush hour traffic in DC and Baltimore.  We stopped at one of the oh-so-convenient Jersey turnpike stops (Sunoco and Cinnabon have to be making serious money off their exclusive deal) at 8 am to get breakfast, support Sunoco, and call the hotel and beg for an early check-in.  A nice lady at the front desk assured us it would be no problem.

After un-eventful traffic all the way up, we hit stop-and-go traffic once we took our exit in Jersey.  It was actually a relief, it meant I had time to figure out which lane to be in and inch my way over – and I didn’t end up accidentally driving through the Lincoln tunnel, which was my biggest worry about the drive up.  I have a very strict NO-DRIVING-in-New-York-City policy.

We found the hotel, checked in, and slept for a few hours before heading into the city.  We had a long day ahead of us – tickets to a show that evening – so we wanted to make sure we were up to the challenge.

As the husband put his shoes on in the hotel as we were preparing to head out, he informed me that he had never eaten a hot dog from one of those New York hot dog stands.  I assured him that we could remedy that quite easily.

We bought ferry tickets from the concierge – tickets that he pulled out of his pocket – and made our way to the ferry landing just outside the hotel.  As we were waiting for the ferry, the husband noticed that our tickets had come from a ticket 10-ride pack, and had a face value of $1.50 LESS than what the concierge had charged.  Which explained why he seemed to be pushing the ferry on us, and only gave us a bus schedule and pointed out the bus stop after I requested such information.  (Thank goodness for hotel reviews!  Otherwise I wouldna known about the bus …)

We landed at the 39th street pier and walked the long way around the Javits Center to find the front doors.  We picked up our Comic Con badges, then since it was only 30 minutes till they opened the doors, we stood in line to check out the vendor room.

After a quick jaunt around the vendor tables, we headed out to the city.

We walked our way to the Rockefeller Center, but not without passing several hot dog stands.  We stopped and got some dogs and bottled water, so now the husband can now say he’s had a New York City hot dog!  And it was not nearly so exciting as he had hoped.  It was, however, the cheapest meal we bought on our trip …