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Here’s how we spent 24 hours in New York City, you can read about our first day in New York City here!
On our second day, Saturday, we meant to start our day a few hours earlier, but we were so tired from the day before that we pushed things back and took some things out of the itinerary. For breakfast we got bagels from a place near our hotel, then took the bus and subway over to the 9/11 memorial and museum. We first visited the Memorial pools and then went into the museum.
We got into the museum and spent a few hours looking at everything. They offer an audio tour but we opted to just go through it ourselves. It was a really interesting experience and I learned lots about things that happened before and after 9/11. They had lots of things that were saved from the towers, which were really interesting to see.
We spent more time here than we planned but it was so worth it. This was a really interesting museum and I’d love to go back someday to spend even more time looking through everything.
After, we headed over to the Staten Island Ferry but first stopped to take a picture with the Bull of Wall Street. This was way busier than I thought it would be but we were able to get decent pictures.
We kept walking down to the Ferry. The Staten Island Ferry is totally free and it offers a good look at the Statue of Liberty. We timed it pretty well and only had to wait about 5 minutes to get on the boat. No ticket or anything was needed, we basically just joined the crowd of people and hopped on the boat, super simple. We didn’t do any research besides looking at the ferry schedule so I’m glad it was simple, but I figured it would be. Luckily we chose the right side of the boat to sit on and got pretty decent views of the Statue of Liberty.
Once we got to Staten Island, we had to get off the boat and run to catch the next one back. Tons of people on the boat were running through the terminal to get to the boat which was pretty fun. Were pretty fast walkers so we made it there on time!
When we got back to Manhattan, we stopped at a food truck for a quick lunch, then got on the train to head to Queens. We went to Astoria to visit the Museum of Moving Image! Specifically, we went to visit the Jim Henson exhibit. We got there at the perfect time because they had a Jim Henson tour starting in 5 minutes! We bought tickets for that and had a great time on the tour.
I tried to not look up what they had before hand so I could be surprised and I’m so glad. They had tons of stuff that I was super excited to see. I was especially excited to see some of Jim Henson’s original story boards, the Kermit used in Muppets take Manhattan, and Rowlf (my favourite muppet).
We went through the Jim Henson exhibit twice and then looked through the other parts of the museum. Even though it’s a bit off the beaten path for most tourists, if you’re into movies (or Jim Henson/the muppets) I definitely recommend checking out this museum.
After our time at the museum, we headed back on the train. We got off at Grand Central Station to look at the architecture and Christmas decor. It was beautiful! They also had a Christmas market going on, but it was too busy for us to look through.
At this point we were super tired and getting sick of all the crowds in New York. So we got on the bus and went back to Jersey. We decided to check out the American Dream mall, the 2nd largest mall in the US and 3rd largest in North America (I’ve already been to the top 2 haha). The parking lot was SO full but when we eventually found a spot we went in and our first stop was the Oreo Cafe. We both got milk shakes which were super delicious.
We checked out the indoor ice skating rink, and then did some shopping. We spent about two hours here and forgot to check out the amusement park haha. We were very tired after two full days in New York, but I’m sure we’ll be back someday. We got back to our hotel and packed up so we were ready to leave nice and early in the morning.
Our Last Day
Well, we thought we would get home this day, but the universe had other plans. We made it about two hours before we pulled over at a McDonalds in Pennsylvania. When we pulled into the parking lot our car made a horrible sound but we got our food anyways and hoped for the best. When we tried to start it and drive a bit to see if it still made the sound it wouldn’t even go, we couldn’t even park it without having the emergency break on. We looked at it and decided there was no hope.
Our first plan was to get it tow’d somewhere and rent a car so that we could get home the same day and then come back to get the car next weekend. But then we found a mechanic who said he could possibly get it done that day. So we got a tow truck, and towed the car 20 mins to the mechanic.
After looking at it the mechanic figured our front right CV Axle needed replaced, but he didn’t have the part and couldn’t get the part in till the next day. We decided to just book a hotel nearby and get an Uber to the hotel. We spent that night in and ordered pizza, hoping our car would be fixed the next day.
His goal was to have it fixed by our check out time so we could get home at a decent hour. Unfortunately the auto parts shop delivered the wrong part, so it took way longer than expected. We spent pretty much the whole day waiting at the mechanic. Luckily, by 5:30 pm the car was fixed and it wasn’t as expensive as we thought! We were on our way again with no more car troubles and made it home late that night!
