Friday, May 23, 2008

Free Day and Last Day






Because of the difficulty of predicting the weather on this trip (rain to sunshine to rain could occur within a half-hour period), we decided to cancelled the planned trip to the CBS Morning Show in lieu of a little extra sleep and freeing up the entire morning for our free day.
By it’s nature, the free day is impossible to fully explain since every student and parent has a different experience in the city. Today’s activities included trips to various museums, lots of shopping, several different Broadway shows (Little Mermaid, Legally Blonde, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof), delicious meals, tours of NBC Studios and even tickets to a Yankee game for a few of us.
Students had a wide variety of stories of their day, and all seemed pretty well satisfied with their accomplishments.
This morning we left the Hotel just after 9, and headed to the City Hall/Brooklyn Bridge Subway station (an N,R,W train to Union Park with a transfer to the 4,5, or 6 train away from our Hotel at 47th Street) for a nice walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. The trek was a bit chilly as the winds were heavy and the air dense because of an impending rain storm. The crossing was pleasant, and as we entered Brooklyn we weaved our way around the DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass) area to Jacques Torres for some candy and some extraordinary hot chocolates (the expresso was nice too, but I try not to encourage MS girls from getting into the expresso habit)
Next we headed toward the Fulton Street Landing where our favorite ice cream shop usually helps cool us off a bit (we didn’t really need cooling today, but we were looking forward to the bathrooms at the ice cream shop), but found it closed instead. On the deck near the shop was an amazing display from the people at telectroscope.org with a fibre optic link between the Tower Bridge in London, and us at the
Brooklyn Bridge. The students stood at what is essentially a giant camera shutter while looking at a live image of people doing the same on the other side of the pond. Both groups wrote messages to each other on whiteboards (all pleasant I might add) and wondered at the oddness of the whole idea. Local media was there in droves (it was the first day of the exhibit and today will also mark the celebration of the 125th Anniversary of the Bridge’s completion (I would like to say that I planned that, but it just happened to be the day that we put for the crossing)
We next made the trek to the subway station and caught an A train to 14th Street, where we transferred to a D train, and then transferred again at 34th onto an N, R, W train, which then dropped us right back at our hotel.
Everyone then had almost 2 hours to enjoy just a little extra time around Time Square, and get a meal before we caught our bus out to LaGuardia. Currently our flight is delayed one hour, hopefully we will be getting out of here soon.










NY 1 Article on Brooklyn Bridge Celebration.

Hey, It is you!





NY Times Article


You also made the BBC News as well...Here is the story with the video.

There are two websites for the Telectroscope project...one Here and the other Here

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Day 4

The day started with a trip down to the Battery for the journey out to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.






...and then we headed uptown to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.


Tonight we also attended Phantom of the Opera at the Majestic...no pictures of that....yet.

Monday, May 19, 2008

Day 3






Today was another busy day.  We started the morning on the move as Kim, our city guide, lead us on a three hour tour of the city featuring Central Park.

After the park we moved south through Mid-Town, and then down to the southern end of the Island for a look at Ground Zero (We will do it more in depth tomorrow).







We then caught the subway back up to Rockefeller Center where we toured Radio City Music Hall, and then went to the "Top of the Rock"...the observation platforms atop Rockefeller Center.  We did this in place of The Empire State Building.  The lines are shorter, and the view is actually better because you can also see the Empire State Building from the Rock.






After that students and parents had some free time before dinner at the Heartland Chophouse Restaurant before having the rest of the evening free for shopping and site-seeing.  

Tomorrow's schedule includes the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, Ground Zero, and Phantom of the Opera.

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Day 2...The Arts Day

Busy day with a primary focus on the Arts. We started the day at the New Dance Group studio at 38th and 8th, where students participated in a variety of different exercises with their instructor Aubrey.


We then headed up to Lincoln Center for a solo performance with Mary Illes, a broadway actress and singer. We then toured Lincoln Center, a 16 acre, multi-venue performance center on the upper east side.(and an impressive one at that...they were hosting 5 major performances today including a ballet and the National Choral Recital)



After a dinner at Junior's we headed to the Amsterdam Theater where we watched Mary Poppins. Everyone seems to have enjoyed it quite a bit.







Tomorrow it is the bus tour of the city.

Saturday, May 17, 2008

WE ARE THERE



Well, we made it to New York....here is what I wrote really, really early.


Day 1....sort of

4:20 A.M. and I cannot sleep so I might as well update everyone on the plan of the day. I think we are somewhere over Ohio about now, but really, I just know that we are in the air for about two hours more.

Before we left LAX I had a talk with Mitch (our TD) and he informed me that the other group would not be arriving until about 6 P.M. so we would have a great deal of freedom today to see the city as a much smaller group. The ideas for that have been flooding my head. Since it is raining (or it is supposed to be all day Saturday) in NYC I was thinking about some activities that could move us indoors a bit.

I still like breakfast at Grand Central Terminal. That always sets such a nice tone for the first day, and with the addition of the store my wife and I discovered last summer, it could really be something extraordinary.

Breakfast at GCT was nice, but the store didn't open until 10 A.M. and we were just too early.

After that I am thinking about a trip down to the Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace Museum on 20th at Broadway. To those who haven’t been there, that may sound a bit odd, but it really is a wonderful slice of what NYC was like in the 1800s and early 1900s.

We did it, and except for being very tired, everyone said they enjoyed it.

If the rain lets up we will have to see about a trip to Ground Zero, and maybe across the Brooklyn Bridge (always a good thing to do before everyone’s feet get too tired). It might be a little to wet for ice cream at the bridge, so maybe we will go get some hot chocolate at Jacque Torres.

That just didn't happen. By the time we were finished with the TR House it was nearly lunch time, so we headed down to Bleecker Street in the Village where we ate quite a variety of foods...after lunch, we headed back to the hotel where some rested and others cleaned up.


The students are all pretty much asleep right now (they will be happy for that later today).

Apparently dinner is scheduled at a new place (for EF tours) down in China Town...I will report on that after we try it out. China Town on night one is a good way to fully make clear to the students that we are really not in Apple Valley anymore.
It was very good, but the students ate pretty quickly, and then shopped for a little while on Canal Street.


A group of us made the trip up to the Apple Store at 59th and 5th, and we just returned to the hotel.

Here is the link to the Time Square Webcam

If you check the archive at about 9:30 P.M. you will see some of the ladies in Time Square.






Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Trip Blog for the 2008 NYC Trip

This site will provide you with valuable information for preparing for the 2008 trip to New York City (For those new to the page, this has changed recently to a NYC only trip)