Day 5-6: New York City

Part of the reason for our trip to the Northeast was a scouting mission. We are approaching the end of Doc’s 7 years of medical training here in Tulsa. We have a year left and it is time to think about the future. Our plans include the possibility of graduate school for me and a desire to live somewhere different for a few years.

One of the strengths of living in the Northeast is their transit system. Amtrak is awesome. Metro railways are awesome. The prospect of living a life that was not automobile dependent is intriguing.

So we decided to try it out authentically. We woke up early Thursday. We took the Metro to Union Station. We boarded a train on a platform (and I quelled my impulse to yell Harry Potter lines while dragging Little Bird along the train). Train travel is amazing. You can get up and move around. There is a food car. There is no take off and landing. Also, you don’t have to show up two hours early for your train. In fact, I was shocked at the lack of formality in train travel. We didn’t have to pass through security. We didn’t check our luggage (we loaded it on the train car with us) and the only do random ID checks. This type of travel with a child was fun. Extremely fun.

Once we arrived at Penn Station in New York (which was icky…compared to Grand Central), we took the Subway to our hotel in Times Square. Luggage on the Subway in NYC is NOT luggage on the Metro in DC. We will take cabs with luggage in the future, despite the extra cost.

We met our friend, Amanda, at our hotel and spent the rest of the day with her, and later her husband, Pat.

Suffice it to say, Little Bird and Amanda are now #1 best friends.

 

Let me say, that I am extremely happy we went to New York last fall without our daughter. Even though we had an amazing guide, we were far more comfortable in the city with her since we knew our way around a bit better than first timers.

We had to eat some New York Pizza.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Central Park

 

 

 

 

Disney Store at Times Square

 

 

I mentioned that Little Bird and Amanda are BFFs, right?

Battery Park to see the Statue of Liberty

 

 

Walking to Rockefeller Center and the NBC Store

Day 3 and 4: Washington DC, cont.

 

If you haven’t taken a Double Decker bus tour in a major city before, I highly recommend it.  We bought a 48 hour pass to use a hop on/off tour with Big Bus tours. You ride on the top of the bus where you can get a good view and the buses stop at each of the major attractions to let people on and off. Buses run about every 20 minutes, so you generally do not have to wait very long for the next bus. We spent our last two days in D.C. utilizing this tour service to get around and to see some of the sites that are a bit “out of the way”.

 

 

Union Station

 

 

The Capital Building

 

 

 

The Bus

 

 

 

Statues of Generals are everywhere.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Jefferson Memorial

Inside the Jefferson Memorial

 

 

 

 

FDR Memorial, full of waterfalls

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cherry Blossoms Everywhere

 

 

 

 

We asked Little Bird to stand like the statue of Martin Luther King, Jr.  Art is open to interpretation right?

 

 

 

The White House from the South Lawn

 

 

Snack time is important.

 

 

 

Ford’s Theater, and not pictured is “Lincoln’s Waffles” across the street.

 

 

 

The National Cathedral. This is the one place I wish we’d hopped off the bus to see, but we were all too tired by the time we got there.

 

 

 

The National Zoo

 

The Pandas

 

 

 

The Original Georgetown Cupcakes, where TLC’s DC Cupcake is filmed.

 

 

 

 

And yes, this is how we ended each day.

Day 2: Washington DC

D.C. was a blast. We had three full days and ran full speed into what the city had to offer our family.

Now, D.C. hotels are expensive. New York City expensive. I decided instead of forking over the money to stay centrally, we would find a more reasonable hotel outside of the District of Columbia located near a Metro Station with direct access to D.C. We opted for the Hilton Garden Inn at Bethesda, MD. Two blocks from the Metro and right next to Downtown Bethesda’s restaurant district.

Little Bird loved the Metro. She was very concerned about making sure we didn’t miss our stop but it was pretty much her favorite.

 

So our standard day, we would wake up, eat something quickly, and board the Metro at Bethesda Station for the 18-22 minute commute to The National Mall.

 Washington Monument covered in scaffolding due to repairs from the August 2011 earthquake in D.C.

 

 

We arrived two days after the Cherry Blossom Festival’s main festivities. The trees were still in bloom and beautiful.

 

 

World War II Memorial between the Washington Monument and Reflection Pool. This was the largest of the war memorials we visited. Trying to teach a 3 year old about being quiet and respectful in something that looks cool and echoes was difficult, but it was a beautiful memorial.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Walking along the Reflection Pool towards Lincoln.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Lincoln Memorial…

…and it’s many steps

 

 

The Smithsonian Museum of Natural History

(which is free)

It is always hard to pass up an opportunity to see dinosaurs. Little Bird’s favorite was of course, the bird statue that looked like Kevin from Up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Smithsonian’s main building was easily my favorite building in D.C. The sandstone castle was just breathtaking from every angle.

 

 

And OF COURSE we had cupcakes from a Georgetown Cupcake in Bethesda, because it was within walking distance of the hotel. It’s hard to say no to amazing cupcakes.