We woke up rather late this morning and packed our luggage (for the last time!) before getting into the car and driving to Newport.  Many hours later, we arrived at Newport and had time to tour The Breakers before heading to the airport for the return flight home.  The Breakers is an amazing mansion where the Vanderbilts lived during the summer.  The place is amazing!  You would believe how beautiful, extravegant, and rich the place is!  I couldn’t imaging living there at all–let alone just during the summer.  The location was beautiful, the rolling green hills and view of the ocean was absolutely amazing! I decided that a return trip to Newport to stay in one of the idyllic bed and breakfasts that dot the streets is in order… we’ll see how that works out. 

Sadly, after the tour of Breakers we had to head to the airport.  Despite the fact that it’s sad when any vacation ends, it was exciting to see Scott again though!

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We started out the morning by eating at Metro Cafe–it really was that good! and headed over to Central Park before the day got too hot.  We were hoping to tour the more exciting parts of the park (unlike the day before when it was nothing but trees) but I’m afraid the boys didn’t really find it any more exciting than the first part.  We did have fun though trying to guess which babies were with their nannies and which babies were with their moms.  It was a bit easy to tell when a black, Chinese, or Mexican woman would be pushing a blond haired, blue eyed baby around in a stroller.  We also saw some professional dog walkers (at least that’s what we guessed they were, seeing as no one in their right mind would own 15 dogs in a New York apartment).  It was interested to see that some of the stereotypes of New Yorkers were really true…

After getting a bit lost, and grumpy in the park we headed over to the Museum of Modern Art (or MoMA as the locals refer to it).  Although the cool air was nice, the museum got a bit boring after seeing Van Gogh’s Starry, Starry Night and some Monet water lillies.  I’m not a huge fan of modern art and the asthetic value of a completely black canvas is a bit lost on me.  (I know that I can analyze a seemingly similar work of literature to death, but this is completely different.)  It didn’t help that the audio commentary was a bit bland and banal.  Nevertheless, my Mom and Jason seemed to enjoy it a bit more–for some reason having an education in art seems to foster a greater appreciation for the art.  Go figure…

Desiring to sit down for awhile and rest our tired feet, we decided to ride the Staten Island ferry around the harbor.  We went all the way to Staten Island where the nameless speaker on the ferry requested that everyone disembark the ferry, even if they were just going to return to Manhatten.  So, we dragged ourselves off of the ferry, only to get inside the ferry and follow the directions to return down the exact same hall we just exited to make the return trip to Manhatten.  We laughed pretty hard about that; it just doesn’t make sense why we had to get off the ferry to reboard it immediately. 

After crossing back to manhatten, we picked up our luggage and got on the train to Stamford, Connecticut, where we were going to stay for the night.  This was our favorite hotel!  The beds were wonderful and they had a jacuzzi, which we thoroughly enjoyed!

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Thursday we headed out early to Yankee Stadium, as my dad wanted to tour the ball park.  We got onto a tour with a bunch of fanatic Yankee fans and had a good time seeing the ins and outs of the park.  We started out by entering the press box.  The view is fantastic from that vantage point!  From there we walked around the stadium to the memorial garden where they have a plaque and memorial for each of the hall of fame baseball players.  I can really see why they have so much pride in their baseball team–there are so many amazing players that have come from Yankee stadium.  From there we went and got to sit in the dug out on the Yankee side and walk into the dressing rooms for the Yankee players.  It was neat to see so much history and enthusiasm for the sport.  It wasn’t quite as exciting as the Boston Red sox game–probably because it lacked 40,000 fanatical fans, but still enjoyable.  However, they are building a new Yankee stadium right across the street which should open for the 2009 season.  It’s sad to see the old stadium torn down, but the new one should be pretty nice. 

 After Yankee stadium we half-heartedly looked for the dinner upon which Sienfield is based.  All we really accomplished was getting lost in Central Park and sweating a lot (it was HOT!).  So, we headed back to the hotel for a rest, while mom and dad went to wait in line at the half-price ticket booth to (hopefully) purchase tickets for a Broadway musical.  They returned (many hours later), with tickets to see The Lion King, which we were very excited about because we’d heard it was good.  After grabbing a bite to eat at our new favorite restaurant–the Metro Cafe–we walked around a bit before getting ready for the play.

The play was easily one of my favorite things we did on the trip.  It was amazing to see the costumes, scenery, and dancing that was all in the play.  We had fantasitic seats–five rows back right at center stage–and I don’t think I took my eyes off of the stage the entire night!  The Lion King is easily one of my new favorite plays; it ranks right up there with Les Miserables and The Phantom of the Opera.  After a quick walk around Times Square we headed back to the hotel for the night.�

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This morning we woke up early to head over to the Statue of Liberty and the Ellis Island.  The plan was to take the ferry, view the islands, see Ground Zero, and walk across Brooklyn Bridge, before heading back to our hotel early in the afternoon to take a nap because we were exhausted and foot-sore.  Things didn’t quite go according to plan; we didn’t make it back to our room before five o’clock.  Nevertheless, we had fun exploring the sites of New York. 

Today, after a quick run through Quincy Market to collect last minute souvenirs, we headed out of Boston towards New York City.  On the way to New York though we passed through New Haven and stopped off at Yale.  We were amazed at the architecture of the campus and buildings.  Everything is very old and gothic looking.  We walked around the dorms, through the main library, and through the rare book library where we saw a complete Guggenheim Bible.  The setting was beautiful and I started to wonder why I decided to attend ASU.  Just being around so much knowledge and history makes me feel like I need to do something meaningful with my life—something besides just living in Mesa and teaching English. 

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After Yale, we took the train into New York and dropped our luggage off at the hotel.  We headed over to the Empire State Building and took the tour around the top of the building.  We arrived at a great time because when we first got up there it was still light outside so we could see what the buildings looked like in daylight.  After we had been at the top for awhile the sun began to set and the city’s lights come on.  Besides the fact that it was packed at the top, we really enjoyed the view and narration by “Tony.”  Exhausted and ready for bed, we headed back to our hotel to get some sleep before we had to be up early the next morning. 

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