Susan Bucher: Our Cruise and NY

So, the Thursday after the wedding Daniel and I left JoAnn with his parents and flew to New York where we jumped on a boat that was headed for St. John's, Canada. We were off to celebrate our 5th year anniversary and also Daniel's 30th birthday. Never heard of St. John's? Neither had I, but Daniel had really wanted to go on a cruise and he had been planning on seeing a friend in New York. So I suggested we combine the two and go on a cruise out of New York and that just happened to be where the cruise was headed. I'm not sure I would say Canada was the most exciting place I have ever been, but I will say it was wonderful to spend a few days alone with Daniel. He has been talking since before we were married about going on a cruise and I have been putting it off since it sort of ranks right under bridges on my list of things I am afraid of. Somehow, I managed to get over my fear and we set sail for a few days. I really loved the alone time with Daniel, but the cruise was a little disappointing. This is one of the only pictures I have from those couple days because we pretty much just ended up in our room watching the free movie channels they had most of the time. I don't know why we thought it would be different, but the weather was relatively cold for us (60's most of the time feels freezing when you are used to 80's all the time) and also it was pretty crowded. That I don't know why we didn't expect a crowd since there is only so much room on a boat, but it kind of took us by surprise. Anyway, while we were in Canada I really wanted to get a picture of us by something kind of neat in the town and the only thing we found was a statue of a moose, but when the lady handed the camera back to me and I went to look at it later, she never actually took a picture. So, instead we settled for a picture of the two of us by the boat.

Alright, so I don't sound so negative about the cruise when I really did have fun, here are some of the highlights: spending as much time alone with Daniel as I wanted for 4 days, free food anytime we wanted including desert which is always huge for me, 3 free movie channels 24 hours a day, and sleeping in every day. Oh and one last thing about the cruise, I think a terrible trend has started for us. The only two vacations Daniel and I have taken with just the two of us are our honeymoon and this trip. The day we got married Ronald Reagan died and that was pretty much all the news talked about on our honeymoon. The day we got to New York, Farrah Fawcett died and so did Michael Jackson, which of course, is all the news talked about during our trip. I don't know, it just seemed a little ironic to me.

After the cruise we stayed in New York for two more nights so Daniel could spend some time with his friend Jon (and also since Jon offered to take Daniel to a Yankees game if we stayed). Our cruise arrived in port on Monday around 8 AM, so we had pretty much two full days in the city. I have been wanting to go there for some time and I couldn't wait to see the city, so with a little nagging from me, we checked into our hotel (which was the W, right across from the Waldorf Astoria) and headed right back out the door to start sight seeing. That first day we saw a ton, just to name a few things we walked around Central Park (probably my favorite thing we did), saw the UN, went to Time Square and saw Rockefeller Plaza. I feel like I am forgetting some stuff that we saw since we walked pretty much all day, but that is most of it. The second day, we walked to Grand Central and took the subway to Wall Street and saw the World Trade Center area. We thought about going over to Battery Park to see the Statue of Liberty too, but since our cruise went right by it and Ellis Island and I was getting tired from all the walking, we just decided to go back to the hotel and rest for a few hours before we went to what I'm positive had to be the biggest highlight of the entire trip for Daniel. That night we went to the new Yankee Stadium and saw a game. The new stadium was amazing and we had SO much fun being there. I loved the time in New York and really would love to go back sometime to do even more in the city. There really is so much going on all the time that I think I could spend a week there and only get through about 1/3 of the things on my to do list. I had talked to a few people before we went and some of them mentioned that it was a big city with people everywhere and that it can be a little overwhelming at times, but to be honest after living in Manila for 4 years, I was just happy that I was actually able to blend into the crowds and I was also amazed at how they were able to keep the city relatively clean and that you could get around fairly easily. I know there is a lot of traffic in there, but it has nothing on Manila traffic.

Okay, enough talk about New York, here are some of the pictures...
Central Park....

Us with Jon at the UN (standing near the Filipino flag of course)...

Yankee Stadium...

I just had to add these to the post also. Like I said earlier JoAnn stayed with Daniel's parents while we were gone and one night she went over to spend some time with some of her cousins. These are pictures from that night that my sister-in-law took. I just thought they were adorable and had to put them up...