Doing the Tourist Thing..

I happen to live really close to NYC...about a 50 minute train ride or if traffic isn't too bad it can take me just a little over an hour to drive into the city depending on the time of day. And I actually go quite often to the city...but mostly for work or to play basketball (I play with my company team in a NYC league). But I don't really go that often to just hang out or do the tourist thing...

But a couple of weeks ago, a couple of friends of mine..Myra and Amy...stopped in NY on their way back from Europe before heading home to Utah. It was a lot of fun having friends in town.

Of course...I still had to work while they were here...So, I went to work early and they got a ride into the city with me and I would meet up with them after I put in a few hours at work.

What was great was that I actually saw a bunch of things in NY I've never been too...And here are some of the pictures!

Me at the New York Stock Exchange...I thought it was fitting since I like money so much and that's basically what it's all about.. :) We walked around the financial district. Saw ground zero, wall street, etc.

Myra and Amy trying to figure out what to do next...we were wondering around wall street trying to find the Joseph Smith statue they have had up in NY for the past little while. I think this might have been the last week it was there...anyway we eventually found it...

After taking pictures of the JS statue..by the way..the statue was there to commemorate the 200 years since his birth (I think it's pretty cool that they would have a statue of Joseph Smith in the middle of NYC)...So yeah...afterwards we headed towards the Staten Island ferry...but took a detour at Burritoville (very good!!).

Amy and I on the Staten Island Ferry. The cool thing about the ferry is that it is free!!! In a city where everything is so freaking expensive...i think it's pretty great that they actually have a ferry that is FREE! :)

And you even get a pretty good view of the Statue of Liberty! This was actually my first time seeing the Statue of Liberty! In all the millions of times I've been to the city, I've never been down towards lower manhattan.

I was really wishing I had a better camera when I was trying to take pictures of the Statue...espescially on my way back when there was no light outside at all. This was the best one that I got.

Me and Myra on the Ferry....I definitely recommend the Staten Island Ferry to anyone that visits NY!

This is a picture of Lower Manhattan on the Ferry ride back.

The next day after work, I met up with Myra and Amy and we went to Lombardi's Pizza. I heard about it from a couple of people and read about it on the internet. They claim to be the first pizza place in NY and it's been around for about 100 years or so...Anyway, the pizza was fantastic! And it was a really decent price also!

Then we hit up "rice to riches" which is right accross the street from Lombardi's. It's a rice pudding place..it has ALL different kinds of flavors! I was never really a rice pudding fan...but this place was good!! I tried some of the pina colada flavor and mango flavor with some toasted coconut on top! Yum!!!! The only thing....it's a little on the pricy side! But a good treat! :)

And if any of you are Dave Letterman fans...you'll recognize where this picture is taken! Rupert was inside...! He must love Dave for making him so famous.

So...that was the first set of friends I've had visit and that I was able to show around! :) It was a lot of fun...the question is...who's next??? :)