The Sunday Salon - Spring Break and Other Stuff

Times Square

It's been a busy week. The daughter and I visited New York for Spring Break and two of my teen bloggers did their own spring "break" and started their own blogs!

New York City
We've always wanted to visit New York. I went for a fast weekend with some friends about 6 or 7 years ago but we didn't do a lot of sightseeing. The daughter and I wanted to sightsee and visit a couple of colleges she's interested in attending.

We arrived late Saturday night, put our stuff away and walked to Times Square. It was awesome! There were so many people and so many lights. We tried a shish-kebab from one of the many carts and just people watched until we were too tired and cold!

The next day we visited The Empire State Building to pick up our NYC citypass booklet and because it took sooo long, we stayed to visit the observation deck! *sidenote: the pass is only worth it if you have a LOT of time! It doesn't get you in front of any lines so you spend a lot of time waiting which meant we didn't get to all of the things we wanted to do! And we were there for 3 full days!*

Empire State Building

The audio tour for Empire was fun and informative. 

After that we shopped and shopped! At least the daughter did! I pretty much just went along for the ride!

Statue of Liberty

Monday we got up early to head out to The Statue of Liberty Island and Ellis Island.  We did the audio tour for both those places too! It took us almost 2 hours of waiting in line to get on the ferry to Liberty Island! Plan accordingly! Or pre-order your ticket online and schedule a particular time.  Those people had a special line and got through quickly! You also have to go through a form of security. The ferry was pretty crowded but we found seats on the mid-level thankfully. It was pretty cold that day! If you do the audio, consider bringing your own headphones! We couldn't go inside the statue because they were doing renovations but we walked around a bit before taking the ferry to Ellis Island.  Check those ferry times and get there early.

The Ellis Island part of the trip was amazing. The audio tour featured people who'd come to America through the Ellis telling their own stories as well as some additional facts. There were pictures and items from the time period as well. 

Since that took up most of our day we found a place to eat then went to visit The Museum of Modern Art (The MoMa).  Afterwards we stopped by Magnolia's for cupcakes.

Tuesday was our college visiting day! Before we went to NYU though, we stopped at the Little Red Schoolhouse! We got to meet Jen Hubert Swan (@readingrants, Reading Rants), Stacy Dillon (@mytweendom, Welcome to My Tweendom) and Karyn Silverman (@infowitch, Someday My Printz Will Come) and Celeste! Not only was it amazing to meet these three phenomenal school librarians in person, their schools were outstanding as well.  It was inspiring!

New York University

We then walked/ran over to New York University for our informational meeting and tour. It was fun walking around the campus and visiting one of the dorms.  Our tour guide was on his game and kept us informed and entertained. Thankfully the day had warmed up because we spent a lot of time outside. Afterwards we headed over to Otto's for lunch (get the gelato!) and then to Columbus University.  Such a different world! Since many people go to CU for grad school, many of the students we saw were older. It was also a traditional campus with beautiful old buildings.  We couldn't get an appointment that day so we tried to do the audio tour on my phone. Unfortunately, the thing died about 1/2 way through!! We continued our walk around any way.  After a while we thought we'd head to Central Park.  We got lost somewhere and never.made.it! After a heated discussion about safety and appearances, we quickly decided to just take the subway back and decide what we wanted to do for the rest of the day.

We ended up visiting Times Square once more! Going full circle so to speak! All in all it was a great trip! We rode the subway and the bus to get around.  We felt like true New Yorkers. Can't wait to visit again!

New Blogs

My two main teen bloggers, Aneeqah and Lucy, both decided to start their blogs in the past week or so! Aneeqah (@AneeqahNSRL) now writes over at My Not So Real Life and Lucy (@KRWLucy) writes over at Keeping It Real With Lucy.  When I recruited these two, I thought they'd be here to take over The Brain Lair when I "retire" but things don't always work out the way you plan! The blogging bug bit them both! I can't wait to read more of their thoughts! Hopefully, we'll have them back here for a few guest posts! In the meantime, please check out their blogs. 

Of course, that means I need to dust off my blogging chair! I'd been taking it easy while they ran things over here!! Look for some minor changes at The Brain Lair as I get my feet wet, again!

Happy Easter everyone!