It is now almost exactly a week ago that we had a full house and enjoyed a weekend visit to New York City – part two you will find here. My best friend from Germany, Nic, and her family, husband Klaus-Peter and two very active kids Jule and Enza, visited. It was going to be their big summer holiday, traveling the USA for three weeks and starting off by staying the weekend with us at the East Coast. Great idea! In many ways. 1) Getting rid of the jet lag, 2) getting used to the quite a bit warmer temperatures compared to Germany, 3) getting to visit New York City and, last but not least 4) spending time with us. We hadn’t seen each other in almost two years now. Wow, time flies – and children grow! Lets just say I was amazed that Jule, 11 years old, is already almost as tall as her mother.
After over an hour in immigration at Newark airport they finally made it to the exit where I was waiting for them. Four people, baggage for three weeks – no problem for Tuffnut a.k.a. our Xterra. Everything fit nicely and soon we were on our way to Whippany, NJ. Since it was already late I picked up David from work and back home we went straight to our community pool, which luckily is about 1 minute away from our house. For David and I it was normal temperatures, but to our friends it was really, really hot and a little humid. They were happy to go for a quick swim in the water to cool off. While the men stayed at the pool with the girls, Nic and I went grocery shopping. Imagine going overnight from a two person household to a six people household – we needed a few things. So we got fish and meat for the BBQ, drinks and back home made a potato salad and a green salad and that was it for Friday night. Nighty night!
Saturday morning started normal time with big breakfast and then we were off on our weekend visit to New York City. Since the children, especially one of them ;), are not too much into walking city streets, plus they really only had the one day, we decided to do a harbor tour. A so called full island cruise. Getting into NYC was a bit tough and took longer than usual. After all it was a Saturday morning, but we finally got on board a cruise ship on the Hudson and sailed towards Ellis Island, passed The Statue of Liberty, then up the Eastriver under Brooklyn Bridge, Manhatten Bridge, Williamsburg Bridge and all the other bridges (total 23?) sailing north, north-west until we hit the Hudson again. Then turning south and under the final bridge, The George Washington Bridge, seeing the skyline of New York City in the haze, before we returned back to pier 83, the home of Circle Lines. This is really quite an amazing tour for those who do not have time, for whatever reason, to explore NYC more thoroughly. At least you get an idea of the dimensions of the city, the skyscrapers and of the fact that there is a lot of green in New York.
Initially we wanted to go out for dinner on Saturday, but after a long day out in the sun, on top of the jetlag, everybody was happy with staying at home and having another BBQ. We made potato salad again, actually a little more than needed, because for Sunday afternoon we had rented a pontoon boat on Lake Hopatcong. Picnic time!
Want to find out how our Sunday on the lake went? Stay tuned for part 2 of Weekend Visit to New York City and New Jersey.
But first here are some more photos (in no apparent order) from our trip:
I love the vintage feel of some of these pictures. Sounds like a fun time was had by all!
Thank you, Debbi. It was really an awful day thinking photography – haze, very bright sun, no clouds = really hard light – imagine my surprise when I saw some of these photos turn out not half bad 🙂 And yes, we definitely enjoyed the tour.
Your photos are amazing. I especially love the black & whites. Gorgeous. I need to visit New York some day…But for now, your photos will have to do. I bet the harbor tour is way better than walking the streets – just look at all these amazing shots you were able to capture!
~Kim
from Blogging Buddies
http://2justByou.blogspot.com
Nice to hear from you, Kim. And thank you. I waited for a long time before going to NYC when we moved here, but now I love it. But you really have to be in it, to feel it. However, it is a valid alternative to walking the streets when you don’t have the time or are not able to for any other reason. I certainly enjoyed it and you are right – THESE views/photos you won’t get from inside NYC.
Awesome pictures. Sounds like you had a wonderful day. Looking forward to part 2.
Thanks a lot, Amee, really appreciate it. It was a fun weekend!