On Wednesday, October 5 Eric and I headed to the airport hoping to make it to New York. We were given passes by Eric's friend Gary Rice, who is a pilot for Alaska. Unfortunately there were no flights left going into the Newark airport that night. But when we got to Sea Tac they had two standby tickets left for Boston. So we flew into Boston at about 7:30 AM on Thursday and took the Amtrak Train to Penn Station in New York.
When we finally came into to New York it was quite overwhelming. There are so many things to see and so much going on. It was difficult to decide where to go and how to get there. So we decided that it would be best to buy a ticket to ride on the double decker tour bus. With that we could 
ride on all the loops that it took and hop on and off any time we liked. While on the bus we saw Midtown, Times Square, Central Park, the Upper West Side, the Upper East Side, Greenwich Village, Gramercy Park, SoHo, Chinatown, the Seaport & Civic Center, and Lower Manhattan. We were able to see so many beautiful buildings with amazing architecture and fascinating sculptures. You could spend days just looking at the buildings. The pass was good for 48 hours, but we certainly rode it for longer and they never checked the ticket. 
The cost was $70 each, but I think it was worth it because it showed us all the good places to go, and we didn't have to worry about how to get there. You could just hop off and another bus would come in about 15 minutes. 
Our pass also included tickets to the observatory of the Empire State Building, to take the ferry from Battery Park to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, and the New York at Night tour. The only bad thing was that it rained a lot while we were there, and sitting on top of a double decker bus in the rain is not the most comfortable thing.
However, they were nice enough to give us rain slickers. Well, it's really a garbage bag with holes for your head and arms. But we survived.
In addition to touring the city and seeing so many fabulous buildings, churches, and bridges, we hoped off the bus and visited a number of places.
We stopped off at a number of restaurants and bakeries and ate great food. We experience a little bit of Beatlemania throughout the city, and since I am a Beatles fan it was pretty exciting for me.
We went to see the Broadway show The Producers, and the American Museum of Natural History.
It was a great trip. We saw so many things in only five days. You could spend five weeks in Manhattan and not see everything that there was to see. In the end we were totally exhausted. On our way home Eric said to me "I'm glad we went and saw it. But those New Yorkers, they can have it. I want to go home." It was amazing, but certainly not relaxing. I think the hustle and bustle was a little bit too much for Eric.When you look at the island of Manhattan (which is 23 square miles in area) it is so drastically different than Vashon Island (which is 37 square mile in area). It does make you appreciate home a little more.
