Earlier this year, I got a wild idea to surprise Hayden with a trip to NYC for her 10th birthday. She loves traveling. Reading about new places and experiences and I thought this milestone birthday would be the perfect thing for her.
She has flown in an airplane before, but was too young to remember.
Celebrating 10 years at PizzArte
We had an amazing time. Some of the notable places ate at Cafe Lalo, Pizzarte, Randolph’s at the Warwick (where we stayed, thank you Hotwire for a great deal. It was a perfect location and the hotel has so much history to it). We stumbled across the most amazing rare book store while on our way to breakfast one morning. (Westside Rare & Used books) Hayden picked up a hardback copy of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea as a souvenir.
We rode the subway (more than we planned, when we took it the wrong direction 19 stops and ended up in the Bronx instead of the South Ferry), the Staten island Ferry to see the Statue of Liberty, a train from Newark to Manhattan, and ended with a cab ride. She was so interested in all modes of transportation. We kept trying to change her mind on the cab ride, but she was so intrigued. So we took a cab from our breakfast spot to Penn Station, which was only going to be about an 8 minute ride (luckily for BJ, who gets extremely carsick). We took off and I could see Hayden, in the rear view mirror, eyes wide with surprise as the driver zipped through traffic, stopping and starting with jolts, making lanes where there were no lanes. He let us out in the middle of the road, where all the cabs were stopped and we got out as Hayden says “Mom, I thought we were going to die”.
We got tickets to see Finding Neverland on Broadway. It was beautiful. The music was fantastic and inspiring. There were sniffles and tears through the audience. It was magical.
We loved the city and took in as much as we could in our short 3 day trip. I cannot wait to go back.
This is my norm 