My Summer Vacation / New York City Day 5

Day 5 was fun, hot, long, informative and frightening!

We started the day with breakfast at Ellen's Stardust Diner. It was where we were to catch our bus for the movie and tv tour. What a fun place it turned out to be. The entire wait staff are aspiring actors and actresses for Broadway and they perform the entire time. Talk about some amazing voices. It was really fun and we knew we had to bring the cousins back there when they got to town. Breakfast was over and it was time to board the bus.

The tour was fun. The first four rows on each side of the bus were VIP seating. You paid an extra $40. for those seats. Two people never showed up. Garry (our tour guide) offered them up to whoever wanted them. When nobody else jumped up and grabbed them, we did. Why not! We learned a lot of movie and tv trivia. Did you know that the Tom Cruise part in Top Gun was first offered to Scott Baio? Or that Harrison Ford and Robert DeNiro were both offered the Tom Hanks role in Big? Below are a few of the sites we saw.
The archway where Harry and Sally parted ways after their cross country trip.

The triangle building that is in all kinds of movies.

The firehouse from Ghostbusters.

Vickie and I in front of the Friends apartment building/Central Perk.

Four hours later, the tour was over and we were starving. Bubba Gump it was! After we refueled, we were ready for some shopping and headed over to Macy's. Did you know that they have nine floors? I had no idea. We had fun and even found a few things to buy. We got a call from Victor who said he had a surprise for us and to meet him at the little park across the street from Macy's. We finished up our shopping and headed out to meet him. We got to sit at a table and do a little people watching while we waited. Always fun in New York. It wasn't long before he came and said we were going to the Empire State Building. It was just a few blocks away. What we didn't know was that we were going to have a very special escort. Victor's friend has a best friend who is a New York City policeman. His beat happens to be the Empire State Building. We met him and he took us under his wing. We got to bypass security, ride in our own private elevator and not wait in any lines. It was awesome. I have a picture of him with us, but I don't know if I should post it, so I'm not. Let's just say it was awesome!

Here's just a couple pictures from on top.

Next, we headed out to South Street Sea Port. It was really pretty out there. Beautiful views of the river. There are lots of restaraunts with outdoor seating and lots of vendors. I bought the grandkids some t shirts there. Victor got a call and his friend that set us up for the Empire State Building was coming down to meet us for dinner.

After dinner, Al took us on a walking tour of the area around the sea port. He worked there and knew a lot about it.

These are the steps where Tom Hanks and his buddy sat and talked in Big.

Next thing I knew, we were walking back by the water and all of a sudden we are walking up to this big building that says Staten Island Ferry! Here's where it got scary. Holy Mother of God, what is he thinking? Well.....I find out that we are getting on the freakin Staten Island Ferry. Obviously, nobody has clued Al in on the fact that I am scared to death of deep water and it is really dark outside now. It's about 10:00. Double whammy...deep and dark. I have two choices that I can think of quickly. I can throw a fit and say I'm not going, no way, no how or I can put on my big girl panties, get on the damn boat and deal with it. Believe it or not, I chose option number two. I thought I was going to hyperventilate. I didn't though. I got out the camera and started snapping to get my mind on anything but what we were doing. The good news is that I got some really great pictures. Here's just a few.

Here's the proof that I was actually on that boat with The lady in the background.

Fifteen hours after we had left the house that morning, we got back home. Exhausted and hot, but man we had a great time and I stepped out of my box big time.