Aug 12-14 - John and Vivian visit from NC

It was a real treat to have our two doctor friends from New Bern, NC - John and Vivian - visit Grand Fromage. The only problem was the visit was so short, but we tried to cram in lots of sight seeing and adventures.

We took a five and a half hour All Aboard small bus tour. This tour was highly recommended on the Trip Advisor website. I did feel like we got a good overview of Manhattan, but a lot of time was spent in traffic and a few of the stops were rather silly.

The first stop was the tribute to John Lennon in Central Park..."Strawberry Fields"....one of the silly stops. However, it was wonderful to see a little corner of Central Park and very interesting to see The Dakota, the condo where Yoko Ono stills lives. If you'd like to buy a flat in the Dakota, you can get a bargain for 12.5 million or 18.5 for the upscale flat. Robert and I have our realtor negotiating as we speak, err write. Shucky darn, our offer of 150,000 was turned down.

The Empire State BuildingI can't remember the story about this building, but I liked it.

The Brooklyn Bridge

John and Vivian relaxing during a break in our All Aboard tour

We dropped by Wall Street for some pre-bailout negotiations.

Our tour included a trip on the Staten Island Ferry for scenic views of the New York Harbor. On the way back we saw this storm over the Hudson. Manhattan is on the right of the river. Jersey City is on the left side. You reach Liberty Landing by going up a creek right next to the tallest building on the left. That building, by the way, is Goldman Sachs.

We wanted to see a Broadway show with John and Vivian. We already had tickets to see Wicked in September. John and Vivian had never seen Phantom of the Opera. We had loved it so much when we saw it in Sacramento that we figured a repeat performance would be a treat. We were very disappointed. The sets were not up to the standard in Sacramento. The singers did not enunciate and thus you could not follow the story line. There was no zest or exilaration. Our first foray on Broadway was a dud.