"New York, New York, It's a Hell of a Town..."

If you don't like New York City, then I hope today's post just might change your mind. Or at least pique your interest.

If you've been reading for awhile, you know I {Heart} New York in a big way, and each year I look forward to my annual I {Heart} New York Trip. I refuse to travel to NYC with T...we visited once together in 2006, and let's just say that T is not a big city guy.

It's usually just girls these days, but April's brother-in-law decided to tag along this year, and he was able to go the entire day without making us want to hail him a cab to JFK.

The only trouble with this trip is that it's more of a jaunt. We travel through our local Parks & Rec department, who organizes the trip. I met my friends Christy, April, John-David, and my sister-in-law Susannah (also known as SuSu) in the P&R parking lot at 3:45 am on Saturday morning.

Yes, you read that correctly. 3:45. In. the. morning. Please keep that in mind when you think I am looking a little rough in these photos.

Susannah, Christy, and I were lucky enough to get our own seats on the charter bus (score!), but April had to share with John-David, who was sort of high maintenance as to temperature control, or so I hear.

I think it's safe to say that I get more sleep on this bus trip than I do when I sleep at home, and that's with a departure in the wee hours of the morning. No one says "Moooooooommmmmmmyyyyyy" at 7:30 am on the dot and no one sings at the top of her lungs when she wakes up on the bus.

As our bus came upon this scenic view of the city from across the armpit that is New Jersey, we knew we were close.

We pulled up on 34th street around 9:30 in the morning and hopped off, ready to go wherever the wind might take us. As it turns out, the wind took us quite a lot of places....

Gratuitous shot of the Empire State Building, which I always seem to just happen upon by accident.

First stop: Macy's (and not just because all the girls needed to use the facilities)

Looove the way they suspended the ornaments from the ceiling in the children's toy department.

Time to see the store windows!

The lights and glitter are just mesmerizing!

We stopped to take some pictures in front of the New York Public Library. John-David opted for a more traditional pose, as we waited ages for the guy in front of us to take shots from every angle of his girlfriend straddling the poor lion.

Rockefeller!

If you look very, very carefully, you can see Santa Claus on the rink...down on the right.

I was so glad my sister-in-law, Susannah, was able to come with me!

On to St. Patrick's Cathedral!

I bet you'll never guess where we went next....

Come on, take a guess.

Only one place could create a display like this:

Could it be?

It's Tiffany & Co.

April and Christy came home with little blue boxes. I'm so insanely jealous so happy for them.

I got a bag.

Christy asked the salesgirl for an extra, and she gave it to me. I'm going to frame it.

By this time, we were famished, so we stopped at a random deli we found uptown and refilled on sandwiches, chips, and soda...such a healthy lunch.

The Plaza! (Hi again, Eloise!)

Central Park. We didn't go in far last year because it was dark, and it was just three girls, and we didn't want to end up as the muses for a new episode of Law & Order: SVU.

Central Park is refreshing in the daytime.

Until Christy and I found a bone behind a mesh fence keeping the leaves off the walkway.
Turns out it wasn't a bone. Just a really white stick. But we thought for a minute that we could write an episode of Law & Order or be on The Today Show or something.

After our disappointment at not finding something to solidify our 15 minutes of fame, we needed some excitement.

So off we rode on the magical subway to Times Square.

You can run into all kinds of crazies in Times Square.

The excitement wouldn't be complete without a trip to the M&M store, but the line was out the building just to get in, so we went to the Hershey store instead.

They were handing out little bits of chocolate bliss at the door. They sure know how to market to me!

No day in New York (for me, anyways) is complete without a quick stop in Chinatown...Canal Street, to be exact.

A few of us bought some knock-offs things and then we jumped aboard the subway to hit Greenwich Village.

We split a quick (and delicious) pizza at Patsy's and then booked it back to Herald Square to see the lights at Macy's one last time and meet our bus.

One last shot:

A wonderful, cold, whirlwind trip!

And I'd love to do it all over again next year!

Do you have any traditional trips you take with family or friends?