New York City! (Spring Break 2012)

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We arrived in New York around 7:45 PM. We went to the hotel, dropped off our stuff, and took off to find food. We ate at Shake Shack, just down the street from our hotel. We'd heard good things and were not disappointed at all. On Wednesday, we spent a nice, relaxing morning wandering around Central Park. It was nice to be out in the sun after Boston, which was windy, cold, and a bit rainy. We saw an underpass (photo at top right) that seems the type where bodies are always found on CSI. Surprisingly, there were no dead bodies anywhere in sight.

In the afternoon, we visited the Museum of Natural History. We didn't spent much time, but just ran through and saw the highlights. We had lunch at a cute little Greek place, then searched for Levain's Bakery, the reported home of the best chocolate chip peanut butter cookies in the world. It took us a while to find the cookies and, when we did, they were dark chocolate with peanut butter in them. I'm not a fan of dark chocolate, so I just got regular chocolate chip walnut. At $4 a piece, I decided to just get one, then quickly decided I could have easily had one or two more. The cookies were absolutely delicious. On our way back to the hotel, we spotted Nick Jonas. He was standing in front of the theatre where he is performing "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying." His car dropped him off in front of the theatre so he could sign autographs before going inside to get ready for the performance.

We visited the 9/11 Memorial and Ellis Island on Saturday. My great-great-great (who knows how many greats) grandmother, Jeanie Milligan, came through Ellis Island in 1904 or 1906. I'd seen the movie "Hitch," so I had unrealistic expectations about Ellis Island. I hoped to find a big book of records to thumb through, but they had computers you could use for $5 an hour. I could do the same research online at home for free. Disappointing, but...

Boston and Salem, MA (Spring Break 2012!)

We flew into Boston on Saturday night. It was cold, rainy, and we were tired, so we ordered pizza, chatted, and tried to plan out the rest of our trip.

On Sunday, we walked The Freedom Trail. I love U.S. History, so I was fascinated the entire morning. We saw the gravestones of Paul Revere, John Hancock, and Mother Goose.

We spent Monday in Salem, Massachusetts. I've taught "The Crucible" and Scarlet Letter in my American Lit classes, so I've been interested in the witch trials and Puritan history.

We met up with my friend Jamar and his wife, Sheena, for dinner that night. Jamar and I were friends when he lived in Las Vegas during the summer of 2005. We haven't kept in touch much since then, but are friends on Facebook, of course. He messaged me when he saw I was in Boston and asked if I'd be interested in meeting up. It was fun to catch up and didn't feel at all like it had been so many years since we'd seen one another.

Tuesday morning we visited the USS Constitution. We left Boston on Tuesday afternoon. The bus to New York City was only $15 and just over 4 hours. Kristin and I both sat alone and tried to get some sleep while on the bus.