New York New York

Who doesn't love New York. It's an amazing metropolis and so fun to explore! We had planned this trip for quite a while now as the main reason we went was to celebrate Andre and Sylvia's wedding. The wedding was a secret affair and Craig and I were the only one in attendance, which made everything even more exciting. We planned everything to the T, which included dinner reservations at fancy restaurants every night we were there, a bike ride in Central Park, walk the Brooklyn Bridge, visit the 911 Memorial, go to a broadway show and visit neighborhoods like Soho and the Meatpacking District and of course Time Square.

Well, everything came different because we had one little thing ahead of us that nobody anticipated...a hurricane was to hit NYC on the Monday the wedding was planned! This exciting event cut our time to do our activities in half and moved the wedding up a day due to the fact that the honeymoon cruise ship Andre and Sylvia were to step on on Monday afternoon had leave the harbor a day early.

Chaos and lots of re-organization of the wedding events resulted in a quick but amazing wedding Sunday morning in Central Park and a send off of the couple on their cruise! However, Craig and I weren't so lucky to get out and had to ride out Hurricane Sandy in the city. We made a quick decision and checked out of our hotel on Sunday night once we knew our flight was cancelled and the city was being shut down literally in every way. We were lucky that our friend Vincent was in town visiting his family and that he extended the offer to us that we could stay with him. We took a $75 cab ride to Staten Island as no other transportation was possible and stocked up on food and drinks! We camped out at his grandmas place for almost 3 days and had fun catching up with Vinny!

After all the damage that Sandy caused, the area we stayed at was not hit as hard and we considered ourselves lucky. The worst was fallen trees and no electricity. We were happy to get out on one of the first flights out of JFK airport and are happy to be back home! Nevertheless, we are excited to visit the city hopefully soon again!

Here are some pictures...not in order but you get to see that we still had fun despite the hurricane: