New York City Spectacular

Central Park is huge—much bigger then I expected—an oasis in the middle of a bustling Manhattan. There is tons to do there. There is a beautiful rose garden which you can sit in and relax and read a book and take in the city. There is a duck pond—there were people taking wedding pictures there when we were sitting on the bench on a Saturday afternoon and it was quite beautiful and serene. You can take a horse and carriage ride, and it feels like something out of a movie. There is also a great little restaurant overlooking central park, which has decent prices but a fantastic view!

I highly recommend you spend a day in Central Park, wandering around and seeing all it has to see. It's very centrally located so you can do it on your way to do other stuff. I don't think you should go there at night but definitely during the day.

I, like every other visitor to New York, visited the Empire State Building. The building itself is exactly like you see on TV—it was very tall and looked like a building. It was not that special from the outside, needless to say.

We paid the (rather expensive) admission and then we went up to the top of it in the elevator. This is kind of fun for kids, to get to go for a ride in the big elevator up so high. When you get to the top the view is amazing—it's a beautiful panoramic view of New York City and the skyline. Be sure to take lots of pictures—although there are sort of these little metal grates so you don't fall off, but they make taking pictures more difficult. They also have these view things that you can pay to look into, and they give you an even better view. It's fun to pay for one and then look through and see if you can spot specific New York landmarks that you may have visited or seen.