Never Sleeps

so, i was originally going to give one big, long-winded recap of my great adventure to the city that never sleeps, but due to a hectic schedule, very little time and a desire to tell my story before the memories begin to fade, i thought i'd recap a day at a time (don't worry readers, it's only 4 days). so, here it is...
NYC, fun trip, day 1:
my mom, aunt and 14 yo cousin left for the airport at 4 am thursday morning. we made it into la guardia airport at 10:30 and hopped in a cab headed to midtown manhattan. i sat in the front seat of the cab, the driver didn't say a word, and i thought we were going to die multiple times. they are absolutely crazy drivers! constantly cutting people off, maneuvering into which ever lane is moving faster, darting around buses. eeks! we made it safely to the hotel and set off to discover NYC.
First point of business: lunch. we ate at a great deli, which was surprisingly inexpensive. the tables were crowded, and one handsome gentleman offered for me to sit with him and his friends. i declined, opting to stay with my travel companions. we found a table for 3, and the guy who was sitting there was nice enough to move, so we could all sit together. (we were shocked, these new yorkers weren't rude at all.) we then headed over to St. Patrick's Cathedral - where the pope (and all other important Catholics) visit when they are in NYC. it was amazingly beautiful. stained glass windows, ornate woodwork, marble statues. truely a site to see. we caught a glimpse of rockefeller center and some of the shops on 5th avenue on our walk.
we made our way to meet with my aunt's co-worker's daughter, who gave us the golden ticket (free pass) to the empire state building. after meeting with her, we found the chrysler building (by accident) and walked through grand central station, which was very different than what i expected. we made our way over to the empire state building, and were giddy with the power of our golden ticket. we didn't have to wait in line at all (normally you have to wait in line twice for the elevators going up and twice coming back down), we marched right up to the next available elevator and went straight to the 86th floor observatory. ah-maze-ing! it was so cool to see the entire island of manhattan laid out in front of us. we mapped out some places we wanted to go see, and got a great perspective of the city. we then went all the way up to the 102nd observatory and saw even more of the island. my aunt tried to point out yankee stadium, to her chagrin, she was wrong. the empire state building employee politely corrected her, although laughing at thinking yankee stadium was in queens, when it's in the bronx. later, my aunt asked what an oddly-shapped triangular building was. i pulled out my trusty map and deducted it was probably the historic birthplace of roosevelt. the same esb worker was appalled. did you just call the flatiron building roosevelt's birthplace? i giggled, yep, sure did. little did i know how well-known the flatiron building is. (never did figure out where roosevelt's birthplace was, even though it was marked in red on the map.) the flatiron building houses the daily bugle in the spiderman movies.
we ate amazing food at Ruby Foo's. by far, the best asian cuisine i've ever had. we then took the double-decker tour bus through most of manhattan and into brooklyn. the city lights were great to see from brooklyn. the tour also gave us an opportunity to map out where we wanted to go the next couple of days. after the tour, we walked around time square for a while, marveling at all the lights and movement and action going on. buildings are required to have light-up signs in time square. i was a bit awed by how huge some of those screens and advertisements are. we headed back to our hotel, exhausted from the early morning, traveling, and touring around. it was a fantastic start to our trip.
i hope i haven't bored you with my story. i feel like i've missed many details, but also that i've written too much. i hope to post pics soon...and have plenty more to share.