New York - Day 1 - Airports & Bus Tours

It all started at about 9:00 pm on Wednesday night when Julie came to my house to pick me up for the airport.  Julie was hungry so we stopped at In & Out for a quick bite.
Then it was time to go to the airport.  We parked at the Park & Jet and then got a shuttle to the airport terminal.  My dad was already there and then my mom, Teagan, and Kevin quickly followed.  We checked in our bags and then went through security before finding our terminal.
Our flight was delayed by over a half an hour so Kevin, Julie, and I did a lot of walking around the airport.  It started out by us looking for Kevin something to eat and we ended up walking all over for something that was still open.  Not much was open and we ended up at McDonald's.  After getting a bite to eat we headed back to our terminal and got ready to board the plane.

Since we were on the red-eye Jet Blue provided eye masks and ear plugs.  It was very nice.  Kevin, Teagan, and I all sat by each other on the plane.  The seats were nice and roomy and we were even able to get a couple of hours of sleep (since it was the middle of the night).   
Once we got to JFK we got our luggage and called for our shuttle.  Julie and I did a little Electric Slide while waiting for the shuttle.  It was very impressive.  We had many excited lookers.

The shuttle driver was a crazy driver.  Apparently you have to be crazy to drive in New York.  Everyone drives super crazy and they honk at each other all the time.  If you don't push your way over you don't get over.  But he managed to get us to the hotel safely in the morning rush hour traffic.
Wendy beat us to the hotel because our flight was delayed and her airport was closer.  So she talked to the hotel about us eating breakfast there after we dropped off our luggage.  Breakfast was super yummy and gave us our second wind to start our bus tour!
My parents got us all a pass for a tour bus company that allows you to hop on and off the bus at any stop for 72 hours.  We decided to do the Downtown tour first on the way to the ferry.  We got to see lots of historic sites like the Empire State Building, the Stock Exchange, Macy's, Madison Square Garden, Little Italy, Korea Town, Ground Zero, Central Park, etc.

The weather was really cold this day.  The temperature wasn't the problem, it was the darn wind.  It was so windy cold it chilled us to the bone.  My dad bought us all hats and gloves to help keep us warm.  Unlucky for us we ended up on the top of the bus in the back where their was no covering at all.  So all that cold wind combined with the movement of the bus made us all so darn cold.  But we all still had so much fun going around on the bus listening to the tour guide with our little head phones. 

After our bus tour we headed back to the hotel (Residence Inn) to get ready for the Opera.  We were all so freezing and so happy to get into our rooms to warm up.
Teagan, Kevin, and I shared a room and the rooms were very nice.  We had lots of counter room and a little kitchen.  We had a nice view out of our room.  Our hotel was in the perfect spot.  Like a block away from Broadway and only a few blocks away from Time Square.  A few blocks the other way was the Empire State Building.  We were right by a cute little park called Bryant Park.
We also had a subway stop across the street for one line and two blocks over for another line.  It was just perfectly located.  All the employees were super nice and so was the hotel itself.