To celebrate Wife's first Mother's Day since Katie was born, I decided we should so something special this weekend. I went back and forth with several different ideas, but, finally, came up with a plan. It's tough coming up with a plan that will keep everyone happy (and by everyone, I mean Katie). For 48 hours, we took a vacation in New York City. From Friday evening through Sunday evening, we acted like tourists (except for having an apartment to call home at night). How did we act like tourists? We bought a 48 hour guided tour package of NYC.
For nearly three years, we have seen the tourist packages and always said, "We should do that." Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons, we never did it - until now. It would have made sense to to this when we first moved here. If we had done it three years ago, when each of the tour guides asked us, "Where are you from?" we could have responded by saying some other state. But now, we responded, "New York," The tour guides always responded, "Oh, what part?" When we said, "Manhattan," the tour guides always looked a bit puzzled. Almost everyone around us was on holiday from a land far, far away.
It has been a very, very busy 48 hours. Friday night, we started the tour with a "City Lights" tour where a guide took us on a bus to various areas throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn to visit the best nighttime views of the city. Katie was a happy little baby on this tour because it was all about lights. If you've followed the adventures of little Katie very much, you know that she loves lights. We met a very nice couple from Norway that seemed to spend more time making faces with Katie than paying attention to the tour (actually, the wife spent most of her time playing with Katie. The woman's husband appeared to be thinking, "Why did I pay all this money for this vacation. I could have just put an infant in front of my wife and she would have been just as happy").
Saturday, we had a full day enjoying guided tours of Midtown, Times Square, the Garment District, the Flower District, Chelsea, Hell's Kitchen, Downtown, Chinatown, Little Italy, Battery Park, Korea Town (I didn't even know that was here). We went back later to check out Korea Town - not nearly as exciting as the tour guide made it sound. Funny that we've lived here so long and didn't know that we had Korea Town just a few blocks away.
However, the best part was the the day was the tour of Brooklyn. We hadn't spent a lot of time in Brooklyn, but we had an outstanding tour guide who was very informative. The guide has lived in Brooklyn his entire life, raising 6 children. He claims to have given over 2200 tours of Brooklyn. This tour alone was worth the price we paid for the package. He almost made us want to move to Brooklyn. Really, he did.
Today was another busy day. First, we enjoyed a harbor cruise halfway around the island of Manhattan. As anticipated, the harbor cruise was probably Wife's favorite part of the weekend (though that Brooklyn tour really was good). For everyone keeping track of Katie's "firsts" - this was Katie's first boat ride.
After getting off the cruise, we continued our land tours with a tour guide taking us through Times Square, the Upper West Side, Harlem, and the Upper East Side. Very possibly, the tour guide only let us see the better parts of Harlem, but Harlem looked a lot nicer than I anticipated (nice enough that I would be willing to consider moving there).
But, I think the lesson that Wife and I walked away with after the completion of this weekend - we should become tour guides. The Brooklyn guide was great (did I already say that?). Other than him, I think we could better tours than every other guide we had.
So, here's the deal. We only charge $50 per person per hour (with a four person, three hour minimum - and we expect a 20% tip). For every three hours you pay for, we will give you a forth hour for free. Come on out to Manhattan and either Wife or I would be happy to give you a tour of the Big Apple. As an added bonus, Katie will also provide her commentary about the attractions you will see (there is no added charge for Katie's commentary).
Unlike all the other tour guides, our tours will have a 100% satisfaction guarantee. If we are not satisfied that we gave you a great tour, we'll give you your money back.
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