NYC, Birthdays, and Moving In

Much has happened in the past few weeks. Jack and I celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary by spending the night in our new home. Our bedroom furniture came in a few days before our anniversary and with some help we moved in just enough items that we could begin sleeping in the house. It's been good to start the moving process. After this weekend, we hope to get the last of the boxes and furniture out of our old home and be completely moved into our new home. It will probably take a while for all the boxes to be unpacked, but that is ok. It feels good to be in. Once I can get organized enough to take some pictures, I will post the before and afters (I know, I know, I've been saying that for a while.)

This past week I actually went on a little vacation. (Good timing, right?) Well, last winter my mom suggested that she and I go on a trip for my big 3-0 birthday this summer. She and I used to do alot of traveling together when I was in college so this was an opportunity to do something like that again. The idea was to go to New York for a long weekend. So, back in February we booked the plane tickets. By the time it was over with, the long weekend turned into almost a week because flying out on Thursday was cheaper than Friday and coming home on Tuesday was cheaper than Monday and we found a good deal on a hotel. Anyway, all of this happened way before we knew that Jack and I were going to buy a house and renovate and move in at the end of July. But that's what happened, so last week I packed up with my nerves shot and left for NYC. It was a great trip and a much needed break from reality.

Here are my recommendations for anyone going to NYC:
1. If you are going to stay at least 5 days get a City Pass. The pass is an advanced ticket to several museums/monuments and if you want to go see everything on the pass, it's a good deal. Plus you don't have to wait in any lines get tickets. This saved us a ton of time and helped us schedule our trip.

2. Save your money and plan to bring an extra bag home with items you purchase there. I have never seen so much stuff to buy in one place. There are stores, street vendors, souvenir shops, and markets everywhere. And most of them will reduce their prices when you start to walk away. This is a true test of self-control.

3. Get a really good map, especially if you plan to use the subway. New York subways can be tricky. We met one woman from Athens who said she had taken the wrong train three times. She had been to two other countries where she didn't speak the language and had been able to figure out the subway system but was having a very difficult time in New York.

4. If you are planning to see a Broadway show, get up the day of the show and go to TKTS in Time Square to buy your tickets. The line looks long but they move you through fast. If you are really counting on going to one particular show you may not want to do this (they don't sell tickets to everything) but if you are ok with two or three options, this is definitely your best deal. We got half-price tickets to 9-5 (Excellent show!) and ended up being 6 rows back from the stage. It could not have been better and there is no way we could have done that for that price had we bought them in advance.

So now I have returned and this is probably going to be my last time to post while I am still in my 20's. Looking back on the past decade, so much has happened in my life. I've done most of what I wanted to do and I have changed alot since I was 19 turning 20. If you had asked me then what my life would be like now I would have never guessed it would be like this. But that is the nature of life. I can't even imagine what I will be writing when I'm 39 turning 40. What a decade this will be...