New York

 

 

 

The Howe Award

 

Brent was told a few months ago that he was going to be receiving a Howe award for a project he had worked on a few years ago and that they wanted to fly us to New York for him to receive it. 

In the BIG APPLE

In the beginning I did not even consider going since I am not allowed to take days off of work.  Additionally, we had no options for overnight babysitters during the week.  Long story short everything worked out and I was able to go with him.

We arrived late on a Sunday night to the Ritz Carlton across from the Lady Liberty.  It was a perfect "welcome back to America" moment for us. 

Spain is great, but it is not the USA!  The USA has much to be proud of and it really is the best country in the world.

We also were greeted by a hefty Walmart.com order to fit into my empty check on.

All our essential junk (pop-tarts, fruit snacks, crackers, mint Oreos, hamburger helper, etc.) would have fit perfectly had they not thrown in the non-essential TP which we did not order (we can get that in Spain).

DAY 1 

 The 9/11 Memorial is now a must when visiting New York.  It was peacefully beautiful!  We began Monday not exactly sure what we would do, we had a few ideas, so we first went to the memorial and then called our on-call New York travel guide (my cousin Kim) to tell us where to go and what to see next.

The Trinity Church

This is the graveyard outside the Trinity Church.  I loved seeing an old American style graveyard.

 

The New York Stock Exchange, Wall Street, the Trinity Church in the background and T.J.Maxx. 

The Hall Memorial, built in the location of where George Washington is said to have been inaugurated.

The East River

 

The Brooklyn Bridge

 

 After China Town and Little Italy, we began the long walk back to the Hotel   We were exhausted after being on our feet for 5-6 hours straight with one short 10 minute sitting break to eat some pizza in Little Italy.

 

That evening BD had a dinner cruise scheduled for all the award recipients and their spouses. 

 

We cruised along the New York Skyline and up close to the Statue of Liberty.

Day 2 Central Park

I have never been to Central Park before this and I had no idea it was so large.  We rode the subway to the far end with the idea of walking through the park to meet my cousin on the other end. 

 

 After a few hours of exploring, we realized we were not going to make it all the way to the other end.  Fortunately, we still got to see much of the park, including a few lakes...

a castle, which was the last thing we expected to see in New York,...

 

 

more beautiful scenery...

fall leaves,....

 

 

lots of great picture opportunities....

a filming of some new crime scene show....

 

 

Here is a clip of one take we watched.  We are behind the yellow police tape filming with our inferior equipment as you can see. The actress communicates to Brent to quit smiling here since we were going to be in the background.

 

 

These street performing acrobats were quite fascinating. 

My sweet cousin Kim, who lives in New York, met us at the Metropolitan Museum of Art just outside Central Park.

This picture was taken on the top of the museum in the Gardens area.  Kim is on the far left.

 

This choir screen is from a cathedral in Valladolid Spain.  It was fun to see so many things from Spain in this museum.

The windows at least and I think most of the other pieces in here are from a castle in Southern Spain, bought by a New Yorker in the early 1900's and used in his home. 

 

 

 

The museum was amazing, and so large!  We only got to see a couple of hours worth, but we did see sooo much and had a couple of hours to visit.   

 

 

 

 

By the time we had to leave the museum we could hardly move, let alone walk. 

 

 

 Seeing this old French Hotel waiting room, made us really wish we were all the way back in ours.  Fortunately we were able to ride the subway back to the hotel.  

 

 

That evening was the awards ceremony and a dinner at the hotel.  We waited through lots of speeches, lots of awards and dinner before Brent's group was to finally receive their awards.  (Brent and I are sitting a little to the left of the center of this picture)

 

 

Brent received a nicely framed certificate and a very nice Tag Heuer watch for the project his team finished a few years ago in Sandy.  They developed a new safety IV catheter which has been very successful.  Unfortunately, I missed this by just 10 minutes since I had to leave to catch a red eye flight to Paris. 

 

 

 Brent stayed another couple of days to work in New Jersey, but I needed to get back to work.   We both made it back in time for Halloween which was made extra special since Grandma Bellon was still here. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Geez! BlogSpot will not let me delete this picture.