New York City

New York City, New York

Much to my (Lisa) dismay, Ben decided to ride the bike through the Lincoln Tunnel and into the center of Time Square where we planned to connect with Ben’s mom. The parking garage was at 48th Street and Broadway (7th Avenue). Although they do have lane lines painted on the streets, we’re not sure they’re used as no one pays any attention to them. Riding there is less like driving on a road and more like a scene from Road Warrior! But all went according to plan and by 8 o’clock that evening we connected with Ben’s mom that flew in to spend the next few days with us. We stayed in two beautiful rooms. One was the famous Monticello and the other was the Renaissance International, overlooking Time Square and all of its shenanigans.

While waiting to meet up with Ben’s mom, we met up with a good friend of ours, Jochen. He took us up into the D.E.Shaw building where he is working. David Shaw is a multi-millionaire, one of Forbes Top-100, who has taken it upon himself to privately fund building the world’s fastest computer with the sole purpose of simulating how proteins attach themselves to the cellular wall. Jochen says that this will work and the applications of this technology could revolutionize the pharmaceutical industry. It’s really good to see private enterprise taking on huge humanitarian efforts without the bottom line being profit.

So after drinks and dinner and clubs with Ben’s mom that night, and to the dismay of ‘Big Al’ we retired to our awesome suite overlooking Time Square and crashed out.
Hung over, we got up anyway, and with Mom being a bit of a New York expert she made we had an amazing couple of days seeing all the sights we could: Trump Tower, Tiffany’s, the Plaza, Central Park, Tavern on the Green, Strawberry Fields and the Imagine Circle in honor of John Lennon, Ground Zero, the Hudson River, Tribeca, Soho, where we had fantastic cheese cake, the subways, Guitar Center, NYU, Rockefeller Center, Wall Street, the NYC Public Library, Grand Central Station, the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building. We ate hot dogs and pretzels, watched street acts, drank cosmos, and basically partied! We had a lovely dinner at Tao Restaurant as well. We enjoyed celebrating Lisa's 33rd birthday and had the awesome treat of going to see Phantom of the Opera on Broadway, it was spectacular! Overall New York City was incredible, one of the highlights of our trip. We’ve been focused on the beauty of the outdoors for so long and it’s easy to forget the grandiose achievements man can make when unified in a common purpose.

Sadly, mom left us on Tuesday. We reconnected with Jochen and his beautiful girlfriend Elena and stayed with them in their gorgeous apartment in Hoboken, New Jersey. Jochen treated us to an absolutely incredible flight in his Cessna152(?). We circled the Statue of Liberty twice, flew up the Hudson River along the city line and Central Park. Jochen gave us a zero gravity and a +2 G maneuver. What fun!

All in all, our New York trip was absolutely great and we’d never have gotten these perspectives without Mom, thanks Mom!! And Jochen, thanks for spending time with us. Come visit Vava’u again!