and NJ/NY in the evening

 After our drive up the Jersey Turnpike, we got to Jersey City to our very nice hotel.

Ain't never been to the Big Apple, but it's on our agenda this evening!

more bridge!

We did not go through the Holland tunnel yet, but there it is.

We'd checked into the hotel and decided to take the subway into NYC and go to Central Park.

Kinda filthy but charming because I like mass transit like this.

Jim's bucket list gets another checkmark when we stop by the Dakota to see where John Lennon was shot. 

In Central Park across the street is the memorial. Jim was wearing a Beatles shirt and some guy stopped him to ask where exactly John was shot and Jim was very helpful pointing it out. I laughed because out of all the people in the park at this memorial--and there were many many people here--the stranger on a quest picked exactly the right person to answer his question. 

Buskers singing Beatles songs

Central Park was quite busy this evening. See all the people on the bridge? And there were lots of boaters on the lake. We saw lots of families with young kids, lots of teenagers, many old people strolling through the park enjoying a lovely evening.

A co-worker of Jim's questioned our plans to visit NYC, specifically Cental Park, fearing crime, but we felt perfectly safe and it looked like everyone else in the park felt safe as well. We saw nothing that made us uneasy. 

After exiting the park, we strolled around looking for a place to eat dinner. We happened upon a pizza joint called Angelo's (might be a chain because we saw another Angelo's later on). We grabbed a table.

Jim and his Beatles shirt contemplate the pizza options.

Boy howdy the pizza was good.

and so was the cheesecake. I prefer my cheesecake to have chocolate parts.

Jim prefers his cheesecake New York plan. He has mentioned wanting this cheesecake since we've been home. We just might have to go back to NYC someday.

Memories not pictured: Jim knocking over his glass of water at the table at Angelo's and a server immediately stepped in with paper towels and vigorously insisted that he be allowed to clean it up. The bathrooms did not have toilet paper and several of us ladies in line were concerned. I was only in line to wash my hands (I had not planned on using the commode) but I did join in the conversation about the lack needing to be rectified.

We were quite happy to have had enough time in our day to visit NYC in the evening. We have more plans for the next day, so we're glad to have checked some sites off our list earlier rather than trying to cram them in on a busy site-seeing day. 

The subway was almost familiar territory, having been on the underground in London and Paris. We knew what to expect and how to navigate. And googling our route is the way to go for directions because Google knows all the stops!