Tour Guides make a difference

Today we started our adventure taking the Path to 33rd Street and then stopping for coffee at the Empire State Building. We sipped our coffee and walked around the shops in the interior hallway but decided not to go to the top. Yesterday's view from the Top of the Rock was so spectacular we figured we saw a better view than from the Empire State Building. From there we hopped on our tour bus to Little Italy and found some good pasta. The seasoning was fresh and the best I have ever tasted! Randy too!

From there, we walked to Ground Zero. I

t was hard to see over the fence but we did see into the area fr

om the Episcopal

Church across the street. The miraculous detail of this old church is that it did not suffer even a scratch from the 911 attack on the Trade C

enter. It became a center for healing and aide to the firemen and police who were helping clean up 911. We arrived just as they tolled the bell for the memorial fireman service that they have daily. Amazing to see the church

which was probab

ly as old as some of the churches in Charleston still standing.

We were excited to reunite on the next bus with our guide from yesterday morning. He was really good. The four we had between him were not good...either they did not have the history of New York down or they had super thick foreign accents and we could not un

derstand them. Dominque was great! He knew the history of New York and new the best shops and restaurants and really gave newby tourists such as us a tour and ideas of things to see in the city. At Central Park we got off the bus and walked a d

ifferent section of the park.

When we got back on the bus, we took a tour of Harlem. We drove by John Lennon's, Jerry Seinfield's, Michael Douglas' apart

ments and also places that have been cleaned up. Grant's Tomb was an impressive sight. We saw the coveted brown houses and then we saw the really wealthy east side of Central Park where the mayor and Jackie O live or once lived. If we had more time, we would have loved to

have stopped at the Met or Natural Museum of Science. Our tour guide for the Uptown Tour was Pam and she also was funny and brought a lot to the tour experience. Tour guides make a difference.

We got off our bus in Time Square and then returned home via the Path after we stopped for a slice of pizza! Yummy!