Early on October 31, 2013, Jim and I embarked on our first trip to NEW YORK CITY!  Jim was going to run the New York City marathon, and I was just tagging along for the trip.  We were both super excited.
Our day didn't start off so great.  When we got to Fresno International Airport, we were informed that our flight to LAX was delayed.  Before the delay, we had a little over an hour to get to our connecting flight at LAX.  With that delay, our time had whittled down to just under 30 minutes.
However, that wasn't the worst part.  When we finally got to LAX, we ended up sitting on the tarmac for 25 minutes, before a shuttle came out, and picked us all up, and took us to the gate we were suppose to get off the plane at.  Our connecting flight was about a mile away in another concourse, and by the time we had actually stepped through the doors of the terminal, our time till our next flight departed had dropped to less than 10 minutes.  I turned to Jim, as we were speed walking at this point, and said, "I think we might have to run!"
Just then, we heard our names announced over the loud speakers, and were told we had five minutes to get to the gate before it closed.  I don't think I have ever ran so fast in all my life, but we made it, with only seconds to spare!
Once on our plane to New York, we noticed the coolest part of our flight.  Everybody had there own TV, and better yet, there was a list of tons of movies and TV shows to watch, as well as multiple music options to listen to and games to play.  It definitely made the 5 hour flight very enjoyable.
 
After we arrived at the airport in New York, we took a taxi to our hotel, The Roosevelt, in downtown Manhattan.  It cost us about $65 dollars!  We purchased weekly subway passes for the rest of our trip and those, together, only cost us $60. 
Once we had settled into our room, we decided it was time to grab a bite to eat.  We walked around the area a bit, and settled for a little pizza place, Uncle Paul's Pizza New York.
 
Once our tummies were satisfied, we roamed the area for a while more, before heading back to The Roosevelt for the night.
Since it was dark when we arrived, I took these next couple of photos when we got up.  This is the view from our room.  That tall building in the first picture is the MetLife building, which sits next to and atop of Grand Central Station.
It was a cloudy morning, but we headed out early and had breakfast at Breakfast Grand Central NYC, which is supposedly the best and busiest breakfast place in the city.
 
After breakfast, we walked across the street to Grand Central Station.  This place is AMAZING, and beautiful, not to mention extremely busy most of the day.

 
Even though we had our subway passes at this point, we decided to continue walking around Manhattan.  While we were walking, a Hispanic New Yorker stopped us and asked us for directions!  Funny enough, we seemed to be more oriented in the city than he was , and Jim happily gave him the best directions he could. Guy probably hadn't lived there that long, but we hadn't even been there one day!  We saw many iconic places, like Radio City Hall, where the Rockettes perform their famous Christmas show (we were there a week too early for that, bummer),
 
and, of course, TIMES SQUARE!  Television and photos really do not do this place justice.  It was so enchanting, and there was so much to take in, I almost thought my brain would explode, after my eyes dropped out of there sockets.
 
We also stopped by the Gershwin Theatre while we were in the area, and picked up tickets to see Wicked later on the trip.
 
It finally came time to venture over to the New York City Marathon Expo, which was held at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center.
 
On the way back to The Roosevelt, to rest for a bit, we stopped back in Times Square for some lunch at Dave and Busters, then stumbled upon our favorite find, The Cake Boss Café!  Who could pass up the chance to have a cannoli and lobster tail?
 
That night, we took the subway down to Little Italy for dinner.  Izabel was so excited to hear that we were going to be riding on a subway, that she actually begged us to send her a picture of us on it.
 
In Little Italy, we ate at Da Gennaro Restaurant.
 
It was delicious!