We went. We saw. We walked. We rode. We experienced.

My first trip to New York City went well, despite the travel fiascos of the first day that attempted to derail our entire experience of the city.

After the swanky view of the parade on Thursday, and after taking in a stellar performance of Rent, things began to improve until our departure on Saturday.

We arose early on Friday (at 5 AM) in an attempt to watch a taping of the Today show. But, since lots of people were in town for the holiday, by the time we arrived to stand in line (at 5:30) an entire marching band had beaten us there, along with some other people. Knowing that 300 people were ahead of us to stand behind Meredith and Matt, we decided to grab some breakfast at Dunkin Donuts (which makes a mean gingerbread latte).

We went back to the hotel, took a nap, and then boarded a double-decker tour bus. Because the city is so humongous, and we knew we couldn't do everything, we decided that an overview of everything would be a good start. So we did the touristy thing and saw all of downtown. We hopped off at Wall Street and Ground Zero and then headed into Brooklyn. After eating at Carnegie Deli and seeing The Color Purple, we called it a day.

On Saturday, we arrived at the Empire State Building to take in the view, and then bus toured Uptown, including Harlem, Central Park and the upper East and West sides.

Jet Blue did manage to get us back okay, but it still doesn't make up for the dead battery.

New York is a great American city, and there's a lot to see and do. I think next time will be a museum trip, as we didn’t visit any this go-round. It's a great place to spend a long weekend, but make sure you bring comfortable shoes. You also have to be able to stand the smell of trash and not mind bumping into people ALL the time.

And yes, it looks like it does on TV.

I leave you with some shots of the trip: