4th of July in NYC!

On Sunday, July 4th, we were pretty tired from all the walking we had done the previous two and a half days, so decided it was time to do the bus tour. Ron really didn't want to do it, but he did it for me anyway. Then he was happy we did it because we covered so much territory and saw so much and didn't have to do it walking!

We started with the Uptown tour that covered most of Central Park and went by a lot of the beautiful buildings where the rich and famous live. Our tour guide is a native and he kept telling stories of how this neighborhood or that area used to be so dangerous and now has multi million dollar condos.



Here is Ron as we are leaving the Time Square area. We were super glad we had our hats and water bottles with us as it had turned really hot and muggy!



We went by the Met



And also thru Harlem and saw the Apollo Theater. Harlem was the only area that was really dirty/trashy and still pretty run down, but looks a lot better than it did the last time I was in NYC.



Here we are in our hats. Kind of dorky, I know. Don't we look like total tourists?



We hopped off the Uptown tour and got on the Downtown tour with a new tour guide. He was really pretty funny and was really complaining about the heat. He knew is stuff though.



Went thru the financial district and saw the Wall Street Bull and the American Stock Exchange. It was funny how many people were taking pics of the back end of the bull too. It really did have some brass balls hanging there!



Went thru China Town and that was all I needed to see of that. Lots of weird smells. Not sure if it was because of the hot day or if it's always like that, but it bothered me.

If any of you watch the Real Housewife's of NYC, Jill Zarin's fabric store was in China Town. That surprised me for some reason, but don't know why.



The second tour guide told us of this BBQ restaurant in Time Square that was really good, so Ron and I decided to try it out for dinner that night. Let me tell you it was the BEST BBQ EVER! I've eaten BBQ all over the country, lived in Texas for 7 years and went to lots of BBQ cook offs, but nothing compared to Virgil's. It's a must do if you are ever in the area. It's lucky we didn't find it sooner or probably would have eaten there more often!



After dinner we planned to head to the river to see the Macy's Fireworks. Had the locals tells us where to go and everything. Great plan except we should have been there about 5 hours earlier! We got about 3 blocks from the river and couldn't go any further as the cops had the streets all blocked off since it was so crowded. We were so disappointed! So, about us and 10,000 or so of our closest friends just plopped right down on the sidewalk to see if we could see anything over the buildings.



It wasn't a very good view, to say the least but we sure could hear and feel the explosions. This was a pic of the area we were at but it was like this for miles and miles 3 blocks or more inland from the river.



This is a pic I stole from another blogger who lives in the City and was watching from the rooftop of an apartment building. Gives you even a better idea of how many people couldn't even get close to the action. Locals around us said it was very close to New Year's Eve on Time Square but less organized. Totally cured me of ever wanting to be there for New Year's!



Have to admit the crowds and explosions kind of freaked me out. We started walking back to our hotel after about 10 minutes and I was really glad we did. The local news said there was 2 million people along the river area to watch the fireworks. Can you even imagine that? It was still fun though.