The Big Apple+ Women’s Sports Foundation=Amazing!!! Pt. 1

Although I'm not normally a blogger I thought that it would be appropriate to become one on this occasion. One of my student-athletes, Sherrita Hall, and I had the luxury of being selected to attend the Women's Sports Foundation dinner in NYC on October 12, 2010. This awesome honor was bestowed upon us by Bennington, VT Businessman Richard Ader and SVC President Karen Gross. So after weeks of planning yesterday we were off!

This was a number of firsts for me…I've never been on a train, other than a subway (in France & Chicago), for an extended trip. So we left Southern Vermont's Campus at about 8 in the morning to begin our day long journey to the Big Apple! We hit some snafus first thing in the morning. Neither one of us ever having traveled by train before were a little lost as to the process of boarding, whether to check bags or not, and just where to sit. Our train was delayed 30-40 minutes to begin with. I think we were both getting very anxious. Finally came our time to board the train… We made our way and found two seats and settled in for what would be a 2.5 hour train ride to the city. Along the way we made many stops along the route, they included; Poughkeepsie, Hudson, Younkers and many others. The scenery was absolutely beautiful as we traveled along what I believe was the Hudson River. As we could see the city we had to wait for another train to clear the tracks…after another 15 minute delay, we were soon making our way into the city.

Nothing is more thrilling than walking out of NY Penn Station and seeing and immediately feeling the buzz of the city! Not to mention that when we walked out of the station we were immediately greeted by Madison Square Garden…yes I said Madison Square Garden!!! Not did we see MSG, but right across the street is one of the biggest Post Offices that I've ever seen in my life. Sherrita and I made a plan to go and see if our room was ready in the infamous New Yorker Hotel, then grab lunch, and explore. Our room was unfortunately not quite ready so we left our bags with the concierge and made our way to lunch.

Sherrita was really excited to go to TGIFriday's so that was one of the first places that we saw and so that was our destination. We decided over lunch that we would try in the short time we had to see as much of the famous NYC sites as we could. It was a good thing that we had on our walking shoes! We walked from 8^th St to 2^nd St and then from W. 35^th St to W. 42^nd. We started off walking to see all of the shops and find the Macy's. Let me tell you that we walked into the cosmetics and perfume floor of the Gigantic Macy's and all I could think was how overwhelmed I was.

Sherrita and I made it through most of that first floor before we decided that it would be a good idea to continue our journey. You know how you expect something to look way different than it actually does…that was the way that we felt about the Empire State Building. Matter of fact, we almost walked right by it. I just happened to be looking at the signs on the street and spotted the sign. So we checked that off of our list.

We called Coach Quinn, Women's Basketball Coach at SVC, to find out where exactly all the other sites we needed to see were. He gave us instructions on how to get to all the other things that we were looking for. So we started walking. Me being the great tour guide that I am, I may or may not have had us walking almost all the way to Queens…Oops! But again Coach Quinn was our savior and gave us directions to get us unlost. So we decided that whatever we could find would be the next landmark we stopped at. Finally Grand Central Station appeared in front of us.

Wow what an amazing building from the outside, we had no idea that the inside would be just as spectacular. The ceiling was absolutely amazing. Painted up there were the constellations in gold paint.

Not only that but it was awesome to see all the shops and all the places that movies have depicted so many times. So after spending some quick time in there we made our way out and headed toward Time Square.

We could feel the electricity of Times Square as we headed toward it. Not only the electricity in the air but the increase in the amount of people that were on the streets. As we got closer we noticed that we could walk right down the middle of the street and not have a problem so we did and immediately began taking pictures of all the things that we saw.

On our list of places to go was the Toys'R'Us in Times Square. It is at least 3 floors and has a normal sized ferris wheel inside the store. There were special sections for everything: Wonka, electronics, video games, leggos! Really an awesome place to take kids. We even saw Spidey!

So after exploring the store we decided to make our way back out to the street where we would take in more of Times Square. We saw the famed Minskoff Theatre, where Lion King was playing. (One of my favorite Broadway shows.)

As it was getting late in the day we decided to make our way back to the Hotel to check-in and start to get ready for our night out on the town. But before we left we got to see another one of the NYC/Times Square Icons…The Naked Cowboy!!

On the way back we walked down Rogers and Hammerstein Boulevard and checked out all the musicals that were playing. Heather...thought that this sign would work for you even though we couldn't go see it!

We finally made it back to the hotel after our day of walking…To Be Continued….