new york and dc

so me and the wife decided to go on a trip to new york and washington dc. were planning on going to the smithsonian and the statue of liberty. were wanting to go to niagara falls, but its a 14 hour drive and a $1,000 flight for 2 from the city. were gonna see all the monuments and whatnot in washington. were thinking about doing a bus tour in new york and washington. were looking for some ideas on where to go and what to eat. if some of the northeasterly members (yankees) could give us some advice, it would be appreciated.

New York I'll leave to Donmat but when I went to DC. I stayed about 4 blocks off the Mall for a decent price and walked everywhere, all the Smithsonian museums and all the other attractions were withing 1/2 hour walk. As for places to eat, I never had a bad meal and again there was plenty of different places all close by. Anything from the ESPN sports bar to fine dining. The one thing I would love to hear you did was going to see the Declaration, it's right down on the mall as well and I truly believe everyone should take the time to go see the one thing that created this country for us. But that's just me...

I think ESPN closed their restaurants, though the one in D.C. might still be open. You can't go up into the Washington monument, which is too bad, because it's really cool and the tallest building in D.C. (555 feet). Sadly, the building Arnold Schwarzeneggar tried to jump his horse from to chase the terrorist isn't actually in D.C. bummer.

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington Cemetary was one of the most impressive displays of military precision and discipline I've ever seen. Specifically the changing of the guard.

The Mall has the Jefferson and Lincoln memorials. Smithsonian and any number of other museums.

Try to hit the busy spots on weekday mornings, not the weekend.

Oh, and the National Zoo in D.C. (pandas!).

Here: 100 free or nearly free things to do in D.C.

And The Official D.C. tourism site

nice. i will put the declaration and the tomb of the unknown soldier on my list also.

Fridge if you want to save money on going to restaurants in NYC i would suggest using Groupon. They always have really good deals for restaurants at half the price. And they are usually valid for long periods of time so you can start looking for them now if you wanted.

I would suggest to take the train or grab a cab and go check out Ground zero and the progress they are making on the new tower.

The museum of natural history is a good place to take your kids its got dinosaur fossils etc.
The intrepid museum which is filled with war fighter jets and other things is pretty cool especially since its the real USS Intrepid and you can go inside walk the halls and check out the ship.

Madame Tussaunds Wax museum is pretty cool and fun. Its got a bunch of celebrity wax figures that look real as hell.

Try the FBI museum, the weapons on display are incredible. Also, the holocaust museum was very moving.

The intrepid and FBI museum sound cool. We're definitely going to ground zero. We're thinking about doing a 2 hour sunset sail around the statue of liberty and other places. There are two pizza places that keep popping up, one is grimaldis. I can't remember the other one at the moment

Yeah Grimadis is a brick oven pizza place in Brooklyn..Ive been there once and it was pretty good. Theres also Lombardis wich is famous for being the first ever pizza restaurant in the usa.
they still have their original coal burning oven that was used when they first opened.

SERUM-X wrote:

Try the FBI museum, the weapons on display are incredible. Also, the holocaust museum was very moving.

Yeah i went to the holocaust museum when i was around 16 and was pretty good. i would recommend it.

Lombardis. That's the other one. I'll do a little research on the holocaust museum

Also if you like a nice hot pastrami on rye sandwich go to katz deli on east houston st which about 15-20 city blocks away from ground zero. I promise you it will be one our if not the best pastrami sandwich u ever have...of course it costs $15 so it better be lol

gluis01 wrote:

Also if you like a nice hot pastrami on rye sandwich...

Sweet moses, that sounds good right now. Since that's not an option in my historically scandanavian background town of only 8000, looks like I have some cooking to do....

I don't know if Ive ever eaten pastrami. It's worth a shot. I did eat some crawfish the other day though. Yum. Is there somewhere we need to stay away from? Do u know the carry law for knives? Fixed blade and spring assisted

I'm not sure what the knife carry laws are...but knowing the state of ny I wouldn't walk our carry one anywhere... If I were u I would message donmat he might know the better answer..

Also in nyc don't go anywhere more than 10 to 20 blocks north of central park as it slowly starts getting more ghetto..

If u go to brooklyn to that pizzeria don't leave that downtown area..lol
If you go to tge bronx zoo..(which is really big and a good place to take your kids ) do not , I repeat do not go anywhere other than the zoo..lol

Might be safer to book Luis as a guide for a couple days lol