My original plan involved taking a picture of every state's "Welcome to..." sign.  However, Virginia put a quick stop to that by not having one.  Instead, I slept, and put off taking photos until we neared New York.

To start off with, I started taking photos of road signs, other cars, and Erin.  This was all such a new experience to me.  Erin was quite used to it and insisted on driving across the border and in to the city.  I was left to scrounge for toll money and keep Aunt Diane aprised of our location.

These photos are arranged, for the most part, in chronological order from top to bottom.

Coming in to the city was a tableau of new cityscapes that I had never witnessed before.  The bridges were spectacular and, at the same time, disorienting.  I never really knew where I was before the trip after looking at maps, but seeing nothing but buildings and water on both sides made that feeling worse.

An exciting experience, to be sure.  The blisteringly cold day was no match to my good spirits.

The drive had been long and, with only a couple hours of sleep to draw from, it was spent napping at times.

Yet, Erin was my sunshine, keeping me happy and fed with frappacinos.

May I present Aunt Diane, keeper of the dogs (and a cat).

Having Aunt Diane meet us, dogs in tow, with her "dog-walking jacket" on was the orientating factor I needed to get my bearings in this new place.

Meeting Diane was a blast.  It was going to be great hacing someone to be our our personal tour guide of the city.  And as I'm not much of one to focus only on the greater areas of the city, her being able to show us around her stomping ground in Brooklyn was going to be nice.

So we took a walking tour of my first blocks in Brooklyn.  Diane's blocks to be certain, she informed us of all the recent local news and not-so-distant history.

Telling us in grusome detail of the recent murders that were making front-page news around the city.  She went on to tell us about how dangerous the streets we were walking on could be.  I couldn't have been more interested, but there was a spooky-even-in-sunlight quality to the city that was beginning to form in my head.

We didn't do much for the rest of the day.  Diane took us out ot eat at a Cuban dinner down the street where I had my first avacado salad.  After that, it was to the grocery store and then to the bagel shop to get our breakfast for the week.

This was all thrilling to me.  I was even excited in the grocery store, with its tiny aisles and enormous assortment of "forgein" foods.

Perhaps all vacations can start off so well.