I arrived with Keith and Kristin on Monday. Soon after we arrived at the hotel, Keith and Kristin started working on the "script" for the radio program. I've been around Keith and Kristin long enough to know that the "script" is the part that people working on the radio program read on the air. That's when Kristin told me that I was going to get to see my friends Simon and Mr. B on Tuesday. Cool! I haven't seen Simon and Mr. B for a long time!
Kristin says Simon is helping her and Keith with the radio program and Mr. B is going to "host" the program. You might remember that Simon and Mr. B helped with the radio program I helped Keith and Kristin with last year.
Kristin said I wasn't going to get to see my friends until Tuesday...so I wondered what we were going to do on Monday night. I didn't have to wait long. Keith and Kristin took a break from working on the script to have dinner. I thought we would be going to a cool place in Times Square, but Keith and Kristin got in a cab and went to Macy's.
Macy's is the HUGE store in NYC that Keith and Kristin showed me last year. I guess Kristin and Keith decided to go shopping before dinner. Yuck! Don't tell Kristin, but I don't always like to go shopping with her.Kristin must have seen the look on my face because she told me that we really were going to dinner. Macy's has lots of little restaurants. Kristin also told me she wanted me to see a very special flower show at Macy's. Double Yuck! Shopping and flowers are for girls!!
Guess what? The flowers were really cool! There were two HUGE giraffes just inside the main door to Macy's. They kind of looked like the floats I see on TV at Thanksgiving and on New Year's Day.
Can you see all of the people in the photo? I guess lots of other people also wanted to see the flowers. Kristin told me the flower show is very famous and only happens a couple weeks a year. Who knew? Here I am with a really cool zebra made out of plants and flowers.
Keith and Kristin kept their word. They didn't go shopping. Instead they ate at a restaurant in the basement at Macy's. We left Macy's right after they finished dinner. Whew!
On Tuesday Keith and Kristin took me to the same radio studio that I visited a year ago. This is where Mr. B will read or "record" his parts of the "script." Here I am with Mr. B. I know that Mr. B is really busy, so it was nice he took time to take a photo with me.
After Mr. B finished at the studio, Keith and Kristin got into a cab and went to a place called "Penn Station." Guess what? It's a HUGE train station in New York City. At first I thought Keith and Kristin were just taking me there to see the trains. But soon I saw Mr. B. That's when Kristin told me we were going to take a train ride to Mr. B's hometown in New Jersey. How cool is that?! Kristin says Mr. B rides the train back and forth to his house nearly every day. I had no idea! Kristin says this is because it is easier to take the train than it is to dive into New York City. I can believe that. The traffic is REALLY bad in New York City.
It took about an hour to get to Mr. B's hometown. The train was the largest train I have ever been on! It was a very smooth ride, but it was really slow and stopped at lots of places to let people on and off.
Once we got to Mr. B's hometown, Mr. B drove us to his house. How cool is that! I got to visit Mr. B's house.
We didn't stay long. Mr. B got something called a "GPS" device. It is a small computer with lots of maps in it. Plus, it talks! It is really neat. Soon we got into Mr. B's car and he turned on the GPS. Then he told Keith and Kristin that he was taking them to a place he called a "Nike Missile Site."
I had NO idea what he was talking about. I have Nike shoes. But I've never heard of a Nike Missile, have you? I decided it must be pretty important because Keith and Kristin had their radio equipment with them and taped the entire car ride!
I was expecting something exciting, but Mr. B took Keith and Kristin to a field with an old, rusty fence! Very strange!
Kristin must have seen the look on my face. That's when she explained that we were at the spot where this thing called a Nike Missile used to be. Kristin says that many years ago (LONG before I was born), the United States put missiles at thousands of places around the country. They were there to help protect us from bad people during a time Kristin called "The Cold War." I know it is cold in Iowa in the winter, but I have never heard of this "Cold War" before. I think I am going to have to pay more attention in history class!
Anyway, Kristin says that the "Cold War" ended about 20 years ago and that's when the US started taking down the Nike Missiles. I'm still not sure exactly sure why the empty field is important, but Kristin looked pretty serious while she was taping Mr. B as he talked in the field.
We took the train back to New York City after Keith and Kristin finished working with Mr. B. I decided to take a nap while Kristin and Keith worked on their computers and went to dinner. But after dinner, Kristin and Keith took me to see Times Square. I LOVE Times Square. There are SO many cool signs and bright lights. I could spend all night there and never get bored.
There are lots of new places in Times Square. One is a placed called "M&M World." It's an entire store full of M&M candy! YUMMY! The store has three floors and two HUGE TV screens outside. The screens were SO cool to watch. Here I am with one of the screens behind me.
And here are a few more photos of the giant screens. Do you know what building the red M&M is climbing? Hint...it is the Empire State Building.
The store is really neat. Everything had an M&M theme. Kristin said I could pick out a few items to take home. I chose a really cool yellow monkey that is wearing an M&M World t-shirt. When I press the monkey's shirt, it makes an "eek" sound. Guess what? It sounds EXACTLY like the monkeys I saw in Aceh! Kristin also let me make a special bag of M&Ms to take home to my friends and family. The store has M&Ms in colors that I have never seen before! So I picked black, silver, cream, and lime green M&Ms. Thanks Kristin!
Here I am with my new monkey and my very special bag of M&Ms.
The trip back to Iowa on Wednesday was VERY long! Can you guess why? King Tut was mad at Kristin again! I was supposed to be back in Iowa around 6:00pm on Wednesday. Kristin says we got home at 12:30am Thursday morning! I am going to have to believe her on that because I was sound asleep!
Well that's the exciting news from my latest trip to New York City. Until my next adventure...bye!
