AC/DC, New York, and Rain

Aaron had purchased AC/DC tickets for the concert in East Rutherford, New Jersey (New York Giants Stadium) back in April. It was decided then that it would be his birthday present. The concert was scheduled for Friday, July 31 - Aaron's fifth day of dental school orientation. He had heard that he either wouldn't have orientation that day at all or he would get out early. He started contacting the dental school to make sure it would be ok. They just kept saying, "Don't make plans during orientation week!" So, much to Aaron's dismay, we sold the tickets. Orientation week rolls around and they tell the students on Tuesday that there will not be orientation on Friday. Aaron's thoughts immediately turn to AC/DC. On Thursday night, we finally found some last minute tickets from a seller on Craigslist, reserved a crappy Jersey hotel room and took off the next morning. We bought AC/DC's new CD and shirts for cheap at Wal-Mart on the way.

It was raining like crazy, we got stuck in traffic, and about 7-8 hours later we made it to Jersey. We were slightly worried about the guy who sold us the tickets since they were print-at-home tickets and he could have easily sold the same tickets to somebody else. So we got there right when the gates opened to be sure that we would get in. It was still pouring rain at this point and Giants Stadium is open... We waited under the stadium until it stopped and then took our seats when the opening acts began. The opening acts sucked (in my opinion) but Aaron thought they were ok.

AC/DC put on a pretty good show and I was impressed that these guys were still rocking after all these years. Aaron loved the concert and the huge smile on his face the entire time was worth the all the noise for me.







We spent the next day in New York City!! What a fun day we had! I had sent my mom a text Thursday night after we bought the tickets about what we could do in NY. She reminded me of some friends that we have living there. My family has been friends with their family for forever. Nate is a few years older than me, so we were never really close, but I'm so glad my mom reminded me of them and that we were able to meet up with them. Nate and his wife, Rachael are living there for Nate's job with PriceWaterhouse Coopers. We spent the day wandering around the city.

We started out with lunch at Cosi - one of my favorite little cafes, then wandered around Times Square, then over to Rockefeller Plaza, the LOVE statue, Battery Park, the Staten Island Ferry, Wall Street, Canal Street/Chinatown, Little Italy, then to the Upper West Side to Tom's Restaurant (from Seinfeld), a delicious Cuban place for dinner, and then to the Upper East Side to see Nate and Rachael's apartment. We had such a good time with them and we made some great friends!



We took a bus from Jersey into Manhattan. It was way easy and I'm glad we decided not to drive in. Unfortunately, we were having too much fun with Nate and Rachael because we ended up missing the last bus! We found a different one that dropped us off nearby our hotel and it worked out ok, but we were really worried for a few minutes!

On Sunday, we had planned to go back to Manhattan, and to go to Norma's, this amazing little place, for breakfast, then to church and then to Central Park for a stroll. Unfortunately, it was raining harder than it was on Friday. We would've gotten to all of these places by taking the bus back in and then walking around - with no umbrella and church clothes on, we nixed the idea. We asked our hotel for some breakfast suggestions and ate a great little place called the Bagel Buffet. It was REALLY good! We had no idea what to do about church so we just drove home.

We had a such a fun weekend and hope to make it back up to New York again!