I HEART NEW YORK!!

My trip to New York was amazing. My Aunt and Uncle live in Manhattan and I have been visiting them ever since I was a little girl, and every time my family goes there to visit New York never fails me. For me Manhattan has a buzz of its own which I love. It could be that I have grown up in the quiet bay area and the chaos of New York intrigues me, but I enjoy every moment. We arrived Aug. 30 late in the afternoon and we spent the rest of the day with my aunt and uncle catching up and talking about random things. My cousin Julia, who now lives in California, flew in later that night. We were suppose to pick her up from the airport at around midnight, but it turned out that my aunt had read the arrival time incorrectly and my cousin arrived at the airport and we were not there to meet her so she took a taxi from the airport to Manhattan. The next day we took our time to get ready and around noon we got out of the apartment and walked around the city, which is always one of my favorite things to do. On Saturday, the rest of my cousins drove in from Maryland with Pebble! My cousin Mark's dog. She is very cute and provided a lot of entertainment for us throughout the weekend. Sunday was the night of the anniversary dinner,so during the day we just relaxed and went for a walk in Central Park. I we usually don't walk through Central Park to get to where we want to go, but when we do I love it. I like to sit on a bench and watch people and Central Park is a great place to do it. There were a bunch of snow cone carts which looked so yummy and it reminded me of when I was a little kid, as we as a guy walking around with a huge yellow snake. Similar to the one that Britney Spears had around her neck during her performance of "I'm a Slave" at the VMA's five or so years ago. To me that so was not cool! I am not a fan of snakes let alone giant yellow ones.

That night was they Anniversary dinner and we drove two separate cars because not all of us could fit in one car. So my cousins drove in one car while my aunt, uncle, my dad, my mom and I drove in another. My aunt just got a new Lexus with a navigation systems in it so she wanted to try it out. First the navigation system could not find the restaurant that we wanted to go to, and the one we though was the correct restaurant turned out to be the wrong one in the opposite direction. My aunt asked me to wright out directions on note cards, so luckily we had those to get us to the right place. After driving and getting a little lost we arrived at the restaurant 30 min. late. My uncle and I sat down at the table while my mom, dad, and aunt went to call my cousins to find out where they were since they should have arrived before us, but did not. It turned out that they got lost and were still stuck in Manhattan and it would take them 30 min to get to the restaurant. Finally, every one got to the restaurant we enjoyed our meal and forgot about all getting lost and the navigation system not working.

US OPEN 2007
On Monday, Labor Day, my dad got tickets to go see the US Open. It was so amazing. My dad and I love to watch sports together and when I was younger we use to watch tennis, but now we mostly watch golf. In my last year at college my best friend played tennis and she taught me how to play and I made a bunch of friends, which I miss very much, so now my dad and I follow tennis again. We were trying to find ticket before Monday, but we could never find ones that we liked. Pretty much all of the tickets were sold out so we had to resort to stubhub to get some. I watched the US Open on TV last year and I never thought that I would be going to Flushing Meadows to actually watch these world class athletes play. We had ticket for Arthur Ashe Stadium and the first match we saw Svetlana Kuznetsova vs. Victoria Azarenka. Svetlana won 6-2 6-3, the next match was the one I really wanted to get tickets for. It was Andy Roddick vs Tomas Berdych. It was such a great game and it was so amazing to watch these to players have at it. You could tell they both really wanted to win and even though in the first match Tomas asked for the doctor to come out to the court he was still playing really well. Tomas retired in the second set so Andy won 7-6(6) 2-0 ret. I have seen Andy play twice now and both times the matches only lasted an hour. But, he is amazing to watch so it is worth it. Since his match ended early we went over to Armstrong Stadium to watch Shahar Peer(ISR) vs Agnieszka Radwanska (POL). I watched Agnieszka defeat Maria Sharapova on tv and I definitely had to see her against Shahar Peer. We got to the stadium towards the end of the match, but it was still great to see nonetheless. The crowd once again really got into it. There was a section full of Polish flags and there was a section full of Israeli flags and they chanted and cheered throughout the match. Shahar won the match 6-4 6-1 so it was pretty one sided, but it was amazing to see a 18 year old who I think it fairly new to the tour play against some of the big names in women's tennis. After that match we went back to Arthur Ashe stadium to watch the Tommy Haas vs. James Blake match. I have never fully watched James or Tommy play, but this match was one of the highlights of the US Open. The match was over two hours and the crowd really got into it. The match went to four sets and unfortunately Tommay Haas won 4-6 6-4 3-6 6-0 7-7 (4). To watch two men's tennis matches at the US Open was amazing. You could definitely see the difference in pace of the game and speed of the ball between both matches. This was a moment that will last a life time in my memory and I am so glad that I got to go with my dad. I will never forget it.

We just relaxed and lounged around the apartment and walked through the streets or New York for the next few days until we went home. It was a great relaxing trip and so far it hasn't affected my golf game too much. But, even if it did it was well worth it.