Mackenzie
While I was in New Jersey working I had the oppurtunity to go into New York City on the weekends and tour around and visit my cousin Rachel. We had such a blast and plan to travel together someday in the future. Here's the pictures in no particular order. Please note that I am literally freezing to death in most of these pictures.


On the shore looking over the water to the Statue of Liberty

A monument to civil engineering, the Broklyn Bridge

Grand Central Station

Rockefeller Center at night.

After we went to see Wicked.
Times Square.

Radio City Music Hall.

Under the Romanian flag at Rockefeller Center.

Rachel at Rockefeller Center.

Where they film Good Morning America.

Thinking of Nicholas Cage and Cher in Moonstruck.

Romanian food! Sarmale, Mititei, Mamaliga, Ciorba, Zacusca, salata de vinete...

Jones Beach

Being admitted at Ellis Island.

An engineers picture of the inside of the Statue of Liberty.

The orginal flame on the Statue of Liberty.

Rachel on the ferry to the Statue of Liberty.

Looking back at NYC on the ferry.

Mackenzie
I came to New Jersey last week for work and expected it to be part of the same country that I grew up in, but quickly found out that I was on a different planet. Some reasons why I wasn't in Seattle anymore Toto:


1. Everyone speaks loudly and in a nasally voice. I was totally amazed by my ability to eat my words and not say to the lady at the rental car counter, "You're joking right? You don't actually talk like that".

2. No one wears Goretex. I feel like a total freak everywhere I go, because I am the only one wearing a Goretex jacket. I knew that I should have bought a jacket with a fur lined hood in Romania.

3. I am the only blond, literally. Before I went to Romania I didn't really believe that you could have pale skin and dark hair, but apparently it is all the rage on the east coast.

4. They have townships. It has taken me a week to figure out that a township is the unincorporated area for a town. There is a sign for a new township every ten feet.

5. There was a fur coat commercial on the radio. I wanted to call those people and let them know that PETA is going to eat them alive. Although that wasn't as shocking as the lady that I saw wearing a full length fur coat in New York.


I am sure that there have been other things that have surprised me, but those were my first impressions of New Jersey, the final frontier.
Mackenzie

I have been working in New Jersey and part of my job is to ship the rock cores that we pull out of the ground freight to our office in Springfield Missouri. Needless to say the local UPS Store loves us (my coworker Rob and I, Rob is working a different hole). My first shipment was for a lot of rock and cost 500 dollars.

So, I went in today to ship just one box of rocks and the lady who works the counter told me that Jack, the guy who is in charge of placating angry land owners was in there that day too. They had told him that one of us had been in earlier, and he had asked "Who, Pebbles or Bamm-Bamm?". The lady chuckled and said that they have now dubbed us Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm.