New York

That's right, suckas. The Big Tomato itself. Cue Frank Sinatra.

Come on! It's the Statue of Mother-Trucking Liberty. If you aren't thrilled seeing this up close, you are a soulless robot or android, sent from the future to study mankind to bring about our downfall. Or just a dick. One of the two. Anyway, there she is, and she greets us every time we pull into New York.

We sail past the southern tip of Manhattan, up the Hudson to Pier 88 on 48th and 12th. We're actually right next to the Intrepid, so when we sail in at 7 AM, you're kind of overwhelmed by the combination of all the sights.

This is the view from our cabin on deck four.

Ellis Island, with the Lady in the background. This is where my family from Ireland and Italy sailed into to build a better life, so that one day one of their wise-ass great-great grandkids could make dick jokes on a cruise ship. It's the American Dream.

The sights of New York are fantastic, of course, and more pictures of the Giant Apricot will be coming soon, but the real treat for me in being able to come home and visit regularly for the first time in 8 years. Below, a brief overview of some things we've seen and remembered to take pictures of.

Crumbs Cupcakes, near Times Square. If you're looking for proof of a kind and loving God, go to Crumbs and have a cupcake. Any of them. Doesn't matter. This place is amazing. If I'm ever one of those morbidly obese guys who has to have a wall knocked out of their apartment so that I can get cantilevered into a flatbed truck so I can be driven to the hospital, Crumbs Cupcakes will be the cause.

Here's Carisa holding up one of man's greatest inventions. That's right. We're regularly in one of the greatest cities in the world and I'm showing you pictures of cupcakes. It is a miracle I don't weigh 600 pounds.

Right below is favorite thing about New York:

SCIRETTAS!!! That's me, brother Sean and Mom at Broome St. Bar on Sean's 25th birthday. The group in total was the three of us, Carisa and Sean's girlfriend Amanda. Again, if you can't have a good time with that group, you're an alien who doesn't understand human emotion.

A view of Lady Liberty on our way back out to sea.

And the view of the Verrazano Bridge, as we duck under it. We're well into our regular itinerary now, which is a day at sea, Port Canaveral, Great Stirrup Cay, Nassau, then two days at sea on our way back up the east coast of the United States back to New York.

All will be revealed in the next few installments, chickies. Three cheers for New York, and watch out for robots. See you soon!