| On St. Patrick’s Day, Randy and I headed to New York City for a sort-of last-minute vacation. Here are just a few highlights. |
| Thursday: Got up at 2:30 a.m. At Central Park and seeing bits of the St. Patrick’s Day parade by noon.
Low point of the day: A Lick-a-Color bought from an ice cream cart in Central Park was so dry and cold it froze immediately to my tongue and lower lip. Tears were involved, the pain was intense, and I had a raw stripe on my inner lower lip the rest of my trip, like I had burned it on a pizza. Other things: Neither of us could figure out how to work the hotel room shower. We felt so stupid. Randy finally called down to the front desk and said, "This is going to sound stupid, but–" "The shower?" said the front desk person. "We get that all the time!" We went to Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark, the trouble-ridden Broadway musical from Julie Taymor (at least, it used to be). It was a real spectacle! The stunts were great, though there was one malfunction where Mary Jane’s rope was caught on something so she couldn’t swing out over the stage. They had to halt the production for a few minutes, which led to great improvisation from the Green Goblin. Story kind of fell apart in second act, but it was much better than we expected! |
| Friday: We went on a 3-hour cruise around Manhattan Island. It was fantastic! We got to see all the icons, went around the Statue of Liberty, etc., and the narrator was super–a great storyteller. The day was gorgeous. Up in the low 70s. Perfect, sunny, breezy on the boat.
Other things: Had the yummiest mac and cheese ever at Peter’s Rotisserie. Met my Clarion editor in person at a coffeehouse that day. I get so nervous about stuff like that. It went pretty well, though. Went to The Strand bookstore. Bought Tracie Zimmer’s Cousins of Clouds and also The House on East 88th Street, a picture book I remember reading hundreds of times as a kid. And it’s set in NY, so a perfect book souvenir! |
| Saturday: We went on a great tour of the New York Public Library, led by a nutty but terrifically informative tour guide.
Other things: We went up to the observation deck of the Empire State Building, ate some just OK cannoli, and bought souvenirs for our teen daughters at Forever 21. That’s right–they would much rather have clothes from a store they don’t get to often than have I Heart New York stuff. Also, Grand Central Station and the best key lime fluffy cheesecake in the world, from Magnolia Bakery. And a nifty tour of the NBC Studios, which we kind of lucked into. |
| Sunday: Yummy crepes at Golden Crepes. Main event was the Ground Zero Museum Workshop, a photo/artifact exhibit documenting the firefighters’ recovery efforts after 9/11. It was powerful! After that, we went to Ground Zero and saw the Memorial Garden in progress.
Other things: We hit Chelsea Market a couple of different times that day. I had bad mac and cheese from Ronnybrook Dairy. But Randy got to eat seafood from The Lobster Place. We think The Food Network studios are nearby, but they don’t have public space/tours that we could discover. |
| Monday: We took the subway from Queens (where we were staying) to Roosevelt Island, a small island between Queens and Manhattan. Got off there and rode the tram/skyride to Manhattan. Supposedly holds 109 people or something, but it felt crowded with about 40 of us standing in there! Very cool, though. And it started snowing as we crossed the river!
Other things: This was the only chilly, rainy day of our trip, so Central Park was out. We went to the Chrysler Building, Grand Central Station, and then the United Nations building. We took a really cool tour (after my knee brace set off security, and after I deposited my Swiss Army Knife, like I had to do everywhere that week)–we were the only people from the U.S. in the group. I learned a lot, and it was much more fascinating than I expected. We also went to the King Cole Bar at the hoity-toity St. Regis Hotel. We wanted to see the enormous Maxfield Parrish mural there, and it was wonderful! Paying $20 for a Coke and a Diet Coke felt very New York, and so did chatting with Gavin, the bartender, and a wealthy woman sitting next to us at the bar who splits her time between the hotel and Palm Beach and probably a few other places, too. |
| Tuesday: We stayed in Queens our last morning, heading to Flushing Meadows Park, the site of the 1964-65 World’s Fair. Here’s Randy in front of the 140′ Unisphere. The picture below is him standing at the base, so you get a sense of the actual size of the thing! |
| Back at the hotel, we checked out, wheeled our luggage to Tasty Fast Food for delicious pizza at cheap prices, and then took a cab to the airport. |
| View from our hotel room |
| Miscellaneous:
I love the subway. If we lived in a city with great public transportation, I would happily ditch my car! I like how they call women "Miss" instead of "Ma’am" in New York. Totally anti-feminist, I’m sure, but I like it anyway. So there. Funny how it’s "To stay or take?" at lunch counters. I’m used to "For here or to go?" I had several cannolis, but none was as good as the one at my local Byerly’s grocery store. That’s kind of sad. I’m going to have to go back to NY for a writer’s trip to see all my online friends who live in the area! |
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There are more pictures here. |