Big Apple recap

We had a great vacation. I can really see why people fall in love with this city. We were there for 5 days and already plan to go back, but not for a while because it was EXPENSIVE. We didn't do some of the things that other tourists do, but we did what we wanted to do, which is what a vacation is all about. When we first got there I could not get over how fast New Yorkers are! They walk fast and they are fast when they order food to go. We got breakfast each day at a place around the corner from the hotel and the first day I had to just stand back and watch for a while. It felt sort of like jumping into a dance, you have to get the steps down and find an opening big enough before you launch in. New Yorkers were much nicer than the stereotypes I’ve heard, but don't get in their way on their commute!

We walked all over and took the subway. We only took a cab twice, and a shuttle to/from the airport. The subway system is more complicated then I’ve seen before – and I never did figure out which ones were local and which were express trains except for when they ran on different tracks, but we got everywhere we wanted to go.

We saw a lot of sites and also had a great time just wandering around. Probably the strangest thing we saw was while we were walking around in Chinatown. We walked by a market -first fruits and veggies, then the fish area. Some of the fish were still alive, others were filleted. A woman was reaching into a large bucket, and we thought she was getting crabs, lobsters, or maybe some sort of live fish that was in the bucket to have enough water …nope, she pulled up her arm and it was a huge FROG! She put it into a plastic bag and went in for a second one. The look on my face had to be horrible when I first saw the giant frog. I don’t even want to know what she was going to make with it, and one of her frogs got loose and she had to pick it up off the sidewalk. To each his own..frogs may be quite tasty, but I will never know..and NO I don’t think I’d like frog legs either, my grandfather got them one time when I was a kid but I do not think I even tasted them. Luckily we’d eaten a while earlier (in Little Italy), because I don’t think I’d have wanted to eat for a while after that, it was memorable though. That and the stereotypical New York accent we overheard say “How’s your mother?” are going to be talked about for quite a while.

We’d planned out our trip ahead of time (I’m a planner, what can I say) so that we would see things that were located in the same part of town at the same time, both to maximize our viewing and save our feet from all the walking. We were in Manhattan the entire time except for the time it took us to get off a ferry and walk around to get right back on.

On Wednesday we went to the southern tip of Manhattan to see Battery Park and Lady Liberty. We chose not to go to the Statue of Liberty but simply rode the Staten Island Ferry across to see her. I’ve seen it on TV my whole life, but loved seeing her in person! We walked through the financial district and then went over to see Little Italy and Chinatown. We had lunch in Little Italy; oh wow the pasta….mmmm.

Later in the day, we went to Washington Square Park, and almost missed the chess area because we thought it was blocked off – a large part of the park was blocked for construction, but as we were leaving the park we saw it and went over to watch the people play. While there a guy asked if we wanted to play, so Kevin was able to play two games of chess (and win!) in the park he’s wanted to play in since seeing the movie “Searching for Bobby Fisher” years ago.
Thursday we rode the subway over to see the UN, and when we got off the subway we were at the Grand Central terminal station, so we had to go and see it. The place is huge, and it is marble as far as the eye can see. I couldn’t help but think of Harry Potter and the train station when I was there, yes wrong country….oh well.

We walked over to the UN. We weren’t able to take a tour, but did see the exhibit on land mines. I love the sculpture of the gun tied into a knot. After we left there, we found a place to have a slice of genuine NY pizza. It was so good. After lunch we went to Rockefeller Center, and went to the “Top of the Rock” so we could see NYC from above. My favorite site from the top: Central Park, it is a sea of green in the middle of the city. We also saw the Empire State Building, Chrysler building, the new year’s eve ball, and lots of other sites. Once we came back down, we went to see the statue in front of where the ice skating rink would be (it is already closed for the season).

We went to see Times Square – sensory overload is the only way to describe it. Everywhere you look there are lights and signs, and we saw a girl shooting what we assume was a music video. The poor girl had to be cold – in a light dress and barefoot, and she had to run into the street when the crosswalk was on so that she could then walk and strum her guitar while the cameras rolled. Anyone recognize her?

Friday was devoted to Central Park and the American Museum of Natural History. We also stopped to see the Dakota building, where John Lennon lived and, sadly, where he was killed. We walked through the area of the park that Yoko Ono funded to be “Strawberry Fields”, complete with an “imagine” mosaic on the ground. We walked and walked in Central Park and only saw a very small part of it. In the park you really can forget you’re in a big city. I love all the parks on Manhattan, and know that the people living there must crave the greenery and break from the buildings and concrete. We spent several hours in the museum, especially the sections on the dinosaurs and the animal displays. Did you know that cinnamon is bark? I probably should’ve known that, but can’t say that I did. The most astounding exhibit – a full-size model of a blue whale. Outside of the museum, Kevin got his NYC hot dog…I had a pretzel. This is the only day we had rain, and a doorman on the Upper East Side was nice enough to let us wait it out in the entry way of the building.

Friday night we went to a comedy club (a better option for us then a play or musical). It is called Comic Strip Live and is where Jerry Seinfeld and many others got their start. We had a great time, there were FIVE comedians who performed and they were all funny. The fact that they were VERY New Yorky made it even more entertaining to us.

On Saturday, we met up with my friend Chris who lives there now. We met at the Strand bookstore (18 miles of books!) and then went to get a walking tour of the Financial District. He showed us Wall Street, and the NY Stock Exchange. We also went to see Ground Zero, we’d tried to see it on our own the first day, but weren’t sure how to see it. We did find a memorial to the firefighters and others who lost their lives that day. There isn’t much to see, it’s a construction zone right now. But being near it and seeing how huge the buildings must’ve been I cannot imagine what it must have been like in NYC that day. That night we went to eat Korean BBQ with Chris. We were skeptical because we'd looked at menus of some of the other Korean restaurants near out hotel and scared ourselves, but it was really very good.

It was a great trip. We got a much needed break from work, and enjoyed spending time together. We saw a lot, but also had a chance to relax; a week with no alarm clock (and no doggie alarm) is a good one. There is a lot to do there that we didn’t have time to do, but we saw what we’d slated out for ourselves and had the classic NY food that we wanted to have, in addition to the pizza and hot dog, we ate at a family-run diner, complete with a kid working the cash register. We never ate at one, but I saw soup shops everywhere. That is a kind of restaurant that wouldn’t make it too well in Houston, it’s just not that cold for very long, but I’m sure it’d be great in NYC and now I understand why Seinfeld had whole episodes about a soup stand.

If you want to see more pictures from our trip, go here.