On Friday we got in the car and drove straight up the eastern side of the state and ended up in New York City.
We got into the city much later than we expected. We were hoping to get there in the wee hours of Saturday morning - around 2am - but ended up not getting there until closer to 8am. Stupid me didn't think to call the hotel to let them know we'd be so late, so they didn't have a room for us when we got there. They had our reservation... just not a room (yes, the lady at the desk actually said that). That scene from Seinfeld popped into my mind...
JERRY: I don't understand, I made a reservation, do you have my reservation?
RENTAL CAR AGENT: Yes, we do, unfortunately we ran out of cars.
JERRY: But the reservation keeps the car here. That's why you have the reservation.
RENTAL CAR AGENT: I know why we have reservations.
JERRY: I don't think you do. If you did, I'd have a car. See, you know how to take the reservation, you just don't know how to *hold* the reservation and that's really the most important part of the reservation, the holding. Anybody can just take them.
We were hoping to just crawl into bed and sleep for a while (after driving literally straight through the night), but instead we had to kill a couple of hours while they cleared out a room for us. So... we headed a few blocks over to Rockefeller Center and watched the ice skaters under the huge Christmas tree they have there, then we went over to a deli and got some breakfast. Back at the hotel, our room was finally available, so we crashed for the next 6-8 hours. When we got up that evening we explored the area. We were staying right in the middle of the theater district, just off of Broadway. A few blocks downtown is Times Square. A few blocks over towards the east side is Rockefeller Center. A few blocks north is Central Park. Not a bad location really.
About a block over was the Ambassador theater where the Broadway show Chicago was playing. We looked into tickets, thinking there'd be no way we'd be able to get them for the same evening. They had a few available so we picked some up, got some dinner, and went to the show. It was amazing... Vincent Pastore was playing Amos and Aida Turturro was playing Mama Morton (both are from the show Sopranos). We were sitting in the fourth row, orchestra level. At the end they were tossing out roses as part of the show and we caught the first one.
On Sunday it was raining so we headed out to the American Museum of Natural History, figuring that would be a good indoor activity to avoid the weather. When we got off the subway, the rain had paused for a bit, so we walked through Central Park for a while on our way to the museum, munching on a pretzel. The museum was crowded, but good. I'd never really seen anything like it before.
That evening we headed into Brooklyn to check out Revolution NYC out of curiosity. We'd seen a documentary on it some time ago on Sundance and thought it would be interesting. It was disappointing, but a new experience I guess. I'd never had a beer during a church service before...
After "church" (yeah, I have to use that term loosely there), we headed to the East Village and had dinner at Katz's Deli, a local favorite for ginormous sandwiches. We split a reuben and sat next to the table where Meg Ryan faked her orgasm in "When Harry Met Sally."
Monday morning we headed across town to another local favorite place to get a bagel (they serve them with salmon and cream cheese... very odd but surprisingly tasty). After accidentally breaking in line (I swear!) and eating, we headed out to the site of the World Trade Center. It was next to impossible to see anything with all the construction going on but was still worth the trip downtown. Afterwards we headed to Battery Park and caught the Staten Island Ferry (round trip) to check out the statue of liberty. Heading back uptown a bit we had pizza at John's of Bleeker Street in Greenwich Village, another local favorite.
After dinner we headed to Chinatown, where I held my wallet tighter than normal. We managed to avoid getting mugged or pickpocketed and headed back uptown to the Empire State Building to close out the evening with a trip to the top and a view of the city at night.
Tuesday (Christmas) morning we were up early and packed. We grabbed a bagel and some coffee and walked back over to the Rockefeller to see the tree lit up and hopped a subway back to Penn Station to catch the train out of town.
All in all it was a fantastic trip. I wish we could have spent longer there but even as short as it was it worked well as a "change of scenery."
I'll post pictures soon.
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