This is my official one blog from Brian and my trip to New York. It's Monday 7/19 and we have officially survived one of the hottest weekends of sightseeing in my life! We arrived here last Wednesday night to visit Brian's sister and boyfriend, Kate and Tom, who live on the upper east side (and now I actually know what that means!). It's been a truly fun trip and I feel like I've gotten a healthy dose of New York life - metro transit, lots of food, most major sights, a live TV broadcast, an off-broadway show, and lots of walking!
Thursday was spent with Kate navigating the Subway and downtown. She showed us the FIT campus where she is almost finished with her master's degree in fashion design. The campus is pretty large and situated about 8 blocks from times square. We walked all over downtown, times square, and union station. We spent most of the afternoon waiting for our reserve tickets to see the Jimmy Falon Late Night Show live. Special guests were Jennifer Love Hewitt, John Henson from Wipe Out, and Million Dollar Quartet (a broadway snipit). The studio was surprisingly small. I'd love to show you pictures but the 2 I tried to sneak in were immediately caught and deleted....tough security!
Friday we walked over to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and spent the morning there. On the way home we walked through Central Park a bit, very cool. Especially fun for me was seeing all the dogs. New Yorkers have the funniest dogs and you can't get down a city avenue without seeing a few. We took the subway in the evening down to a really great pizza place, Gruppos. In fact, food was one of my favorite parts of New York (surprise surprise). We tried everything from vendor Chicken and Rice to an Indian buffet to South African "Bunny Chow" to Japanese stir fry (no sushi for me) to Magnolia's coconut cake. Every street is full of awesome little restaurants, bakeries, and deli's. The choices are endless.
Saturday was fairly laid back with a morning stroll through the upper east side for window shopping. There are some of the coolest little shops that specialize in all sorts of different styles and trends. I tend to steer toward the home decor and shoe shops since there are some really wonderful decorating ideas. Most of them are ridiciously expensive. That afternoon Kate and Tom's friend Paul from Boston stopped by on his way through and we went down to Little Italy and China Town. Brian's favorite part was when we were trying to barter for a coach purse and the guy was so insulted by Brian's $20 offer that he grabbed the purse out of his hand and threw it back in the pile. Needless to say I never did get a purse on this trip - but I did find some great scarves.
Sunday started with a church service at St. Patrick's cathedral and it was packed! That afternoon we saw "Perfect Crime" off broadway, a fairly interesting theatrical production but very small scale. We really should have sprung for a flashy show. Next trip.....
Monday we were out the door by 7:30am to catch the first ferry out to Liberty and Ellis Islands. That was a great trip. I was surprised how close the islands are to Manhatten, it was a great view even with a little fog. Wall Street is in that area so we walked through that part of town ending at Ground Zero which is highly under construction for the new memorial.
I'm now sitting at the airport waiting for a delayed flight. There must be lots of delays around here because this tiny terminal is PACKED and there is less than no air flow. Very comfortable....
That's all for now! Thanks New York and Kate and Tom!!
