Day 3 - Central Park

We took Tuesday morning pretty slowly. Bob and Kim left a few notes and maps for getting around Brooklyn, pointing out fun hipster shops and places to get breakfast. We had some trouble navigating past finding a bakery and couldn't seem to find the streets they had mentioned.  So we headed into Manhattan via the L-train and made our way to Central Park.

It was gorgeous and I could even recognize parts of it from movies like Definitely, Maybe; Enchanted and 27 Dresses. We walked around looking at the various statues and bridges.  We saw several groups of musicians, a couple taking wedding shots and a man blowing giant bubbles with his homemade bubble wands.  He took two sticks and tied rope connecting both in a loop and after dipping them into a bucket of soap, he'd hold them out, letting the wind create huge bubbles as it passed through. Alex took a turn making bubbles, so I took pictures.  We saw horse-drawn carriages and bicycle taxis.

We made our way in the direction of the Museum of Natural History and spent the afternoon in there. We saw elephants (my favorite) and sloths (Alex's favorite) and saw a short show about stars in the Planetarium, narrated by Whoopi Goldberg. We spent about 3 hours in the museum and covered most of it.  Some parts we saw more thuroughly than others but we did manage to see the big Easter Island-looking statue from the movie Night at the Museum and the giant whale that Barney knocks down in How I Met Your Mother.  I didn't really appreciate the ocean animals room, it was a dark and there was a giant squid. But I loved seeing the extinct animals and their huge skeletons. Once it closed, we headed back to the park.

After looking at a map, we found Strawberry Fields! I took a picture in the middle of the Imagine mosaic. We walked around a bit more and once we got hungry, we did a search for the Jekyll and Hyde Club that Alex had seen online.  It was just south of the park on 6th, so we walked the rest of the way for a very interesting dinner.

Standing outside was man in costume who greeted us warmly and then knocked on the door requesting entrance.  A few minutes later, another man came to take us inside.  He brought us into a small hallway where we saw a short video in which we were greeted and intimidated as the ceiling started to fall in on us. I think I may have left some marks in Alex's hand from squeezing it too hard.  This only lasted a minute and the man asked us to shout "Stop!" though we were too timid to do so and he laughed us but showed us into the restaurant and to our table. The food was quite pricey, as we expected being so close to Times Square but we shared a delicious roasted chicken and vegetables (yes I ate lots of vegetables) and walked around the four-story restaurant. Each level had a theme: the library, the laboratory, the attic and the grand saloon. There was a short "Frankenstein" themed entertainment and the actors continued to walk around harassing customers and waiters alike.

It was quite cold out by this point, and was past 7. With all the walking we had done the last two days, we were dragging so we decided to walk through some of the ritzy streets to find the nearest subway. We saw some very expensive clothing stores as we were near 5th Ave and stopped in Lindt to get some Lindor Truffles to share.

Finally we were back in Brooklyn and enjoyed a second dinner of salad and burgers and wine.  Then we made a strategy for Wednesday morning when we'd attempt to get into a TV show audience.  We made of list of the those taping on Wednesday that had good odds of getting standby tickets. Live! With Regis and Kelly, The View, The Daily Show and Conan O'Brien were all in the same area and spaced well enough apart that if we missed one, we could try for tickets at the next.  However, Live! started passing out tickets at 7am.  We set the alarm for 5:30am and called it a night. 

Day 2 - Greenwich Village

Alex and I took the next morning slowly. No need to wake up early and rush. After a breakfast of English muffins and coffee cakes (thanks Grandma!) Pop Pop and Grandma drove us the few blocks to downtown Closter to wait for a 11:10 bus. We were early and it was cold standing there in the wind, but I guessed NYC wouldn't be much better. Alex complained the whole time, however.

Finally, right on schedule, a bus pulled up along the curb. We played our $6.30 each and walked all the way to the back, each of us carrying a large and heavy black duffel bag. Yes, Alex picked a seat all the way in the back, so everyone watched me struggle (and sometimes hit them) as I pushed my way to the back.

Alex made nice conversation with a man that noticed his purple High Point hat and recognized the area. He warned us that New York City would be very different than hospitable, conservative North Carolina (thanks, dude).  Just under an hour later, we were slowly making our way through the Lincoln Tunnel.  Too slowly, if you ask me because I do NOT like tunnels. But Alex held my hand and soon we saw the city!

Our first impression of the City. Classy huh?
I guess we'll just have to come back when we're legal...

Once off the bus, we navigated our way through Port Authority seaching for the subway. We bought one-trip tickets, as suggested by Kim and mapped a route to Union Square. Her office was a mere 3 blocks from there. The subway was tricky, again with our large bags. Halfway down Broadway, we realized Alex's bag was much lighter than mine, so we switched. (He's so chivalrous!)  Though it would be humorous, it would be pointless for him to offer to carry both, and I am not quite that helpless. With my awesome ability to follow directions and read the small map of the City I had in a guidebook, we were soon outside of Kim's office panting only slightly. Once upstairs, she greeted us excitedly.

She suggested we spend the afternoon touring the Village. When I asked (ignorantly) how to get there, she said "You're in it!" So she pointed out on my map fun places to eat, what roads were the most colorful and then gave us a time to meet back at the office.

Let me pause here to back-track. Before we started really exploring, we already knew NYC would be a lot of fun, if only for the interesting people. While waiting in one subway station, a very tall -person- walked pasted us.  I only barely noticed this person because of his or her ridiculous height and skinny legs. Once, what I thought was a she, passed us, Alex whispered "that was a man!" I looked back quickly to see my first New York transvestite.

Anyway, this was only the beginning of the crazy, funny and unusual people and things we saw in NYC. 

Before we made it to the Japanese places Kim suggested, we got hungry and tried gyro's from a sidewalk cart. Mine was chicken, Alex's lamb, but they were both equally difficult to eat and equally delicious. Successful first taste of streetfood.


Then we went into the West Village to look at shops, restaurants and find Magnolia Bakery that a friend of Alex's had suggested.  We had to walk around a bit before we were hungry enough to try their coffee and a very large toffee peanut butter bar that we enjoyed between a playground and two very sketchy men who decided to sit on the ground instead of one of the 15 benches in pedestrian-only area. The peanut butter bar was wonderful, the company....entertaining. We finished quickly and continued on our way.

We shopped around a few clothing stores. Alex bought a striped sweater that came in handy when he wanted to look nice for Regis and Kelly (more on that on Day 4). We spent quite a bit of time in Urban Outfitters (ironic cause there are plenty of those in VA) mostly to keep warm and sit down for a few minutes as we were getting tired by this point. About 6:15 we headed back to 11th and University to meet Kim and L-train it to Brooklyn where we'd meet Bob for Thai take-out. Another first for both of us. We split several yummy dishes between the four of us.

 Standing in the subway station, Alex notices something on the tracks. "Subway mice!" he whispers to me, and Kim hears it too. "Those aren't mice..." she says.  If nothing else made it as clear, his excitement over rats definitely did; we made the right choice for Spring Break!

Day 1 - Journey to NJ

It's time to start sharing my Spring Break story. I'm going to attempt to do one day per blog and get through the week soon before I start forgetting.

As most know by now, my boyfriend Alex and I ventured up to New York City to explore the city. He has never been before, and I haven't been in many years and those trips were short. Also, I have wonderfully generous and fun cousins who live in Brooklyn and have just enough space for visitors. To cut down on driving and stress, we left the car at my grandma's in NJ just an hour out of the City. Plus she provided us with a place to stay the first and last night along with wonderfully delicious meals.  Pop Pop provided the entertainment, of course.

We left from New Market on Sunday March 7th about 9:30am. Mom and John didn't even wake up to say good-bye. We had plenty of water, Girl Scout cookies and Karen, the GPS.

It rained the whooooole way. Now the 6 hour-drive is not unfamiliar to me and it is not a terrible trek to make, however, the rain just made it wearisome.

We stopped in Pennsylvania for lunch at Arby's. Then we made a stop in Easton, Pennsylvania. My navigator, Alex, liked to check the GPS every so often to find fun things en route.  The Crayola Factory came up in his findings.  After literally driving in a circle in the middle of town (a round-about as the Aussie Karen called it), we ran through the rain to the Crayola Store. We were disappointed to find the actual factory was not in Easton, just costly video of how a crayon is made and a play center for children. So we skipped that and looked around the store.  The largest box we found was I think 152 crayons. You could also make your own box from a giant dispenser in the middle of the story. And the most noticeable rarity was the World's Largest Crayon in a glass box. It was made from parts of old crayon and left-overs, melted down and shaped into a very large, very heavy blue crayon.

After that we continued the few hours left into New Jersey.  Karen was able to take us a 'toll-free' route which only extended the trip by about 6 minutes.  Those 6 minutes turned into 15 when I took a few wrong turns but we soon made it to Grandma's.  She and Pop Pop grilled (yes in the rain) steaks and she made her famous potato salad.  I noticed an empty bowl and spoon with cream left on it when we arrived, and sure enough, dessert was her delicious (and probably my favorite of her desserts) Boston Creme cake.

We planned our first day in the city after dinner. We would take the bus into Port Authority. Hop a subway and meet Kim at her office near Union Square to drop off our bags and explore Greenwich Village. That story will come in the next blog :)