So, we’ve been owing this a while, but I’ve been lazy. Last Christmas, my parents gave us some frequent flier miles to use for whatever we wanted. As we thought about it, we remembered that we had an anniversary coming up. Like a big one. A decade of marriage. We decided to see if there were someplace in the continental US that we could go that would be a cool way for us to spend a few days together. We settled on New York City.
New York City has always been kind of a romantic, far away destination to me. I’ve been to some big cities like Boston, LA, Salvador (Brazil), Idaho Falls…but none of them had quite the same allure as NYC.
We decided on our destination in January, and immediately began planning. We bought our tickets, set up with my mom to babysit the kiddos, and even bought our hotel reservations with a portion of our tax refund. I decided that we’d go all out, and after getting a pretty screaming deal, booked the Waldorf Astoria.
From then on, we planned. We dreamed of where to go. We built a Google Map, and populated it with destinations. For Meredith’s birthday, I bought her a cool bracelet with the subway map on it.
We were also a little nervous. Some of the online guides say things like “Don’t make eye contact on the subway.” We were nervous about getting lost, about traffic, about how we would get around, about the density of people, about the possibilities for crime, rats, etc. We’re not the kind to believe everything you see on TV, but I was really hoping to see Spiderman. Anyway, we were excited, and the year slipped away until it was time to go.
Mom and Dad showed up, tools in hand, ready to attack our back yard. Apparently there is a gene that makes you pre-disposed to yard beautification. I don’t have it. My parents do, and for some reason thought that would be fun to tackle while we were gone. We packed our bags, got up early on 8/31, and away we went!
Day 1
Day 1 was predominantly a travel day. As we landed, we were interested to see fairly rural landscapes turn from this:
into this:
We took a car from the airport out to our hotel. We actually got to the building fairly quickly, but construction on the front required us to go to the side entrance to get in. We sat in traffic for 20 minutes before we realized that we were maybe 150 feet from our destination, so we got out, got our bags, thanked our nice Latvian driver (very cool guy…when we told him it was our first visit to NYC, he asked “What take so long?”), and headed into our hotel. And what a beautiful hotel it was. They upgraded our room to a single bedroom suite, thus taking us from a room we could barely afford to one we could never afford in good conscience.
That night we went to dinner at the Copacabana (with a Groupon). The food was awesome…though we were absolutely stuffed before we got to the main dish. The cheese bread (Ecuadorian) and the crazy good appetizers stuffed us, along with the virgin Pina Coladas.
We ate as much of our main dishes as possible, grabbed our desserts to go, and decided to walk a bit. We recognized that we were only a short walk from Times Square, so we walked by “Baked by Melissa” to grab some mini-cupcakes (which we ate as a hearty breakfast the next day) and then see a few sights in the Square. Which was awesome, by the way.
We visited the Hershey’s store and then headed back to the hotel, excited to take in the next day.
Day 2
Day 2 started with that nutritious mini-cupcake breakfast, and then we set out on foot to see some shopping and other sights. First, we decided to go see Bloomingdale’s.
I suppose I had heard of stores with lots of floors before, but hadn’t really thought much about it, until we found ourselves in a 9-story store. One store!
We walked through maybe 5 or 6 of them, bought Ella some discounted Olympic clothes, saw some chocolate dogs (for way more money than I would have expected prior to going to NYC), and then headed out to the curb to eat a hot dog at the stand you can see on the far right of that picture of Bloomingdales a couple of pictures up. It was pretty good.
We took our bags back to the hotel and then headed to Broadway, where we took in Phantom of the Opera.
Now Phantom was completely awesome. I got chills when the Organ played the first time, and the show did not disappoint. We sat in the front of the mezzanine, which was really cool to see the whole show (as a note, if you go, you’re better off sitting in the front of the mezzanine than the back of the floor, since there are some parts that happen up high, which are obscured by the mezzanine for the back row orchestra seats). We wandered back toward Times Square, and then North toward the shops on Fifth Avenue. As we were walking, we came across a street named Little Brazil, where I was able to get some Guarana, speak some Portuguese, and have a little cool Brazilian moment in the heart of the city.
After that, we hit some of the big stores on Fifth Avenue. First, Saks Fifth Avenue seemed like a good place to visit, since we were on Fifth Avenue.
We found that they have a floor devoted entirely to women’s shoes, where Meredith tested the theory that it is in fact free to try on shoes that cost more than our monthly rent in our first Denver Apartment (it is).
We also window shopped at Tiffany & Co., visited FAO Schwarz (where we saw the Muppet Workshop and reunited with an old Fraggle friend), and then headed back to Iron Chef Zakarian’s restaurant The National for a nice dinner. After that, back to the hotel for a good night’s sleep. We had no idea at that time how critical it would be.
Day 3
Day 3 had us heading down to Greenwich Village for a tour by RealNewYorkTours.com. We took the subway down there (where we saw our first and only rat), grabbed a quick bite at a bakery for breakfast, and then went on our tour.
Greg Simmons was our tour guide, and he did a wonderful job of bringing the city to life. We walked around Greenwich Village, Washington Square Park, SoHo, Little Italy, Chinatown, City Hall and the Courthouses, by the end of the Brooklyn Bridge, and then ended at Ground Zero. Our tour took about 4 and a half hours of brisk walking (missionary pace, in many cases). Here is a smattering (yeah, a smattering) of pictures from the tour.
This was the Hess Estate’s response when the city decided to take their land for further development. You can have it, but some of it can never be used for public purposes—it must always be privately owned and used.
A 9 1/2 foot wide apartment.
Store where Martha Stewart buys her cookies.
Little Italy
Chinatown
The Brooklyn Bridge
Freedom Tower, just over halfway done
Simmons, our awesome tour guide
After that, we decided to head back and grab a couple more souvenirs at the shops on Fifth. While we were waiting for one of them to be ready, we stepped into a store that, frankly, demonstrated that while we might feel comfortable shopping for the cheapest items in Tiffany’s, we probably wouldn’t ever buy the cheapest items in Bergdorf Goodman.
Here’s a pair of $4,000 shoes we saw (and no, Meredith didn’t try these on—we took the picture since Ella is a “sparkle” aficionado, and she loved it when we showed her the picture). They probably would have gone nice with a couple of the $20,000 dresses we saw there too (again, Meredith wasn’t in the trying on mood…the “You break it you buy it” thing weighed a bit on us).
Instead, we finished the night at the drugstore, buying Epsom salts to soak our aching feet, along with some Ben and Jerry’s ice cream.
Day 4
Day 4…ok, that was a whirlwind. We bought a New York Pass the day before so we could take in the sights for slightly cheaper, and probably saved about $60 by the end of the day. We started by heading to the Statue of Liberty, where we saw both the statue and the Orange County Choppers Liberty bike (which is not big enough for Lady Liberty to ride easily, in case you’re curious).
We unfortunately didn’t have time to go to Ellis Island, because of the sheer number of things we were trying to do. Next time. After that, we saw Men In Black headquarters, and moved on to the Museum of Modern Art.
Now the Museum of Modern Art was completely awesome. We got to see some Picasso, some of Monet’s Water Lilies, and a few Warhol’s, but I got kind of emotional when I looked to my right and saw Starry Night. I know it’s a cardinal sin of museum visiting, but I wanted to touch it so badly. It was behind glass, and under a watchful eye. It was amazing to see.
After that, we walked through a couple of the other galleries, as well as the Sculpture garden, and then left for the Guggenheim. I was excited to see the Guggenheim, as a bit of a Frank Lloyd Wright fan, but the art was a bit—er—over my head.
We walked down the ramp (the one Will Smith ran up in the beginning of the first Men In Black movie), shopped at the gift store, and left. We then headed to 30 Rock, where we went to the Top of the Rock, and took some stunning photos of the city.
We then grabbed a cab and headed to the 9/11 Memorial, which was an awesome sight. If you go, go online and reserve your tickets before you go—you go to the preview site and pick up your tickets for a later time, though if you get them reserved online, you can go there, pick up your tickets, and then immediately head down. Lesson learned.
Powerful stuff. After that we headed back to Midtown (inefficient, I know, but whatever), and went to the top of the Empire State Building (well, not the actual top—that cost extra, but pretty high up). This time it was after dark, so the views were different from those at 30 Rock, and a bit harder to capture.
We saw Macy’s (though we didn’t have time/energy to go in), and headed back to our Hotel to begin packing for the next day’s return trip.
The next day was another travel day, where we were delighted to see our family again, and exhausted from days 3 and 4.
We saw so much on this trip. Here are some other random photos.
Final Thoughts
All right…if you’ve made it this far, kudos. Or sorry. Up to you. Anyway, I came away feeling more…well…changed by this trip than by any other we’ve taken in our married life (and most changed from any since my mission and several trips to Washington, D.C.). Here are my thoughts:
- NYC is a unique place. There are tons of people! We were even there on a holiday weekend, which I’m told is generally lighter traffic than the average day. It was amazing to see how many people there were. While I could see myself living in NYC for a few months, I think the population density and lack of privacy would get to me after a while.
- NYC has an amazing spectrum of wealth. We saw a Ferrari in the street (and some legitimate shoppers in Bergdorf Goodman, Tiffany’s, etc.), as well as people bedding down on the stairs of the skyscrapers at night.
- NYC has a staggering number of things to do. We stayed in Manhattan the entire time, and only ventured north of the south end of Central Park once (to see the Guggenheim). I think, if you had enough time and money, you could comfortably spend a month as a tourist in Manhattan, and not see everything, not even speaking of the other boroughs.
- The subway was really cool! Well, inside the cars…otherwise it was muggy and hot down in the tunnels. And I spoke to some Brazilian tourists on the train too. It was neat.
- I really love my wife! If you’ve been around us for any length of time, you might know that Meredith and I bicker. We quibble. We’re not the perfect couple, who never raises their voices and always smiles at one another. We managed to bicker a bit on the trip. I plan too far ahead, which causes me to neglect to get enough input from Meredith. Meredith sometimes plans too little, so we end up rushing unnecessarily. These, among other contradictions, cause us some minor headaches. But, the point of me bringing all of this up, is that they’re minor. I love Meredith completely, in spite of her flaws, and in spite of mine. I know I’m not perfect, and I know she isn’t either, but I know I just couldn’t be truly happy—truly whole—without her. And I hope to have many, many more anniversaries with her.
Someday we’ll take our kids to NYC, so they can see some of the amazing history. And who knows—maybe Meredith and I will return to try to knock a few more things off our list (Central Park, the temple, etc.). Though now it’s time to start planning for 15 or 20 years. London? Vancouver? Ogden? Tokyo? Who knows…
Thanks for reading!
