New York City

The trip to New York City with mom during the last weekend of April 2010 was a fab one. I'll only be able to comment about my experience and perspective of the trip...

Friday, April 23rd:

We flew out of Madison on a direct flight to LaGuardia airport. I thought everything went well on that flight. Although, the airport was really weird - we learned that it used to be an amusement park before it became an airport! Not a lot of terminals available so we ended up having to take a bus from the plan to the terminal. That was a bit weird.

We immediately went to grab a cab and went straight for the hotel. 90 friggin' bucks... That was double the price they had for Airport to Manhattan - we were only across the river in Jersey City and they doubled the cab fare... I noticed that there was a bus available for $10 each way between LaGuardia and Penn Station/Grand Central Station... I kept that information in mind for our return trip to the airport for Sunday.

We got to the hotel and couldn't check in right away, so we ate at a restaurant across the street from our hotel. The food was decent. We were able to check in as soon as we finished our lunch. We then immediately set out for Manhattan! We took the Path- a train that transports people between New Jersey and Manhattan (that's not all the Path is good for actually but the one we used did that much).

From the Path, we got off at 33rd street in Manhattan, and headed out to Times Square - about 15 blocks north of the last stop of the Path. Upon arrival in the vicinity we checked out a store, Nygard, which had clothes and jewelery. They had a great sale and I dug through their canisters and scored a bunch of stuff for only $28 bucks. The original price of a necklace that I bought was actually $35, and the woman sold it to me for $10 (thanks to Mom for getting the discount! It wasn't marked on sale but was definitely IN the bucket for 75% off!)

After shopping at Nygard, we continued to head up towards Times Square and looked around quickly. We then looked for the "TKTS" stand where they sell discount tickets for shows on and off Broadway. After standing in line for about 45 minutes, a man approached some people in line selling tickets to the West Side Story for $60 each. I guess we were running out of patience from standing in line for so long (but we were already 3/4 into the line!) So we bought the tickets only to realize that we had been scammed. They were only $25 each and were up on the highest balcony or something like that, so he would profit $35 on each ticket. We sat down and thought about what we're going to do. Much to our surprise the man returned trying to sell more tickets to people in line, and we were able to catch him and get a refund. After that we got back into line (for another hour) and bought "real" tickets for the West Side Story at about $70 each, with MUCH better seats for that evening at 8 pm.

We saw Mickey and Minnie Mouse and SpongeBob Squarepants just after we got our tickets.

We then walked a few blocks from Times Square to Fresca, a restaurant that inspire some of the frozen food selection available from Schwans. Fortunately we walked right through Rockefeller Plaza and right past some Cathedral (on our way back to Times Square we were able to go inside and check out the details - it was amazing). We got to Fresca and the restaurant was pretty bare... We had a nice dinner... ate amazing food.

We then headed back to Times Square to watch the West Side Story. Fortunately I brought my hearing aids and we enjoyed the show. There were times I would be able to follow the story quite easily and other times when I couldn't. Mom was such a sweetheart trying to sign some of the lyrics so that I could catch up. Occasionally she would sum up and explain what's happening. I thought it was a good show... Mom thought it was okay... She kind of expected more to it - perhaps the story and the period in time didn't allow for much design and flair like they had for Wicked. Next time I go to NYC, I'm going to watch Wicked. Even if the tickets are at least $150 per seat.

We headed back to Jersey city and got ourselves some ice cream and called it a night.

Saturday, April 24th:

We decided today was the day we were going to hit Central Park. We took the Path up to 33rd street again, and then switched over to the subway and got a ride up to Central Park, and then had to walk a few blocks towards the park. While walking there, we decided we had to visit the ladies room and the best place to go was at a mall just across one of the corners of Central Park. I of course wanted to shop as soon as we stepped in - and we found some unique stores (no chains in NYC - can always shop at them here in Wis!). Bought a really cute tank top with strings on the back - bought it at $70 - which was actually 50% off the original price! Definitely worth it because it's not something you'd find anywhere else.

After the "quick" shopping spree, we walked into Central Park and nearly the first thing we saw was a nice area of rocks and people were sitting around on the rocks, and we decided to walk on them. Not the best decision but we made it on the huge pile of rocks and figured out a way to get off of them! We walked on... saw the carousel, and walked along the sidewalks for part of it... The scenery was amazing. Various artists were painting the scenery in various sections of the park. I can't put it in words... We walked halfway through the entire park - it's probably a mile and a half... maybe more... We decided it was time for coffee, so we walked towards the street on the east side of the park and walked past some vendors. One of them made jewelery out of forks. Yes, you read that right, forks. I bought a ring - it was unique and I just had to get it.

We stopped at a local diner and mom had her coffee, some french fries... and I certainly don't remember what I had! We saw pretty much everything we wanted to see and we still had another day in NYC. So I googled up things to do in NYC. We decided that we would check out Chelsea Market the next day... and finish this day with checking out Grand Central Station, and a dinner at Little Italy.

We checked out the whispering spot at Grand Central Station. With me being deaf, I couldn't try to listen to someone whispering at one corner of the "room" (it's actually a connecting point of two large walkways) but I spoke to a corner and mom certainly heard me on the other end! A miracle if you ask me.

We headed over to Little Italy and this street was amazing - lots of Italian restaurants all over the place, and some stores selling purses and things. While walking on the street - a few blocks in length, we were looking for places to eat. While looking, I found an incredibly CUTE purse. It was hanging on the sidewalk among other purses, and a woman was sitting in her little "nook" filled with more purses, wallets and sunglasses. She stated that the purse was $30. I hesitated. She then offered something around $27 or $28. At that point mom realized I wasn't right behind her, so she turned around and came back to me. The woman said something about 2 for the price of... who knows. I didn't want 2. I waned ONE. The one I had my eye on. I then offered this woman $25 for the purse. She hesitated for a moment and then accepted my offer. I NEGOTIATED for discounts in NYC!

We then ate at a nice Italian restaurant. The food was amazing as expected. After our dinner, we checked out the rest of the street, and got some gelato. Yum. We were done for the night and headed back to the hotel.

Sunday, April 25th:

Chelsea Market! We packed our bags to check out of the hotel, and decided we needed to bring them with us so we didn't spend time coming back for the bags. We took the path and then the subway to Chelsea Market. Mom said that this is close to the home of the Food Network and a lot of the cooking shows reference to Chelsea Market as the place where they buy their ingredients... we had to check it out!

The place was actually different than I had expected. It somehow seemed more like a mall fit into an old warehouse. The clothing store "Anthropologie" was the first thing we saw upon entering the "market". We then decided we had to find a hotel to hold our bags... and found one just a block away. With our charm they let us leave our bags there when they generally don't do that for people who are not guests of the hotel. :)

Back to the Chelsea Market, we saw that after "Anthropologie", there were indeed places selling food! We were at the right place after all. One of the first places we saw was "Fat Witch Bakery" - they made the best brownies anyone can find on this planet. I bought a few small individually wrapped squares. Through the entire weekend I had a craving for sushi, and I wanted to eat some there because they probably have fish that's far more fresh than what we get in Wisconsin. Mom said that the Chelsea Market would most likely offer sushi... sure enough we found a seafood place that sold various fish (including lobster and other shellfish) that people could buy and bring home to cook. Fortunately they also made some food for people to eat right away. We both were able to get what we wanted from the same place!

We enjoyed the rest of the Chelsea Market and decided we had plenty of time to check out the World Trade Center aka Ground Zero. It was something I wanted to do if we had time for it... and fortunately we did. We could barely see the grounds for it was fenced up but we saw the foundation of the new WTC, and the memorial "balloon" honoring those who died on 9/11.

We then walked around a bit and found the oldest public building still in use - St Paul's Chapel. There were OLD tombs in their front lawn - and it looked pretty freaky! It would be perfect for a scary movie of some sort. The building looked beautiful from what we could see, and it was hard to take photos of the building through their wrought iron fence.

We then had to get on the subway to get our bags and then head for the airport. We decided we would try to take the $10 bus to LaGuardia at Penn Station. We grabbed some dinner at Penn Station then went outside to wait for the bus... after waiting nearly 45 minutes, we called their number and much to our surprise, they weren't operating on that very day until much after the time we wanted to leave for the airport. So we hailed a cab, and the fare was much more decent than the fare we had upon our arrival.

We made it home safe and sound that night, after some delay... but it certainly felt good to be home again after all the hustle and bustle of New York City.