Saturday, March 20th-We flew in and took a taxi to the Hotel Edison. Ate dinner in their cafe. We went to sleep at 9pm EST (aka 6pm PST?boy were we tired?)
Sunday, March 21st-We ate breakfast at the Cafe Edison. We decided to find a different breakfast place because the food wasn't spectacular for what they were charging and the service wasn't great.
Walked around Rockefeller Center but none of the shops were open because it was Sunday but that was okay because we didn't see any we wanted to go into. Actually, that's not true. We went into the NBC Store which was open. We got to be "guests" on Jay Leno. We did very poorly, hehehe.
Then we went to the American Folk Art Museum. They had some interesting stuff and some blah stuff. Some of the stuff I liked was a wooden model of the Empire State Building but it was all interlocking pieces, no glue or anything, also a snake made out of bottle caps and a rug made out of the plastic Wonder bread bags. We then tried to find the Craft Museum but it wasn't what we expected so we skipped it. Then we went to the Museum of Television and Radio but thing we wanted to do, check out some radio programs and TV shows, was a "by reservation only" thing so we skipped that as well. So we started walking towards Central Park.
As we got close, Meghan noticed a strange building that had Egyptian skeletons on it. I look over and it was the Jekyll and Hyde restaurant. Now I had eaten in that restaurant the last time I was in New York with my parents (over 5 years ago) and remember that it was an interesting place. As it was lunchtime, we decided to look at the menu and we decided to eat there. Definitely the most entertaining place we ate at the whole week, here's why.
There was a gargoyle named Fang and the first time we saw him, he came down and then started Kumbyeya. Which in itself is funny, but then he started singing the following: "Kumbyeya, shut up, this is a solo! Kumbyeya all you brats running around, sit down! This ain't no Chuck E Cheese's, Kumbyeya. Kumbyeya all the people from New Jersey who came here to get laid but won't because they are from New Jersey, Kumbyeya. Kumbyeya all the people from foreign countries who don't understand I'm saying, Kumbyeya." The second time Fang came down, he started singing "If you're ugly and you know it, clap your hands." I was so amused, I clapped. After the song was over, he commented that "some of you are very secure in your ugliness. The rest of you are in denial." Whereupon someone in the restaurant asked him why he wasn't clapping his hands to which he responded, "I can't clap my hands. For I am beautiful."
Then there was a skeleton professor of dead languages on our floor (the restaurant has like 4 or 5 floors) who asked how to say "Your mother smells like a donkey" in Elvish. I said "You're kidding!" to which it responded, "no I am not kidding" which amused us that we were interacting (Fang's second appearance hadn't happened yet). The professor even said that he would accept the regional dialect of Lithorin. So I blabbed gibberish so he said "what did you say?" and I said I didn't know. So then one of the character actors, an explorer later discovered to be named Joan, in the restaurant came over and gave the professor an answer:
Professor>I did not ask for horse! I asked "Your mother smells like a donkey."
Joan>That's a trick question. There are no donkeys in Middle-Earth so they don't have a word for it. That's a trick question!
Professor> There are donkeys in Middle-Earth you just haven't been there.
They argued for a little bit. Very entertaining. There was another explorer, Indiana Jones wannabe basically, who kind of followed me around when we were walking around the restaurant. Meghan thought he liked me and didn't like her. I won't argue, the guy was cute. And when there wasn't any "live" entertainment, they played scary/evil music which included Britney Spears.
So after lunch we walked around Central Park for a bit. We found this wood gazebo that actually looked like trees. We only did like a fourth of the park and not even all of that. That park is freaking huge. But as Meghan put it, "It's their entire outdoors!"
We went back to the hotel to prepare for our show that night. Then we went to the theater. Or attempted to. We had some difficulty finding the place. We went to the Times Square information center, picked up a Times Square and Mid/Lower Manhattan map. We discovered that we actually passed the theater. Whoops. But we found why once we got to the theater: the theater used to be a strip club therefore discreet. Anyway, we saw "Perfect Crime." It was a drama mystery and a good one at that (daughter did it). Our only problem with it was that the lead actress (actually the only female as it was a 4 person play) was too old for the role. She's been playing the part for 16 years (missing only 4 shows) and she needs to move on. I mean there was a young-looking inspector who falls in love with her and the whole time I was thinking "what the fuck do you see in her?!" Another guy in the play looked good in a dress and wig. Then we went back to the hotel and went to sleep.
Monday, March 22nd-Our plan was to go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art ("the Met") and spend a few hours there. So we started walking planning on stopping for breakfast on the way. We found this place called Evergreen Cafe that was only like a block and a half away from our hotel. Shitty service but it was priced decently. After breakfast, we continued our 33 block walk on the coldest day of our trip to the Met. When we got there a red sign greeted us saying the museum was closed on Mondays. They were nice enough to put some other museums that were open on their sign though. So Meghan and I walked another 8 blocks to the Guggenheim museum. We went through the museum wondering why the majority of it was considered art and in a museum. For example, a canvas full of dead flies, wrapped pieces of black licorice that people were allowed to take, or a stack of white paper that people were also allowed to take a sample of. There were some things we did like. Like this one guy who was trying to reach infinity and just simply wrote numbers in white on the canvas and for each new canvas, he added one percent more white to the background. I also liked two pieces by Sol LeWitt who used like 4 different colored color pencils and only straight lines on one piece to make it look like a block of solid color from away and arcs and straight lines on the other piece. Meghan was also very amused by one guy who wrote in big black stencils "to see and be seen" and thought the "artist" was making fun of everyone in the museum.
Since we didn't feel like repeating our 41 block walk back, we tried to catch a bus back to the hotel. However, the NYC bus does not accept bills for a $2 fare and we didn't have enough change. We did get to ride the bus for one stop though. So we though maybe the subway would take bills. So we asked someone for a subway station and started walking towards it. We stopped at a bagel place for lunch, nothing special there. Then we continued our trek for a subway station but instead we ran into a bank with a bus stop right in front of us. We believed the California gods said "our poor girls have walked enough!" So Meghan went in to get quarters, which she also wanted because she's collecting all the states, and I made sure that bus stop would take us close to the hotel which of course it did because the California gods gave us the convenience. So we got back to Times Square and we went to the information center and picked us bus and subway maps so we hopefully wouldn't be so lost again. Then we went back to the hotel and took a nap. I was going to try to go to my Grandma's while Meghan visited with her friend Colleen but my Grandma said that it wasn't a good time for her (how that could be I don't know but whatever). So Meghan, Colleen and I went out to dinner at this place called Monkey Bar.
We didn't realize how classy it was until we sat down (later we were surprised they sat us at all) and saw all the glasses and utensils. But we figured, hey, we can afford one nice night out. Until towards the end of our meal, we were the only ones in the restaurant so we had excellent service. When other people started coming in, we realized that the place was more of a business restaurant as all of the men were wearing suits. On the way back to the hotel, I stopped at a gift shop and bought a scarf. It was pink but it was the warmest one that I could find so I didn't care. And it was only 15 bucks so I was very happy. That night I got calls from my mom, my sister and my cousin after which I turned the phone off because I was already trying to go to sleep when my mom called. They all called to tell me that the family was going to get together Tuesday night. Jess also told me that she would be done with work at 8:30 on Tuesday and that we could hang out then until we met up with the rest of the family. Eilleen told me more of the details, like meeting at 10:30pm for dessert and where Scott's apartment was which is where we would be meeting.
Tuesday March 23rd-We ate breakfast at Evergreen Cafe again. Then we went to a subway station and bought two MetroCards with 6 rides each on them. We were amused by the MetroCards because on the back it said something funny but I can't find the card right now =\. We then hopped the bus to Battery Park/South Ferry to catch the ferry to Liberty Island/Ellis Island. Had to go through security to get on the ferries. That security sucked because they made us take off our coats and put them through the x-ray. Since all of the Statue of Liberty was closed to the public, they offered audio tours of the grounds which we took. We found out that quite a few people made Lady Liberty possible (Eiffel, Pulitzer, female poet and some other people whose names are slipping my mind right now). I definitely learned some things that I didn't know before (or had simply forgotten since it's been like 7 years since my last visit there) like the statue is green because it was made out of copper but when copper is exposed to oxygen it turns green and forms a protective coating, the statue was a gift to the US from France, the pedestal was bought by the US or more correctly, by the people of the US and Pulitzer ran newspaper ads and stuff to raise money to pay for the pedestal. And the female poet whose name escapes me made the poem that has "give me your poor, your tired, your hungry?" for the fundraising of the newspaper. I also never entirely realized that Lady Liberty has a broken shackle by her feet, probably because it's hard to see from any view but aerial. At the end of the tour, there was a choir singing some patriotic songs so I stopped to listen to them. I was giggling at some of the girls who didn't take off their beanies when they were singing the national anthem?later I realized that I was wearing mine while they were singing, oops. Anyway, went into the gift shop and bought a Liberty Island snow dome. We decided to not eat there because it was crowded and very expensive (smart on their part, bastards). Then we hopped the ferry to Ellis Island.
We took the audio tour there as well. It was my first time at Ellis Island. The first part of the tour was interesting. It was all about the process the immigrants went through at Ellis Island. The second half of the tour didn't impress me as much which might have been due to the fact that I was very hungry. See, Meghan was smart and ate at a little break in the tour while I decided to keep going. One interesting thing I remember from the second half though was that the island was a lot smaller originally. Then the extended the island by landfill then added a second part of the island by landfill then added a third island by landfill and then filled in the space between the second and third island by landfill. That's a lot of garbage, no? Anyway, after the tour was done, I grabbed a quick lunch their cafeteria and got robbed for the amount of food I got and especially since I felt sick later from it. Anyway, I met back up with Meghan and saw that she already hit the gift shop so I went back quickly to go get a snow dome and got in just before they closed. I actually had a hard time finding one and had to ask about it. They didn't have any snow domes but they did have a small overpriced snow globe which I got. Then we got the last ferry back to the city. We were amazed at how long we were on Ellis Island. We weren't sure exactly when we left Liberty Island but we figured we spent about 4 hours at Ellis Island.
So back on the main land (although Manhattan is also an island, hmmm?) we took a bus to the Empire State Building. The sun was just starting to set when we got there. I wanted a bathroom badly as I wasn't feeling well but I did recall that the line for the Empire State Building was very long so we got in the long line and then I asked for the bathroom. Now the only reason this bathroom is going in is because the bathroom in the Empire State Building was the only bathroom in all that I had been in Manhattan that had seat covers. I was not aware that California was so special in that regard. Anyway, I rejoined Meghan in line and then we finally bought our tickets to go up and for the audio tour and then went to wait in line for the elevator up to the 80th floor. On that floor we picked up our audio tour and got one of those commemorative photos taken of us and then waited to go up to 86th floor, the observatory deck.
By the time we got up there, it was definitely night time and the city was lighted up beautifully. The audio tour for that was also very nice as it was a "cabbie" pointing out all the points of interest that could been seen from 6 or 7 different angles. Granted, some of it would have been easier to see in the day but the bridges were all lit up so that made them easier to find. My only complaint while up there was that it was incredibly windy up there! But there were two sides of the building that weren't so windy. When I was done I went looking for Meghan and then spotted her inside but of course that was on a windy side and I literally had to fight to get to the door and get it open. She told me later that she actually looked around on the deck on the windy sides and noticed no one else around and figured out that they were all inside looking out where it was nice and warm. Yeah, I wasn't that smart. Anyway, we bought some souvenirs there as well?I got a snow dome of course. Then just as we were getting into the elevator, I felt my phone ring but of course lost signal the second we stepped into the elevator. Meghan wanted to return to the hotel but I wanted to call my sister and see what she was up to since it was about 8pm then. But as it turned out, my uncle was the one called to say their plans for this piano concert got all screwed up and that I should come over to Scott's place whenever. Which worked out perfectly since he lived on E 34th street and we happened to be on 34th street (right in between E and W). So then Meghan and I were trying to figure out she was getting back to the hotel with the bus when my sister called. Apparently my uncle didn't call her to tell her the change in plans so I informed her and she offered to come pick us up since her job gave her a car and driver for the week. So she came and picked us up and the driver dropped her and me off at my cousin's apartment and then dropped Meghan off at the hotel. Like I said, it worked out perfectly.
So we went up to Scott's apartment and I finally got to meet his wife Debbie to which we both exclaimed "She does exist!" Lovely girl. My aunt and uncle were there as well as Eilleen. Jeremy unfortunately couldn't make it because work was very busy for him being an accountant and very close to April 15th and all. I didn't mind too much because I saw him last year for Thanksgiving. We all sat and chatted and had some dessert. Around 10:30 or so someone started to feel tired, I think it was my aunt, so we all started to leave. My aunt and uncle had to drive there so they offered to take me, Jess and Eilleen to our respective places of stay.
Wednesday March 24th-We stopped at an ATM which was also conviently located in Times Square, have I mentioned how great the location of the hotel is? Anyway, we decided to grab a pastry breakfast that morning. I'll give New York this, for 3 bucks, that was a very good breakfast. I got a nice sized carton of Tropicana orange juice, a cinnamon roll and a frosted donut. And their donuts were bigger than ours. Our goal for the day was the Met but this time we caught a bus there instead of walking the 33 blocks again.
We ate our breakfast outside on the steps and then went in and bought our audio tours. We agreed to meet in Egyptian gift shop in 4 hours and then we went our separate ways since the museum is huge. I went to try to find the modern art section. That took me like 20 minutes alone; the museum is not friendly to the navigationally impaired (even those with maps). So I went through that section but half of it went through very quickly or skipped entirely as it was too modern for my test. See, when I say "modern art" I think of Picasso but we've apparently moved on since then. I don't remember where I was trying to go, maybe back to the main entrance, but I ended up stumbling upon the nineteenth-century paintings which had Van Gough, Monet, Seurat, and Cezanne?otherwise known as the type of art I actually liked. I took some pictures of my more liked paintings:
Monet's "The House of Parliament (Effect of Fog)" (which I ended up buying a postcard of)
Monet's "The Doge's Palace Seen from San Giorgio Maggiore"
Then I went to the so called American Wing and breezed through there as that section didn?t have many audio parts. But I did see a few interesting pieces:
Twachman?s ?Waterfall?
Hussam?s ?Celia Thazter?s Garden, Isles of Shoals, Main?
Hussam?s ?Coast Scene, Isle of Shoals?
On my way back to finding Meghan I passed by this beautiful fountain:
Landscape and Fountain
Then I went to the gift shop and bought two postcards, two Monets, the other one being of a bridge. Then Meghan and I went outside and had a hot dog from a street vendor for lunch, we were having a very cheap food day. We walked around the outside of the Met until we found Cleopatra?s Needle. It was this huge obelisk that is from like 4,000 BCE. Only two sides of it were still in very good shape with most of the hieroglyphs legible but the other two sides were very faded.
Then we caught a subway to Grand Central Station and got lost trying to find the main concourse as it was also not friendly to the navigationally impaired. Well that?s not entirely true, as we went down because couldn?t understand how you could go underground the underground and then we got lost. Once we found our way out, we went to the NY Public Library. There was a place called Bravo Pizza down the block and we had dinner there as we were told that we have to have New York pizza. However Meghan and I agreed that we like Chicago style better because we like the thicker crust. After dinner we walked back to the hotel to veg some. I played solitaire for like 2 hours and then I played Uno with Meghan. Then we went to this bakery we passed on Sunday after ?Perfect Crime? for dessert. Meghan got a hometashin (Purim dessert) and I got a giant cookie to go and we went back to the hotel.
Thursday March 25th-Thursday started out a lot like Wednesday in that we went to the ATM and grabbed a pastry breakfast. We got a little scare at the ATM though because Meghan tried to withdraw $120 and the first machine she tried it didn?t give her any cash nor did it say it was out of cash. So she tried the one next to it which did give her the cash but no receipt. It was kind of drizzling that day so we had our rain gear with us (Meghan had an umbrella, and I put my hood up). We were going to catch a bus to the Flat Iron Building but just as I was entering the bus, a bird decided to take a shit on my head. Fortunately I had my hood up but the poop splattered to my shoulders as well. So I rode the bus carefully and once we got off we looked for a public bathroom for me to clean up in. Eventually we were directed to a McDonalds? and then we ate our breakfast outside.
So then we actually visited the Flat Iron Building and then found our way to Theodore Roosevelt?s birthplace. We took their tour (*to the theme of Gilligan's Island* a 3 dollar tour!) which was very informative of the way Teddy grew up. After that tour we walked to Greenwich Village (pronounced Gren-itch as the Teddy tour guide corrected us) to go have lunch at this tea place Meghan had a newspaper article about. The place was called Tea & Sympathy and was a small little place that was very cramped inside. Meghan had the afternoon tea while I tried a tuna melt. Their service was also bad as I got my tuna melt (which was actually good to my surprise as it was my first tuna melt) about half way through Meghan?s meal. After lunch we walked around Greenwich Village because it was suppose to be a nice area with cool shops or something. We must of been on the other side though because we were very disappointed. The only store we did stop in was Urban Outfitters which we have out here too but we were still amused by their funny books.
Then we walked to SoHo because that was also suppose to interesting to walk around it for the architecture but again we apparently were on the wrong side and were very disappointed. We took a bus back to 47th street and then walked to the bank so Meghan could check that the bank didn?t think she withdrew $240 dollars when she only got $120 and also to get some more quarters. That bank looked nice but the teller stations were all confused because they were separated but in a circle and didn?t actually have any cash on them. One had to go to another little station for that but I looked at it and it didn?t make any sense. Oh well. We walked back to the hotel and relaxed a bit and the got ready for ?Wicked.?
The play started at 8 and we got there at about 7:30 or so. The play was absolutely fabulous. I loved it! I mean it twists so much of ?The Wizard of Oz? around that you actually root for the so called Wicked Witch of the West whose real name is Elphaba. And then also made it funny as well. Like the way Galinda/Glinda flipped her hair and made up words (?he means no disrespectification?), the song ?What Is This Feeling??, all the foreshadowing, Elphaba saying ?well, there?s no place like home?...I mean, it was just great. Meghan had bought the soundtrack before the show and during the intermission I said I wanted it too and she offered to let me copy it but after the show was over I decided that they earned my money and bought my own copy and a shirt. Ever since I got home, that soundtrack has pretty much been the only thing I?ve been listening too. Anyway, I highly highly recommend this play.
Friday March 26th-We ate breakfast at Evergreen Cafe again and took a subway to the Brooklyn side of the Brooklyn Bridge. Upon my cousin?s suggested we decided to walk across it. However we over estimated the size of the bridge and were done a lot earlier than expected. It was also the hottest day of our trip and I was wearing my warmest sweater. Fortunately, because that sweater is all wool, I had another shirt underneath and ended up wearing that while we walked across and died the sweater and my coat around my waist. It looked like I had an extremely big ass.
Once we were back in Manhattan, we walked over to Ground Zero but out of respect of the dead I guess, it was made less of a tourist ?attraction? by putting netting up so you couldn?t really see it. What I did see of it looked like they were still cleaning up or rebuilding. It was kind of eerie because like 6 or 7 years prior and I had been there and took pictures of where I was standing that day. Very tragic. We tried to catch a bus back to the hotel but the bus was stubborn and was refusing to show up so we hopped on a subway instead. We went back to the hotel to drop off our coats and then we split up.
Meghan went to this naval museum and I walked around Times Square. I was thinking about catching a movie but decided against it because a) it was 10 bucks (or more at another theater) to get in and b) no movies were being shown any time soon. So I went into the Hershey store and a giant Toys R Us. Now when I say giant, I mean giant. As in they had a ferris wheel in the store. So I wandered in there and stumbled into the Lego section and was impressed by Lego models of the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building and the Statue of Liberty. I had lunch at Papa John?s and then went back to the hotel. Meghan wasn?t back yet so I decided to check out the hotel?s fitness center on the roof. Nothing spectacular there so I went back to the room to veg. Meghan got back shortly after and we decided to have dinner at the Cafe Edison. Per usual we got crap service but somewhat worse than usual as when I tried to order a dessert, the waiter just handed me the bill for our three items (my meal, Meghan?s milk and meal) which he over charged us on. Since it was our last time there, I left an appropriate tip of under 10%. Went back up to the room to check on Meghan (she left the table early because she wasn?t feeling well) and we started packing.
Saturday March 27th-I finished packing and then we ate at Evergreen for the last time, thank goodness. I was really starting to get fed up with them. Honestly, how many times/how long must one wait before one gets a fucking glass of water? I mean, Meghan got her juice before I got my water. Couldn?t the waitress have brought a glass of water with the juice?. Now a couple days prior, I made a reservation to take the shuttle from the hotel to the airport at 4pm for our 7pm flight. As we were kind of burnt out we decided that we might as well try to catch an earlier flight and were able to switch that reservation to noon and then we went on standby for a 2:30 flight and ended up getting on it (it was a relatively empty flight anyway) and got back to beautiful, warm and polite California