This will take forever so I will lessen the bulge a bit by breaking this into NYC and post-NYC entries.
So after timing a 5K on Saturday which went smoothly we had to prepare for our trip to NYC the next day. By the time mom showed up after work most of the preparations were complete. Our flight on Sunday left bright and early at 7:20 so we tried to get to bed at a reasonable hour.
I woke up on my own somewhere around 4am on Sunday. We left the house a little before 5:30 after saying goodbye to the dogs, Tuki and mom.
We arrived at the airport with time to spare, in fact I had time to down a medium DD coffee outside the security point.
Our flight to NYC was extremely fast thanks to a tailwind. We covered the distance is something like 2:11, it was great. Shortly after retrieving our luggage from the carousel, I dug out my winter coat, my jeans and t-shirt just were not going to cut it, the air felt COLD. (temps in the 30’s)
So after our favorable mass transit experience in August, Ali and I decided we were going to exclusively use it during our four days in the city, including the ride in from the airport.
The last time we used a shared van to get into and out of Manhattan and it basically sucked. You were jammed shoulder to shoulder with other people and got to sit in mountains of traffic. It wasn’t a cheap option either, by the time it was all said and done we probably spent close to $150 round trip.
Well in contrast by taking the AirTrain and the subway we could arrive less than a block away from our hotel for a grand total of less than $15 each way. As expected, the ride into the city went great, we made it to the hotel in far less time then we spent in August.
Really the only challenge we had was getting the luggage through the turnstiles at the subway. I discovered the best way to do this was to have Ali go through first and I would hand her the bags over top.
So we emerged from the subway into the icy feeling air. We immediately saw our hotel down the street and headed inside. The Park Central seemed quite nice, not noticeably less luxurious than the Sheraton we stayed at in August. Our room was on the 18th floor.
We had out first experience with the odd elevator system at Park Central. Instead of just hitting the UP button, you are presented with an touch screen which has all of the available floors on it. You hit the floor you are going to and then you are assigned to an elevator. The destination of your elevator is pre-determined, you can’t hop on and hit a button to go somewhere else, it won’t work. I can’t tell you how many times over the 4 days we were riding the elevator with people that didn’t understand the concept and wound up going for elevator joyrides unintentionally.
Our room was clean and well accommodated although there was one glaring thing that really annoyed me, no free internet. This must be standard NYC hotel practice as the Sheraton did the same shit. If you go to the lobby you can get some free wi-fi but if you actually want to have it in your room it would cost you like $15 a day.
This is just bullshit. I can go to a f’ing Motel 6 and get free internet but I pay $800 for three nights and the hotel can’t give me internet access? If I get a post stay survey from them I will be sure to bring up how in this day and age it is insane to not offer guests free internet access. You would think with the proximity of so many buildings there would be some open wi-fi near by. No dice, every “open” one didn’t work and the rest were password protected. Oh well.
So we decided to take a walk up into Central Park to do some looking around since it was very close. When we hit the street we were just smashed with the cold air. By the time we walked the block and a half to the park both Ali and myself were very, very cold.
As we entered the park we saw some large rocks that were in the sunshine. Standing in the sun at least felt marginally tolerable so we headed to the rocks and stayed there for a bit.
The transformation of the park from summer to winter in the 4 months since we visited last was pretty dramatic. The trees were bare and the ground was covered in leaves. They also installed an ice rink in the southern part of the park that Ali and I checked out.
Despite being chilled to the bone we walked around the park just checking stuff out for close to an hour before walking back towards the hotel. We decided to grab lunch at one of the several Cafe Metro’s. We had eaten there during the August trip and liked it.
We decided to grab a seat along the front counter that faced the street. It gave us a great vantage point to people watch. Unfortunately the counter was also right next to the front door so every time someone came in or out we got blasted with cold air. It got old after awhile and we moved to a table.
So we had decided that we needed to do much more substantial layering to deal with this cold. We stopped into a shop and bought me a pair of winter gloves. Ali bought a pair as well even though she already had gloves. She planned to wear both pair.
So we retreated back to the room to really bundle up. I had on jeans, a t-shirt, my long sleeve Under Armour cold gear, my Crossfit Clitheroe hoodie and my Duluth Trading fleece jacket. I also had my Eagles knit hat and two pairs of socks, regular socks covered with thick wool socks I got from Dad. Ali did similar layering but stepped up her game by wearing UA stuff under her jeans as well.
We ventured back out into the wintry air feeling better but far from warm. We had a lot of things to see. We decided we would head down to Macy’s to check it out. I have only seen the fabled store for 4 decades on Thanksgiving Parade coverage. I wanted to see what all the fuss was about.
Well it didn’t take long to understand the fuss. The degree of decoration inside Macy’s was simply amazing. It seemed like it would just take impossible amounts of man hours to put up and subsequently take down the extravagant holiday decorations.
Ali and I were there to gawk and not shop so we just did a glorified escalator tour as we ascended the 9 levels of “stuff”. The Macy’s building is very old and nowhere was that more evident than the escalator rides. I could not believe they were made of WOOD. I had never seen a wooden escalator before in my life.
Towards the top of Macy’s we came across Santa and the accompanying mile long line to see him. It was incredible. We overheard an employee tell someone the wait to see Santa was approximately two hours long. Haha. Wow.
The age of Macy’s was brought more to the forefront when I decided to use the bathroom. It literally looked like it was still circa 1928, I didn’t take a picture of it though, I didn’t want to seem too weird. So we exited Macy’s back into the coldness both thoroughly impressed by the Macy’s Christmas experience.
It turned out that Macy’s was located very close to the Empire State Building so we decided to head there since it was also on our list of to-do’s. Walking into the lobby of the building was impressive as hell with marble everywhere. The attention to detail was incredible.
Well of course we had to go up to the top despite Ali’s fear of heights and the surely frigid temps that awaited us at that elevation. After paying somewhere around $25 each we headed to the security screening. I believe this is where I unknowingly lost my expensive Oakley sunglasses.
I had the glasses hanging from the opening in my sweatshirt. I think when I was disrobing for the screening they fell off. Somebody must have gotten a nice Xmas present. I was pissed when I realized I lost them. (EDIT: I see from the picture that I still had the sunglasses on top of the building so I have no idea how I lost them)
So as we made our way towards the elevators that took you up we walked by several exhibits about the building, including one that outlined the construction process. Ali and I were amazed that this massive building went from groundbreaking to open for business in the period of about a year. Wow. That had to be just an amazing period of time in the city. There were a number of other super towers built right around the same time including the Chrysler building and the Rockefeller tower.
So we rode the elevator up to the 80th floor and headed out to the observation deck. As expected it was cold but not really any worse than what we had been experiencing at ground level.
The views were majestic and awesome. The late afternoon winter sun cast some shadows across the buildings that made for some really good pictures. Ali and I took in the views from all sides for awhile and then headed back inside to the warmth.
Ali had been communicating with an old friend of hers she has not seen since high school. Stephanie has lived in NYC for a couple years and Ali thought it would be fun to get together for dinner.
I wasn’t thrilled when they decided we would meet at Carnegie Deli, a place we saw during the day that had a line 50 people deep out the door for lunch. The LAST thing I was looking to do was stand outside at night in those temps. So we made plans to meet up there around 6.
Before meeting Stephanie we decided we would go take a look at the famous Rockefeller Center Christmas tree. Well we did see it, from a distance. The main entrance to the area was just a sea of humanity. It was pretty awful.
There was just rivers of bodies flowing up and down, trying to cross it was very difficult without getting swept downstream. Well I am not a fan of crowds, this was a crowd on steroids. I told Ali I got my picture and just wanted to get away from the mess, it was just terrible. Stephanie had warned Ali how bad it would be, she wasn’t exaggerating.
So we arrived at Carnegie Deli a little bit before Stephanie arrived. Evidently this is a very famous establishment. It’s front window had a number of Zagat awards posted on it. I was glad to see the lunch time line had disappeared. There must be a huge demand for their sandwiches.
While we waited I looked at the tons of pictures of celebrities that had visited the deli, it was quite an impressive collection. One thing I was not impressed with was the sign by the register that said CASH ONLY. How in the world can they not take credit cards?? I didn’t bring a huge wad of cash on the trip figuring to use my credit card for most things including meals. This was going to take a considerable bite out of my wad. While we were waiting I took a picture of Ali by Carnegie Deli’s famous big pickle.
So Stephanie showed up and we sat down to eat. As I looked at the entrees at the tables around us I could hardly believe my eyes. The sandwiches were GIANT size. Far too big to fit in any human beings mouth in a conventional matter. I am not lying when I say that the sandwiches had to have at least 30 layers of lunch meat in them. Honestly it was kind of gross.
I decided to go with the “world famous” Carnegie Deli burger. Thankfully it was not as huge as some of the sandwiches I saw. I was surprised that the burger was honestly average at best. It was dry and didn’t taste particularly great, oh well.
It was interesting getting Stephanie’s tips and pointers about NYC. It sounded like she has had a very diverse, interesting and twisting path since high school. After a nice dinner we said our goodbyes. It was nice for Ali to reconnect with her old classmate.
We were both pretty spent from a LONG day of travel and sightseeing. We retreated to our room where we both took steaming hot showers to try to remove what felt like a perma-chill from our bodies.
The room felt cold to me so I turned on the heater. I found it odd that turning the temperature dial didn’t seem to make any difference in the temperature of the air coming out of it. All settings seemed to produce lukewarm output. Oh well.
Well I woke up about 4 am sweating to death. I got up and turned the dial to full cold and stripped down to my boxer shorts and laid in bed with no covers. I never really fell back asleep after that.
I spent the time waiting for Ali to get up by working on getting through hard mode in Tower Defense, a nearly impossible task I was finding out.
So Ali had said she wanted to go out for breakfast Monday morning instead of me doing my standard vacation Pop Tart breakfast. She got up and took a shower. When she turned on the hotel hair dryer something was obviously wrong, it sounded like a weed whacker. Well a few seconds later smoke started coming out of it. I assume a bearing in the motor was fried.
Well Ali was originally going to just let her hair air dry but I told her I would call the desk. Again, with what we paid for the room, a functional hair dryer should not be optional. About 15-20 minutes later a guy showed up with another hair dryer we could use. I was surprised he didn’t take the 5 minutes to dismount the smoking unit from the wall and hang the new one in it’s place. Instead he just laid the new dryer on the sink and plugged it in. Ok, whatever, at least it worked without creating a fire hazard.
So we head across to a place called the Breakfast Park Cafe. It was full, we actually had to wait a few minutes to be seated. We both had big breakfasts, much larger than either of us would normally consume.
The service at the diner was super fast, you could tell they were all about turning tables over quickly. Before I had finished my coffee they had all of our plates cleared. The second we stood up they were swooping in to wipe down the table, NEXT.
So after our conversation with Stephanie we decided that instead of trying to ride out to the Statue of Liberty and pay a bunch of money to see it, we would instead hop on the free Staten Island Ferry that goes right past it.
Getting to the ferry was very easy thanks to the subway system. Ali and I were both very comfortable at this point getting about anywhere using it. This was made even easier by an Iphone app that Stephanie told us about called Hop Stop. It tells you how to get to anywhere in the greater NYC area using mass transit. It is GREAT.
The Staten Island Ferry was pretty cool. Like most things in NYC it is done on a large scale. The ferry is actually 5 or 6 huge ferries that do nothing but bounce back and forth between Manhattan and Staten Island all day.
The ferry had a ton of seats in it and 4 or 5 levels, I would guess you could get as many as 5000 people on board. Luckily we had nowhere near that many for our trip.
As promised we went right by the Statue of Liberty. Ali and I ventured out to the outside deck to take pictures. It was even colder out on the water, it literally cut through the 4 layers of clothing we both were wearing. Regardless we braved it to snap some pictures of the statue.
Ali got some good shots, the pics I snapped with my Iphone weren’t as good. So we arrived at Staten Island after a pleasant 20 mile ride. Instead of immediately de-boarding and re-boarding we decided to look around the terminal a bit and grab some much needed warm drinks, coffee for me and hot chocolate for Ali.
The terminal was nice and large, we took our time just sort of wandering around it before we headed back out to the boarding area to catch the next ferry.
The waiting area had two huge salt water fish tanks in them that were pretty cool. While we were waiting a guy came out in a wet suit to maintain them. He had the entire crowd of people watching his every move with interest.
There also was a woman standing in the lobby with lab on a leash. She was just standing there with the dog, watching the doors that people came through to board the ferry.
We were curious if it was a “working dog”. Ali approached the woman and asked her what the deal was. The woman pulled the dog to the other side and told Ali the dog was indeed working in a no nonsense tone.
We watched the two of them. Evidently the dog is trained to either sniff out drugs or explosives. Every person that came through those doors with a package or luggage had to wait while the dog gave them a thorough sniffing. It was interesting.
So our return ferry arrived. Ali and I piled in and were quite content to stay indoors for the entire return trip to stay warm. It wasn’t long after we sat down that we both noticed a young, skinny black guy talking. There was nobody sitting next to him so at first I assumed he was just talking on his wireless phone piece.
As I focused on what he was saying things started to get weird. He was talking about NFL games non-stop. It was almost like he was doing fantasy football analysis for a show. He went from team to team spewing infinite amounts of information.
I took a closer glance at him and saw no phone, no ear phones or head piece. He clearly was reciting all of this stuff to himself. I have no idea what was going on, maybe he is an aspiring football analyst or just obsessed with football. All I know was it was very weird. He talked like this for almost the entire trip back to Manhattan.
So once we got off the ferry we walked around Battery Park which is in the same area. There were a lot of cool things there like a monument to WW II veterans, Fort Clinton which dates back to the 1600’s, and a battered statue that used to be in front of the World Trade Center.
I found this statue to be very powerful. The damage to it from the falling debris remains unrepaired, it is exactly as it was after the towers fell. It was a silent reminder of what went down a decade ago a few blocks away.
So we planned to see the 9/11 memorial since we were literally only a few blocks away. I heard it officially opened September 12th so I figured we would walk up and take a look. Well we walked up but didn’t get to see even a glimpse of the memorial.
You see the area is an active construction zone since they are in the middle of erecting new sky scrapers around the park. The area around the WTC footprint memorial is completely enclosed by a fence. As we approached we at first thought we could just walk up and view the memorial from behind the fence line. It doesn’t work that way.
Admission to see the memorial is free, however in order to get in you have to reserve a ticket for a particular time period. You can’t just walk in. We were told that there was a 911 memorial office a few blocks away where you can get your ticket. Hmmm I thought this was kind of stupid.
So we made our way to the 911 office and headed inside. They had all sorts of information about 9/11 including various memorials and mementos from that horrible day. We saw an employee standing a corner. We thought for some reason he was the person that could get us one of these passes for the memorial. We were told he was not the person that handled that. He pointed outside and said THAT was where you got your pass.
We headed outside and saw an immense line that stretched for more than a block. Ali and I both agreed the last thing we wanted to do was spend a ton of time standing in a long line while we froze in order to get a pass that probably at the earliest won’t be valid until the next day. Hopefully whenever we make our next trip to NYC access to the memorial won’t be so restrictive.
Well we finally were getting hungry after our big breakfast, it was after 1pm at this point. We found a place called Bill’s Bar & Burgers. It was a quaint little place on a corner. Ali and I both got veggie burgers and seasoned fries. The food was good but it was very heavy. Neither of us were used to eating copious amounts of fried food.
We next headed to another place Stephanie recommended, the High Line. The High Line is an old elevated train track that was converted into a park. It was quite neat. Although the winter weather had stripped most of the vegetation of it’s color, we still appreciated how nice of an area it was complete with multiple seating areas where you can just unwind and read a book.
Next up we headed to Union Square. Stephanie said they had transformed the park into a mini-Christmas village, filled with dozens of small stands selling all sorts of stuff. Ali and I took a look at everything but only wound up buying another cup of coffee for me to try warm up.
As we left the park I was asked if I wanted to sit down and play a competitive chess match. They had like 4 or 5 boards set up. I couldn’t believe there were actually a couple guys playing in the biting, cold wind. Yeah that is just what I want, to get hustled at a chess match while I freeze my ass off.
It’s funny, I went into Monday with the attitude that I was not going to be such a pussy about the cold weather. For a good portion of the day I was pretty good, but after being exposed to it non-stop for several hours I just wanted to get the hell out of it.
I was quite happy to descend back into the somewhat warmer subways for a ride back up to the hotel. While we were on the way back we were exposed to the first of two subway speeches.
Some guy opened up the door from the car behind us and came walking in. He asked for everyone’s attention. He said that he had some medical problems that caused him to lose his job. He said he is a single father and has no money to pay his rent. He asked for spare change to help him out.
Now Ali and I were one of the few people that even actually paid attention to the guy. Most other riders didn’t even look up. Evidently this is a rather routine occurrence. Although I did not dig out my wallet to throw the guy any money I did feel bad after the fact that my skepticism won out. Maybe he was legit, maybe he was just a drug addict looking to score money for his next hit. I think maybe one or two people did hand the guy some change or something before he moved ahead to the next car.
The subway is a very interesting place to people watch and for me provides a weird contrast to the New York experience. I expressed how we had many favorable run ins with NYC citizens where they seemed very happy to help us find our way around. Well on the subway there is none of that. The vast majority of people look plain miserable, staring out into space with absolutely no interest in communication with anyone. You would think they were getting carted off to a gas chamber.
The ones that weren’t staring off into space had their faces buried in their smart phone. It seemed like almost all of these people had Iphones, I saw very, very few non-Apple phones on the train.
The subway, despite it’s ultra-efficient transport of human beings under New York is definitely not the spot to go if you want to feel upbeat and happy about being there.
As we walked back to the hotel I saw another weird/disturbing sight. Some black guy whom I assume was homeless was eating something that was laying on the street. As we passed he sprung up and started walking quickly ahead of us with a bit of a wobble in his stride. I assume he was either drunk or on some sort of drug.
Well all of a sudden he raises his elbow and acts like he is going to pop an oncoming female pedestrian in the face with it. Without breaking stride or saying a word, the female simply ducks to the side to avoid the guy and continues on. I was amazed. Is this normal NYC behavior as well? I told Ali if he would have touched the woman I would have had to tackle him. What a f’in whack job.
We did have one pleasant surprise on the journey back to the room. We discovered there was a Dunkin Donuts only a block and a half away! I walked in and scored my 3rd or 4th cup of coffee of the day and happily drank it as we back up too our room.
Ali was really tired and I was as well. We both felt absolutely gross from the two meals we had consumed that day. We both laid down and took a nap.
So after a couple hours we were back up and had to decide what we wanted to do that night. Even after the nap we still both felt gross and had no desire to sit down for yet another big meal. I suggested we take the subway back down to Times Square to see it at night. I figured the visual impact would be amplified.
The area was buzzing with activity as you would expect. As we were walking down the sidewalk I was approached by some black dude that had a cd in his hand which he immediately hands to me. Of course I knew I was about to be worked.
The guy is talking super fast, he says something about it is a cd from his band and the drummer from the band is right down the street. He asked where I was from and what my name was. I told him my name was Shawn. He said “Ok, that’s cool, ok well how bout I call you S-boogie?” He takes the cd and signs something on it to S-boogie and hands it back to me. I am like ok….
So as I am ready to continue walking down the sidewalk with my autographed S-boogie cd the guy delivers the hook. Yea man all we ask for is like a $20 donation for the cd! I shook my head and told the guy I wasn’t going to give him any money for the cd. He said it was ok, he took back the S-boogie cd and looked for his next target.
Ali said that she really wished we could find an apple for her to eat. An apple isn’t the easiest thing to find in Times Square. We eventually found a small store on a side street that had some. I got one for myself as well. We enjoyed our apples sitting out at a small table and chairs set up in the middle of the street.
We ducked into the Toys R Us in the square. Wow what a place. It was 3 levels stuffed with toys of all sizes and type. They had a fully animated, life size T-rex that scared the shit out of a little kid next to me.
They also had a bunch of cool displays set up like various super heroes and some awesome Lego structures where they recreated some of NYC’s famous landmarks. We spent a decent amount of time just perusing around. We did actually buy something there, a stuffed slice of pizza and a stuffed peanut for the girls.
While we were checking out the clerk was telling us about just how crazy the store is around the holidays. She said the week leading up to Christmas they are open 24/7. We wished her good luck in surviving the holidays.
Bryant Park was nearby so we walked back there. Like many of the local parks it has been transformed for Christmas. The transformation there was probably the most dramatic.
Not only did they bring in the dozens of temporary Xmas stands, they installed a temporary ice rink, a huge Christmas tree and a temporary two story restaurant!
Ali and I enjoyed watching the people skating with various degrees of skill. I was surprised I didn’t see more collisions.
Bryant Park was the place where I witnessed the outdoor ping pong sessions going on in August. Imagine my surprise when I saw an outdoor, nighttime doubles ping pong match going on in December!
This was pretty amazing on it’s own however I was really flabbergasted when I recognized one of the players as a guy we also saw playing in August! This guy must be a total hard core ping ponger that eats, drinks and sleeps the sport.
The game seemed to be hotly contested from the 5-10 minutes of it that I watched.
Tuesday was our last full day in New York. I started it off right by walking to the Dunkin Donuts to score coffee. Ali had requested her cherished DD unsweetened ice tea as well but they were out of it for some reason.
Well I didn’t want to come back empty handed.
I knew in the past Ali has grabbed Starbuck’s ice tea in a pinch. There was a Starbuck’s on the way back so I decided to stop in there, with my Dunkin Donut coffee in hand.
I got a number of odd looks as I sipped my DD coffee while standing in a Starbuck’s line. To some it might have seemed sacrilegious. Oh well. I got more strange looks when I asked for an ICED tea on a morning where it was freezing outside. Whatever, I walked out of there two fisting our beverages and headed back up to the room.
Tuesday was the day we designated for my return trip to Tompkins Square Park. I was excited about it. I wore my green and yellow Adidas training pants and Crossfit Clitheroe hoodie for the video footage that was sure to come. The ride over to the park via subway was old hat by now.
When we got there we noticed a number of dogs walking by. TSP has a dog park. We walked up to the park and watched the various people and their pets all interacting, it was fun. The dog park was right in front of the bathrooms which I decided to use. I quickly discovered that public bathrooms pull double duty as housing/bathing facilities for the homeless. I took my leak and headed out quickly.
So we walked over to the famous Bar-barian home bar park and saw a single guy working out there. I hoped that maybe it would just happen to be Al Kavadlo whom I ran into during the August trip. As I got closer I saw it wasn’t Al but then I smiled when I realized it was his older brother Danny whom I also know via my internet bar community.
I introduced myself and gave him the back story of meeting up with Al in August. Like Al, Danny is very outgoing and full of energy. He is so enthusiastic about body weight training. Like Al he does a lot of personal training. In fact he said he was just doing a work out while he waited for a new client to show up.
Danny , Ali and I talked for awhile before I got any real work out in. Danny is very strong and can pull of advanced moves I can only dream about at this point. He did a couple human flags and muscle ups.
I grabbed ahold of the famous TSP pull up bar that I tried so hard to muscle up on in August and did a muscle up pretty easily, despite the cold air and even colder bar. I did a pretty extensive body weight work out utilizing both the pull up and parallel bars.
Ali opted to not work out with me so she got very cold just standing there. Eventually she walked around the park a bit to try to warm up. In total I probably knocked out 11 or 12 muscle ups during the session along with various amounts of pull ups, dips and push ups.
Danny’s client showed up so he was busy training her. I finished up my workout and asked him to quickly pose for a picture to go along with my picture I have with Al. He was happy to do so.
I thought it was so ironic that both times I ventured into TSP unscheduled I ran into a Kavadlo. They are both really cool guys. People like them make me really glad to be involved in the Bar-barian/bodyweight exercise community.
We hopped back on the subway and headed to some other destinations suggested to Ali, Bleeker Street and Greenwich Village. To be honest there wasn’t much to be seen there but a bunch of small bars. I assume this was recommended as a good place to go bar hopping. But since it was maybe 10 am it didn’t work out too well.
We then hopped back on the subway and headed up to the upper west side of Manhattan to see a church, yes a church. Well anyone that reads the blog probably knows I am not a religious person in the least. However Ali was told this church was worth seeing, regardless of your religious beliefs or lack there of. They were right.
The church is called Saint John of the Divine. It is the 4th largest christian church in the world. It has a very interesting back story. Despite being started in the 1860’s it still is under construction. Throughout the years it’s construction started and stopped for various reasons. There also was a style change mid-course which resulted in a very unique combination of elements.
Walking up to the front of the church is enough to make your jaw drop. The detail in the stonework was incredible. As you looked up the face of the building you could see different layers of construction based on the amount of discoloration.
Near one of the set of doors there was a set of obviously newer statues in place. At another set of doors there was a blank space where obviously some new statues were yet to be installed.
Once we walked inside the open mouth moments continued. The idea that this was created starting back in the 1800’s was incredible. The patience, skill and time involved to erect such a magnificent building is beyond the scope of my understanding.
The inside of the church was cavernous with ceilings over 100 feet tall. I dropped in our optional $10 donation to venture around the inside of the church, it was well worth it.
Everywhere you looked was just another example of painstaking attention to detail. The stained glass windows were simply amazing, unfortunately neither of our cameras were capable of getting a real clear shot of them.
Outside the main hall were a series of smaller rooms, each finished in a similar mind blowing manner.
Even as a non-believer, I couldn’t help but be moved that people are so inspired by the concept of God that they would erect such monuments in his honor. It was so spectacular.
Right across from the church was an Italian restaurant we had lunch at. Our waiter was extremely in-personable and was hard to understand. He at least looked the part with strong italian features and slicked back hair.
We ordered a “small” pizza that was much more food than we anticipated. Ali felt guilty sending back the three uneaten slices.
On the subway ride back to the hotel I was so tired. I don’t know if my TSP workout in the cold sucked all of my energy out of me but I was definitely running on fumes. Again we laid down to nap. Our attempt was less successful than the day before since hotel staff was outside in the hall making noise that came though our door unimpeded.
So Tuesday night was when we were seeing Spiderman on Broadway. We decided to have dinner in the restaurant that is part of the hotel, it was called City House.
We had a great spot for our table looking out onto the street. As we sat there we talked about the trip and what we liked so far. The meal itself was ok, the service was not. Our original waiter only dealt with us briefly. Once the food was ordered we were handled by another staff member. When we were ready for the check it took a full 20 minutes until it was actually in our hands.
The frustration continued when they brought back the Mastercard gift card dad gave us as a birthday present for a NYC meal, saying that they were unable to process it. (I used it just fine in Florida a few days later) I walked out of there displeased overall with the experience.
So we headed down to the Foxwoods theater where we would be catching Spiderman. Thanks to the slow check at dinner we got there a little later than I originally hoped. There was a long line of people streaming in front of theater. Ali and I weren’t sure if this was a line to get in or just people walking the other direction so we jumped into the flow of traffic.
Well some bitchy woman immediately informed us that this was THE line to get in so we stepped out and found the loose end of it a little further back. It wasn’t like jumping in line got you anything except less time in the cold since the show was sold out and it was assigned seating.
So we were directed to our seats and had a pleasant surprise. I didn’t recall our seats were as good as they were. We wound up in the 4th row from the stage on the left hand side. We were literally about 10 feet from the stage which was pretty cool. The theater layout that I saw online gave me the impression that the interior dimensions of the theater were bigger than they were in real life.
Before the show there were a lot of theater staff patrolling the seating area reprimanding people that were taking pictures. There was no photography allowed. Ali being the rebel, rule breaker that she is actually snapped a picture on her phone.
So the curtain lifted and the show started. With as close as we were and being off to the left we got a bit of a behind the scenes view of what was going on as we could see everything happening stage left. Speaking of the stage, it was quite an elaborate and technical marvel. During different parts of the show the stage had elevators, treadmills, trapdoors and more utilized.
Of course the most interesting part was the work the actors/performers did on wires. During the shows test run there were numerous accidents up on the wires and after seeing it in person I could see why. The wire rigs had to be computer controlled but even so if the guy wouldn’t move his body in the right way it could throw things out of whack.
The reason I suggested Spider Man to Ali was I thought a super hero theme could help dull the part of shows that bore the hell out of me, the singing. Well I still found myself quiet anxious for the many singing performances to end, despite the Spiderman theme.
Due to our close proximity to the stage we got sprayed with “webbing” at one point. The webs were in reality just streamers that were shot out of some device in Spiderman’s hand.
The climactic final fight scene was clearly the most dangerous by far, up to that point there was only Spiderman swinging around the theater solo. With two guys on the rigs, 50 feet in the air, it seemed impossible they would not get their wires tangled, but they didn’t.
Ironically my favorite character in the show was not Spiderman but the Green Goblin. The actor that played him seemed more interesting and the goblin was given many more funny lines throughout the show.
I thought the show was good, not great. The “gee whiz” part of Spiderman flying overhead was cool and the U2 based music sounded pretty awesome. Ali said she liked it.
So Wednesday we had about half a day left to spend in the city before flying back mid-afternoon. After doing another DD run in the morning (they had iced tea this time), we got ready to head back to Central Park, I wanted to go running in it this time instead of walking.
It was still quite cold but I hoped running would help lessen the sting once our body temperatures got cranking. As soon as were got to the park we ran into tons of people’s with dogs, they were everywhere. Some people were just walking their dogs on the paths, others had them off leash and were letting them play with other dogs in the large grassy fields. We both enjoyed seeing all of the canines and made us anxious to see our two little black and furry girls later that night.
When we ran in Central Park in August we basically ran the outer loop around the park. This time we just sort of ran wherever we felt like. We zig zagged back and forth, up and down, round and round as we ran through the different terrain in the park. Ali was really sucking wind when we hit the hilly parts, she just hates running in cold air. I actually felt pretty good, glad to be able to shake the cold discomfort via my internal furnace.
We stopped a bunch of times during the run to check out things of interest. one of the most interesting things was an ANCIENT obelisk. We had seen this thing in August but did not stop and take a closer look. Well I am glad we took that look this time.
This was a REAL Egyptian obelisk that dates back to 1600 BC! It was a gift to the city of New York from Egypt in 1881. The 4 sides vary greatly in condition. Some of the sides are almost smooth, you can hardly see the outline of the hieroglyphics. The side pictured here was in the best condition of all.
I found this obelisk extremely interesting, old things fascinate me. I told Ali this is probably the oldest thing I have ever seen in person. It was very, very cool.
So we continued our run around the park. I was surprised when we came upon a set of pristine pull up bars in the middle of the park. Despite being a bit winded from the run I had to go knock out a muscle up and some pull ups.
We saw another cool piece of architecture, Belvedere Castle. It is literally a small castle on the west side of the park. It was built in 1869 and was originally used as a look out.
The castle was restored later and is now used as one of the main meteorological observatories in the city.
We continued our run. Ali said she was interested in seeing the famous Strawberry Fields, the same place made famous in song by John Lennon.
We found the fields and also found the apartment building where Lennon and Yoko lived. I am sure the strawberry field area would have looked much nice during the summer months.
We finished up our 4 + mile run both feeling good that this was how we wound things up. Ali and I both agreed that we could easily spend a solid half day just walking around the park checking everything out there is to see.
We headed back to the room, showered and packed. We decided to grab our last meal of the trip at Ray’s, the first place we ate back in August. We both enjoyed slices of pizza while we reminisced about the trip.
We went back and grabbed our stuff before heading back down to the subway for our mass transit trip back to the airport. Our trip back went even faster than our trip into the city. It went so fast that we wound up at the airport with like 3 hours to spare. I grabbed yet another cup of DD coffee and settled down in front of the Ipad to work on some more Tower Defense levels.
Our flight back from NYC was fine although both Ali and I found ourselves getting rather annoyed with many of the passengers, most of whom appeared to be 70 years old or older. Two of the most annoying were right in front of us. This older couple were foreigners although we couldn’t quite tell what nationality.
The were both extreme seat leaners, reclining their seats back to maximum angle which will always put you in my doghouse. Luckily Jet Blue seats just barely have enough clearance that my knees were not jammed up against the seat in front.
Then the woman decides she is cold and wraps a scarf around her neck. As she finishes wrapping she flings then end of the long scarf backward and it hits me in the face. I grabbed the scarf and threw it back in her direction.
Later the old man decides he has to go to the bathroom. He uses his seat back as a modified walker, putting pretty much all of his weight on it, causing the seat to bounce back and forth violently. Ali and I had visions of the seat breaking and flopping on Ali’s lap. We were quite glad to get out from behind these Q-tips.
We arrived back home earlier than planned thanks to another speedy flight. We were greeted by the dogs and mom. Everything at home seemed to go smoothly which we were happy about.
Ali and I both really enjoyed our holiday NYC adventure. Really the only tough thing was dealing with the cold temps. It was quite the nice present to one another. We’ll be back.
If you want to see our pictures from the trip (there are some great ones) go here or here.
was transformed dramatically in the process. We are now almost 9 months out from when the house was painted and not the slightest sign of any cracking has returned. It was money well spent. They did such a good job, way better than I could have ever pulled off myself.
Fitness goals – wow I really killed it in this department. I finally, after a couple years of trying achieved the elusive muscle up. Doing so required a few things to happen. First I managed to get my forearm tendonitis under control via regular stretching and nothing else. The tendonitis was constantly de-railing any progress I was making.
Late in the year Randall and I took on one of our toughest physical challenges yet, the Tough Mudder. The 12 mile cross country course with 25 military style obstacles was built to test your determination and will power. We both passed the test. It is a real source of pride.
I now have my own personal mini-bar park behind the big shed, it’s cool.
Through a very random series of events I found myself on the east coast of Florida at a Jaguar dealership buying a 2005 Chevy SSR instead, a vehicle I always admired but had totally forgotten about. ( they stopped production in 2006).
Our epic 2011 was filled with some amazing trips. In February we wanted to take a road trip to my dad’s new in place in western PA. We thought it would be fun to do so in the winter instead of the summer so the dogs could get a full winter experience. We got that and then some. The frigid temps and big snowfall late in the trip was exactly what we were looking for, even with us freezing our asses off most of the time.
In August we actually took the trip that I thought would never happen, Dad’s magical family expedition to Ireland. This trip was an idea of his for years and the planning and dollars he had to put into it was nothing short of monumental.
