By: MJ + PJ
DAY ONE in New York was mostly arrival and getting sorted, which was fairly straightforward. Even driving to the parking garage and getting our gear from the car was easy… which is a partial truth and extremely sensitive to your reference point. If you are from Loveland, CO, you would disagree. If you understand at least the metropolis part of driving in Manhattan, you would agree. We thought it wise to put our car in a local parking structure for the entire time.
In addition to getting settled in our house swap, the first of this adventure, we squeezed in a sunset visit to the top of the Empire State Building. This included a trip to the top viewing platform. The bright glow of Times Square that we saw from the top lured us into a walk there on our way back to the apartment. There were about 2000 other people looking as touristy as us at that time in Times Square.
On DAY TWO we walked towards the subway in Times Square and within a few minutes of leaving AJ needed a restroom. All options were inaccessible for various reasons until we arrived at the north end of Central Park 30 minutes later. When you are driving a car, you have a lot more options. This we now appreciate more. The north end of Central Park is close to Harlem. AJ is wanting to be a Globetrotter in both senses of the term, so that is as close as he got since we had to walk south through the park.
There was an intermittent drizzle of rain which was a sign of things to come for the week. We walked and got lost numerous times in Central Park thanks to the curving roads and gray skies, but made it to the Guggenheim Museum. It is an unmistakeable building, both inside and out. We spent a few hours there, then headed further south in the park.
The MET was very busy and had a very long line outside which was a deterrent to deciding to see it this day. We figured we could squeeze it in another day. On the west side of the MET is the obelisk – the oldest human constructed structure in NYC. There are metal (bronze?) crab corners which were added to the base to stabilize it… in the Roman era. The weathering on it predates the Romans excavating it.
We continued past a large bronze Alice and friends (of Wonderland fame) and walked to the two fountains on our way to the Imagine memorial in Strawberry Fields. At the famous Bethesda Fountain, there were quite a few people, including a loud cyclist. Underneath the balcony, in the Minton Tiles, a duo was playing classical music. They were aged, casually dressed, relaxed, and clearly highly skilled. More skilled than one would expect for a venue with water puddles on the floor and no lighting, but their talent was clear. Perhaps this is what professional orchestral musicians do in retirement for fun? We appreciated it for a while and AJ dropped a tip in their jar.
We finally got to Strawberry fields and recounted the basic life story of John Lennon for AJ. This is a difficult thing for him to understand, and these explanations often leave him with unanswerable questions.
The creeping ache and strain of being on our feet for the best part of 9 hours was taking its toll. This is New York – we had places to see! Our bodies were not very happy and ‘hangry’ was on the rise. We were starving and so dinner resulted in a budget blowout, but eating out has been rare on this trip. Across the street and on our way back to the apartment was the M&M Store (our 3rd of the trip…!). This was followed by another ‘need a restroom’ debacle. The evening lesson being: At fast food restaurants either a) buy something to get the code, b) ask someone who is eating for the code, or c) don’t let the bathroom door close from the previous user.
Phew! We all registered over 30 000 steps in for the day! AJ had 35 000!
DAY THREE we planned to take it a little easier and just see the Intrepid Museum. It was a moderate walk from our apartment, and we took our time getting there and looking around. This had been promised to AJ since we did not go onto the warship or submarine at Pier 45 in San Francisco… which seemed like a year ago. AJ and PJ did the flight simulator which included them being inverted and rolling around upside down. We stopped on the way back to the apartment to purchase some groceries for the next few days. Kind of expensive it is… to live in NYC. It was too late to fit the MET in so we decided to have a rest afternoon this day instead of a rest morning tomorrow. We needed down time.
A gray DAY FOUR greeted us with a progressively worsening morning shower in the 40 minute walk to the MET. We were soaked when we got there, despite having rain gear. PJ had a raincoat that clearly does not resist rain for more than about 5 minutes, and as she walked, soap suds started accumulating from her trouser knees. AJ was kinda dry from the belt line to the armpits thanks to his decent rain coat. Everything else on him was dripping. MJ had the umbrella which was gradually falling apart and which did little to keep anything below the belt line dry. The puddles gradually soaked the front of all shoes, and unprotected lower halves caused dripping from the knees down. But it was not actually cold… until we got our wet selves into the air-conditioned MET and proceeded to wring out our clothes in the bathroom (literally).
But the MET was amazing. You really need several days there to do it justice. We split early to follow our respective whims: PJ avoiding the Egypt section skillfully to investigate fashion and music, MJ and AJ trying to fathom the age of artfacts in the Egypt section, and then taking a look around the Greco-Roman section and anything else they passed on our way to the historical music section. Sadly, we still had a hard time limit while at the MET. We had arrived at the MET at about 10:30 but had to leave by 12:30 as we had to get a vaccination in Hoboken, NJ.
While Hoboken is literally right across the river, it might as well have been on the other side of the continent. Once we worked out how to get to Hoboken, a public transport broadcast in the quite beautiful whale carcass building informed us all that our particular line had the following: a bypass, switch of mode, a backtrack, and then a bus change. We tried to get a cab, but once we gave the cab driver the address, he stated, “I don’t go to Jersey”. We ended up on a ferry, after learning a lot about what does and does not cross the river. In the confusion we did get to see some of the 9-11 Memorial.
On Hoboken PJ was happy to be a block or two from the famed Carlo’s Bakery, and the original one to boot! After visiting and trying something decadent there, we walked north past the point where the first game of baseball was played. The light drizzle did not worsen, and so we were able to sit outside again on the ferry as we crossed the Hudson River back to Manhattan. This was another long day which we could barely remember the start of by the time we finished.
DAY FIVE: The day that AJ had been hankering for: The Statue of Liberty visit! We had a lot planned for the day, being optimistic that we could fit it in if we kept moving. We didn’t, but that’s ok. We ended up missing out on a few things, but seeing a few others we had not anticipated.
The subway spat us out in good time to catch the second ferry to Liberty Island. AJ worked on his Junior Ranger badge as we walked our way around the island. Sadly, we did not go up into Lady Liberty – tickets being sold out three months in advance for most days. Nonetheless, the audio tour gave us everything we needed to know except what the view was like up top. We then headed to Ellis Island – a place where most immigrants had their dreams realized and very few did not. This is one of those places that essentially helped define a point in the country’s history. PJ had a powerful experience finding the names of her relatives who walked the very halls and stairs we were in.
It was getting late. Wall St was on the way, so we stopped to see the ‘Charging Bull and Fearless Girl’ and the iconic buildings in the area. By the time we got to the 9/11 memorial for the free day, we found out that it has limited entry, and the free tickets had sold out earlier in the day. Yep… didn’t know that was how it worked.
We took the subway north and had a quick look around Grand Central Station. It was grand. Then we worked our way back to the apartment on streets that were becoming very familiar to us, not because of grandiose sightseeing landmarks, but because of the more generic landmarks you find in any community.
DAY SIX was our exit day. It was again a bit of a split morning with AJ and MJ walking to see the north half of HighLine Park (after a no-show bus), and PJ doing a themed bus tour. Since we were in our first house swap we had to spend a few hours getting things in order before leaving. After cleaning and getting things organized at the apartment we had to collect the car at about 4pm. In the meantime, AJ had happily watched numerous episodes of his favorite TV show without any interruption from his parents wanting him to walk somewhere for hours.
Then came the chaos of trying to get out of NYC in a reasonable amount of time to find a campsite on our way to Niagara Falls. At 8:15pm we rolled into a campsite near Barryville, NY, right on the river border with Pennsylvania. The exit plan was good, but the execution of it was messy. This constitutes a quite normal experience within NYC.
