New York Trip, Days 3 & 4

Day 3:

Thursday was another sleeping-in-with-no-alarm day--yippee!! But we finally got going and went to Little Italy for the Fest of San Gennaro. It was a street party with lots of food vendors, cheap souvenirs, and carnival-style games. We just browsed and enjoyed the local culture.

He's hand-rolling cigars--cool!

 Wait, did that sign say Fried Oreos?!?!

Oh yes, it did...!

We enjoyed some chocolate-covered cannoli too, bought some good fake purses, and just wandered.

Right next to Little Italy is China Town. It boasts the largest concentration of Chinese people anywhere in the world outside of China--woah!

We went to a famous deli for lunch, Katz's. It's a New York favorite, one I've never been to but heard about on Food Network. (And it's the place where the "When Harry Met Sally" faking it scene was filmed, just for a frame of reference!) It was so busy inside and seemed more like a cafeteria than a restaurant. The sandwiches were priced at about $16 a piece and I was glad we were a little stuffed with sweets from Italy so we could just buy one and split it.

And of course, like everything else in this amazing city, it was an incredible pastrami on rye. The meat was perfectly cooked, with a fabulous house mustard and crisp pickles. Yes, absolutely worth the $16 and I'd totally do it again!! And Malcom STILL talks about its beauty, so you know it was a good sandwich!

Next we went back uptown to explore a little of Central Park. First of all, that place is HUGE!! We stumbled into the part in the middle called The Ramble where it's left very natural, very few concrete sidewalks or fences. I honestly felt like I was in the middle of the woods at times. It was so relaxing and enjoyable.

Malcom absolutely had to wander off the semi-marked path and get up close to the duckies:

I knew there'd be too much to take pictures of, so I focused on flowers and plants.

Malcom even took a nap there; I was his pillow and he spread out on a bench for a little while. I listened to the birds and the wind, watched a very few passers-by and just breathed. So good.

Then back home to get ready for our big night out to see Wicked. We had found a nice little sushi place near the apartment and enjoyed a light dinner there. We got to Gershwin Theater in plenty of time to take pictures and enjoy the scenery.

Then we watched the show, which was just as amazing as the first time I saw it. In fact, even a little better because I felt the girls who played Elphaba and Glinda were incredible. I thought it would be hard to not sing along because I know all the songs and sing them at the top of my lungs in the car, but it was easy to just listen to the masters do it, and do it in original ways.

Afterward, I dragged Malcom to the stage exit to "stalk" the stars. They come out afterward to greet the fans, pose for pictures, and sign the playbills. It was fun to talk to them and tell them how enjoyable they were.

Me with Katie Rose Clarke who played Glinda.

Unfortunately, Elphaba and Fiyero didn't come out, probably had other (better?!) things to do and escaped some other way. Oh well, It was great fun anyway.

After that, we wandered for too long trying to find Carnegie Deli. We tried to use the subway, but some of the trains weren't running due to construction, so we had to walk a bit (me in little heels!). And then we realized Carnegie wasn't where we thought it was, and I was about to cry thinking about walking back the several blocks to get to it, so Malcom finally got us a cab. It was only $5 so no big deal, and it saved my tired feet.

Dessert was banana cream pie for me and strawberry cheesecake for Malcom, although I ate half of his too!

Best. Cheesecake. Ever. 

EVER.

More wandering to get home--silly subways that didn't run the way they were supposed to! And finally, at 2am, we got to bed.

Day 4:

Friday morning came way too early--we had to meet a boat at 10am so we had to set alarms this time and get going quickly. We almost didn't make it, had to take another cab and tipped the guy handsomely for rushing for us. But we did make it, just barely in time, and hopped on the New York Water Taxi. The whole point in buying this tour was because they had tickets to the 9/11 Memorial and no one else did. Those (free) passes were all booked through NOVEMBER when I started looking a few weeks before our trip. Since I really wanted to go to the memorial, I figured it was worth the $25 per ticket for a water taxi tour to get the memorial passes included.

Almost as soon as we got on the boat, the rain that had threatened the previous two days finally started falling in earnest. We were nearly soaked by the time we got to the landing at the south of the island. But we happily headed up to the Memorial, stood in a few security lines and got inside.

The Memorial was really peaceful and hopeful, much different than when I was there two years ago. The waterfalls had that nice, white-noise sound, and the construction noises (muffled by the rain) sounded like rebuilding and progress.

We loved the way the names looked, simple yet bold.

We learned that the names were grouped according to who the people worked with, not alphabetical order. The two waterfalls have the names of all those who died on 9/11 in the Twin Towers, in the airplanes, and at the Pentagon, as well as those who died in the 1993 attacks at the World Trade Center.

One of the waterfalls with WTC 1 in the background, the proud American flag hung at the bottom.

This is the Survivor Tree. It was the most badly-damaged tree that still survived the collapse. It was replanted in Jersey for 10 years (where it survived a deadly hurricane there too!), then brought back to the Memorial to keep growing!

It finally got too rainy and we called it quits for the day. We called it quits for the photography too because it was just too wet! We made our way inside some of the financial buildings nearby to view the Memorial from a dry location, like everyone else who was there! We found a good food court and ate at Cosi, delicious Italian-style sandwiches served on fresh-baked focaccia.

We went back up to Times Square to see if there were any discount tickets left for Broadway shows at the TKTS booth, but nothing looked good. It was thoroughly pouring by then, so we ducked into a few stores and bought souvenirs for the kids. We looked high and low for a rain jacket for Malcom that cost lest than $50, but no such luck. His only hoodie was soaked and we weren't sure it would last the rest of the trip.

Admitting defeat, we trudged back to the apartment, put our wet clothes on the heater, and took naps. Oh, such a luxury!! We took naps in the middle of the day, with the rain pouring outside and didn't set an alarm. If that doesn't say vacation, I don't know what does!

We woke up around dinner time, donned our mostly-dry clothes, and went out for pizza. We went to the same place as Monday night because it was close and we knew it was a sure thing. Cheap and easy. Back home, we watched a movie on the laptop, then called it a night.

I did snap one final picture that day, a view of our dining room table, all covered in stuff.

It seemed like an honest glimpse of our no-kids lifestyle and we-don't-have-to-clean-up-after-ourselves-because-we're-on-vacation attitudes. :)