there is nothing i can say about nyc that would even begin to express the vibrancy of the city. so here is a quick 72 hour rundown. links and all.
arrive at jfk airport at 8:00 pm Thursday evening. take a taxi into manhattan. get dropped off in the west village at the jane. our hotel for the next 3 nights. it is nestled right along the Hudson river. survivors of the Titanic stayed here. it is designed to be like a ship, each room it's own little cabin.
weary from traveling, we decide to order room service. my favorite is matt's response when i suggest it....."so you just call, and then you order.....and then they bring it to your room?" uh, yeah, that's room service. but not just any room service, cafe gitane room service. unreal. maybe my best meal ever. then we slipped into bed for the night. only the club downstairs was thumping till dawn. hmmmmm may need to rethink our room choice.
friday morning begins with a coffee and croissants at a little no name cafe. fueled up, we are ready for my pilgrimage to perry street past carrie bradshaw's apt. no, i did not make a video like this crazy woman (some fans are so nuts). but hell yeah i took a picture. 20 blocks later, we walk through greenwich village, through washington square, past at least a dozen starbucks, then into soho for some window shopping. p.s. we saw a movie being filmed, the madeoff son killed himself that day and another murder happened in a soho loft. all in a day in soho. ate malaysian. had another coffee. walked our tired butts back to the west village to get ready for our evening out on the town.
after a quick "freshen up" we walk another several blocks to the metro stop. one seriously insane rush hour ride in the subway train and we are transported to the upper west side. we enter an alternative universe called lincoln center to see the nyc ballet and george ballanchine's rendition of the nutcracker. incredible. once in a lifetime. tired but floating we make our way back to the jane. did we mention the club right below us? by midnight when we arrived back at the jane, the club was just getting started. a soak in a luxuriously deep marble tub makes me forget about the noise. at least while the water is running. must change rooms.
saturday morning is 50 and sunny! a walk on the amazing highline. a fully relandscaped and redesigned use of an old elevated railway line. the highline leads right into the meatpacking district and chelsea, which of course is the perfect place to brunch. we seek out the park and are NOT disappointed. wow. but $6 for an orange juice, that's reasonable. then i ordered the mimosa for $10. after that, back to the highline for a free outdoor christmas concert by the nyc gay men's chorus. we sang our hearts out! gives new meaning to "don we now our gay apparel."
fast forward 1 hour. still walking, we stubble across billy's bakery and have the most amazing cupcakes. the buttercream frosting must have been at least and inch and a half tall. another subway ride finds us in midtown and in a completely different world. we came to see the rockefeller center and the tree. but what were we thinking?! 5th avenue around christmas is madness. we came, we saw, we got the hell out of there. insanity. so we take refuge in central park. it is dusk and we grab a pretzel to share, glad also to also share a disdain for crowds. the park is beautiful at dusk. matt takes the longest pee ever behind an old stone wall in central park (hilarious video footage, ask me i'll show you sometime). we see a woman get proposed to in front of the famous fountain. we walk past the pond, the boat house, and through the ramble. we walk from the east side to the west side and find ourselves once again back at the jane ready to collapse after 50 plus blocks of walking. p.s. we had remembered to switch rooms earlier that day. but no joke, the room was 90 degrees. we had to the turn the air conditioner on! at least that drowned out the noise of the hudson parkway below.
sunday morning brings the rain. the blizzard in mn gave way to heavy rains in manhattan. we dash to the drugstore (with all our belongings in our backpacks) to pick up an umbrella. then grab bagels to go. we each buy 2, saving the second for later in the day. later came 5 minutes after we finished the first one. those are some damn good bagels. eating bagels on a subway heading uptown makes you feel very new york. unfortunately i don't think we look very new york at all. we plan to spend the day at the museum of modern art and the guggenheim. moma is amazing. several hours still wasn't enough to really take it all in. i know it's cliche by i LOVE monet. sitting in front of the waterlillies brought tears to my eyes. while i dried my eyes, miraculously the rains stopped. again, with backpacks strapped, we walked 30 blocks through central park to the upper east side and into the guggenheim. another amazing exhibit. still, i sometimes find myself thinking......"i don't get it." call me simple, but pastel landscapes really do it for me. speaking of landscapes, it is dark when we emerge from the amazing wright spiral and so we begin again to walk.
by this time, my swollen belly and streched pelvis have begun to shout: dare i say it? "stop all this f$%#ing walking and hail a cab already" and so we do. we hail a $50 cab back to jfk. only to find our flight has been delayed. damn, if only we'd had him drop us at the brooklyn bridge then we would have seen it all.....
but i guess there is only so much you can do in 72 hours.
