Thanks to airmiles and my friend Heather being here on work and having a lovely hotel room, I've had a little New York mini vacation this week. I arrived on Wednesday and Heather and I did a lovely french dinner and saw La Cage Aux Folles while drinking a great slug of red wine out of an absolutely ridiculous souvenir sippy cup! (I'd include the pic but I promised not to embarass Heather and it's of her).
Then on thursday we did up SOHO, Tribeca, the Tenement museum, and Times Square as well as walking the Brooklyn Bridge. Walking the Brooklyn bridge was absolutely inspiring. To think that they built all of this in the late 1800's is absolutely astonishing. i totally want to find a novel about that, it's fascinating!
The tenement museum was also cool. We saw some of the apartments in the immmigrant neighbourhoods which were in the state that they were found in after having beeen closed up from about 1930 to 1980. And then we went into one that they had recreated and researched the life of one of the families that lived there. It was an Irish family that lived there in 1890. Really cool! We also went to a crazy chocolate boutique that does really unusual savory flavours. And we had doughnuts from a world renowned doughnut place. Heather had peanut butter and jam, I had pistachio. That was lunch
Today we headed out for shopping (new shoes, $50, thank you) and the Museum of Modern Art. Then Heather had to rest before her show so I struck it out solo. Before my family asks, no I did not get lost, not even once. I did Macy's, took in an impromptu street breakdancing show, the Empire state building, walked 5th avenue to see Sacs and Gucci and Tiffany's and the like, toured by Central Park and did two cathedrals, St. Patrick and St. Thomas.
At the churches I lit a candle for my sister and my mother in law as they are both Catholic and St. Patricks is the largest cathedral in the US. It was pretty amazing.
The Empire State building was pretty cool too, the vistas were amazing and I had purchased the audio guide so it pointed out each side of the building very clearly and what I was seeing. A really impressive way to get a sense of the scope of the city.
I have to say that the only dissapointing piece was Times Square. Many friends have described it as an overwhelming but exciting impression of lights and people. I think that after Hong Kong, Times square doesn't really strike me that way so much.
Nontheless, a super cool trip. I'm having a brief break now before joining Heather post show for one last jaunt and then home tomorrow.
