We heart New York

Thirty “plus” years of living in this great country and neither of us have experienced New York City. Not even the airport. So to celebrate our first wedding anniversary, we packed our satchels and hopped on the turnip truck headed fer the big city. Here is the tale of our Fodor’s-guided adventure over Memorial Day weekend…

A redeye start
If you ever have to take a flight out of Salt Lake City International Airport past 10 p.m., don’t think that you can procrastinate the daylight portion of the day because you have all evening to pack, wait until minutes before your taxi arrives to jam everything into your ONE suitcase allotted for free on Delta, and tell your husband that he’ll have plenty of time to eat at the airport. No, don’t do that. Because you’ll end up feeling really foolish and guilty when you arrive at your city’s “international airport” and find it eerily deserted except for the sweepers and belt/shoe monitors, and your husband doesn’t say anything but you can hear his stomach grumbling. And don’t get too optimistic when you see a sign that says “24-hour Concession at Top of Terminal C.” It will lead you to a Starbucks with week-old sandwiches.

Also, taking good-for-eight-hours-Ambien on a 5-hour flight means you have 3 hours of feeling doped up once you arrive in New York City. This leads to spilling soda all over your bags, shoes, and clothes.

Day one
We dropped our bags off at the hotel and started the trek toward the Empire State Building. We weren’t quite sure that we were in the right area until we saw the line wrapped around the block. In total, we waited 2 hours to get to the observatory on the 86th floor. It’s a maze of lines from one room to the next then to the elevator. They must have cut out the “waiting two hours in line” scene in An Affair to Remember and Sleepless in Seattle… The people who try to hustle you into buying a $20 tour to “bypass” the line are not telling the entire truth. Shocking, I know. You skip the line to get to a made-for-kids 10-minute video of the Empire State Building. But then you still have to wait to get to the observatory. However, you can pay $50 for the Express Pass but not until you’re inside and have already waited 45 minutes. But check out the views from the top (photos below)… well worth the wait.

We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around Midtown and hit the Chrysler Building, a quaint little curry joint, Grand Central Terminal, and Bryant Park. We returned to the hotel and checked into our room on the top/34th floor of the Marriott Residence Inn which had great views of the Empire State Building and the city. We splashed some water on our faces, sprayed a cloud of perfume/cologne, put on shinier shoes, and walked to Broadway where we had tickets to Spamalot. OKAY – so we’re not like into musicals, so we chose Spamalot over other prime productions like the Lion king, Wicked, and Chicago. And Monty Python did not disappoint. The show was hilarious, and we laughed so hard we were CRYING. After the show, we ventured without our guide book to find an Ethiopian restaurant that I was sure I had directions to until we found ourselves walking on one of those blocks with dark shadows and staring eyes. As soon as I started to suggest that we turn around, we stumbled on one.










Day two
Day two as we planned it almost didn’t happen. I had purchased Yankees versus Mariner tickets through StubHub, and so that I would not forget to pack it, left the tickets in the FedEx envelop on the dining room table. And I forgot. We called Rob on Friday from New York, and he sent it via FedEx overnight to our hotel. It arrived Saturday morning, just three hours before the game. Now, we’re not Yankees fans. In fact, we thought Steinbrenner was an idiot for resigning Rodriguez. BUT, it was fun pretending to be a Yankees fan at Yankee Stadium. After the game, we rushed to 76th street to the much raved about French International restaurant Café Boulud, owned by Daniel Boulud. Food was delicious, but it was a bit like that one commercial where the couple gets really excited about getting reservations at a very high-end trendy restaurant then served pea-sized portions of food. So yes, we had room for dessert. Three to be sure. The restaurant was close to Central Park so after dinner, we took a nice evening stroll through the park and back to our hotel.





Day three
We walked to Brooklyn from 38th Street and Avenue of the Americas (6th Avenue). Or roughly five miles through Bryant Park, Soho, Union Square, Little Italy, China Town, City Hall Park, and across the Brooklyn Bridge. Walking that kind of distance would be like walking to downtown Salt Lake City from our house but only people with “will work for food” signs walk in our town. Walking (and eating and even better, walking while eating) was one of our favorite activities in New York, and we had the perfect weather for it all weekend. As there are no shortages of hot dog vendors in the city, I could refuel at any time, and no matter which corner we turned, there’s always someone Mike can point to for a good OMG reaction or face a building that must have been designed by someone extraordinarily gifted and makes me want to move right into it. I don’t think Mike was convinced that 2.7 million dollars for a 3 bedroom and 2 bathroom apartment was reasonable, even if they did accept post-dated checks. So, we didn’t browse the real estate market much but continued on to Battery Park and took the State Island Ferry for the grand view of the Statue of Liberty and Manhattan skyline. By the time we got back to our hotel, it was only 8 p.m., but we were thoroughly exhausted… Our half-hearted attempt to be "cool" and talk about going out for live music ended with me falling asleep in mid-sentence.










Day four (last day)
On my list for the day: MoMA.
On Mike’s list for the day: New York-style pizza.
Check and check.
We stopped to pose at the Rockefeller Center and Radio City Hall but spent great portion of the morning and afternoon at the New York City MoMA. In addition to the jaw-dropping collection of Picasso, Duchamp, Van Gogh, Miro, Mattise, and Pollock, we got to play around in some interesting illusionary displays/rooms. After MoMA, we stuffed ourselves with pizza and tried to walk it off in Central Park. We headed all the way up to 89th street to take a photo of the Guggenheim, but the building was under construction and covered in scaffolding and plastic. Well, it was a nice walk anyway and a great way to spend the last day of our trip.









For more photos of our weekend trip, go to Flickr.