Living in the far north sometimes means that the red eye flight via
Toronto to anywhere else is unavoidable. Add into that equation work,
children and other commitments and most people with an ounce of
commonsense would have said, um no, I shouldn't go to New York. Lucky
for me, I have no commonsense when it comes to the opportunity to go
somewhere awesome with awesomer peeps. Hence, the midnight flight meant
that I was aboard with a bestie and ready to soar into the wakeful dawn.
Unlike
some people, I am usually terrible at sleeping on planes, trains and
other moving objects. In fact, I am terrible at sleeping period. I did
manage an hour or so, but between connections, circling due to a VIP
arrival and delays, we landed at La Guardia airport with little zzzz to
pump up the system. But, this is New York. The thought of sleep was
banished as we cabbed it to Manhattan. Traffic was jammed but there was
plenty of time to soak in the sights as we drove around Central Park on
the way to pick up our New York passes. I had purchased New York passes
from www.newyorkpass.com. There are many options but if you can get
these discounted, it seemed to pay for itself while fast tracking lines
and having the most sites included. From there, we opted to take the
train to Greenwich Village where the apartment and our hostess resided.
Now,
again, having commonsense, we should have had a nap, but instead we
freshened up and headed right back out the door. After some debate, we
decided on the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) for the first stop. We
figured out the trains and headed back uptown. Checking with two police
officers and various tourists, we reached the edge of Central Park and
the glamorous exterior of...the MET (Metropolitan Museum of Art).
Laughing, I decided that it was meant. Lunch was found at a street
vendor where I experimented with some sort of skishkabab and potato
thingamy (Don't do it). Then, in we went and I am was so excited. They
had a wonderful array of art representing many eras but they had my
favorite in the Impressionists. The exhibition Impressionism and Fashion was
a lovely display of art with the dresses and costumes worn in the
displays featured in front. There was amazing islamic art, modern art,
photography, fountains, sculpture and Eygytian Art. Our feet roamed as
fast as possible but we still didn't see it all. I could have spent a
lot more time there but we had a pre booked tour at the Tenement House
Museum.
The day was crisp and the sky clear so we walked through Central Park.
Wending our way, we found the lakes, the Boat House and then Poet's Walk
while angling towards the subway. We got there and hopped aboard an F
train heading downtown to the Lower East Side. We got off at Delancy and
Essex and walked over to 97 Orchard Street. On this visit, we didn't
watch the film and headed straight to the Shop Life Tour. This was a
dynamic interactive tour that described immigrant life from the
perspective of a German shop family (www.tenement.org/shoplife). I
thoroughly enjoyed learning the stories and playing with the interactive
object board. No pictures are allowed but the memories can be captured
through their book.
From the tenement house museum, we went to Katja's for dinner. It was lovely German food and
complimented our tour very well. I had the goulash which was
delightfully flavorful and filling.
There wasn't a huge amount of time
to enjoy the pub like coziness or the amazing staff employed there as we
had tickets to Mamma Mia. Back to the train we went and headed uptown
to the Winter Garden Theatre where we arrived, sat down and the curtain
rose. I would suggest allowing a bit more time than we did!
Mamma Mia at the Winter Garden was a dream come true. The seats we found at Broadwaybox.com were fabulous as they were situated in the orchestra seating. We had a great
view of the stage and could sing along to our hearts content. Honestly,
I don't know if they were having their best night as it felt a bit off.
The lead actress for Sophie sounded froggy and the sound was cutting in
and out, but Donna's actress was phenomenal. I also loved the dancing
crowd at the end.
Now, at the end of the show, you would think that we would have developed some sense and headed back to the apartment but no, that was not us. Instead, we shivered our way
down to Times Square and hit the M&M shop, waved at the advertising,touristed our way about and then wandered down on foot to the Empire State Building. Nothing loathe, we headed in and all the way up for our 1:30 am viewing of the city at night. New York is stunning at all hours with the lights, water and energy.
Finally, we made it back to the apartment for around 2:00. We crawled gratefully into a lovely bed to recharge so we could do it all again.
We split up after that and while the other two went costume shopping, we went bachelorette shopping. That done, we headed uptown to Rockerfeller Center and went to the top of the rock. The Manhattan skyline shines under the sun and the effects were stunning over Central Park. We still had time after that, so we headed to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and wandered through there. The staff at the Rockerfeller Centre and everywhere else were fabulously friendly and delightful. The MoMA offers you poor signage, crowds and rude security people. I don't have a full appreciation of this style of tourism management and nearly suggested that we leave. Then I saw the exhibits and decided that the majority of it was well, not my cup of tea either. I adore the Impressionists but the rest of the exhibits seemed pretentious and overdone to me. My opinion isn't worth much but I had far more fun at the MET.
