[I realize I’m a little behind in my blogging, but I wanted to finish telling this story and I have time to kill since my video is buffering and my Diet Coke is keeping me awake].
Day three started with an immense hangover. The first thing we did after packing and switching hotels was stop at a Shake Shack. This place is a mecca of hangover food. Seriously. The burgers had this creamy sauce and the fries were (dare I say?) better than Portillo’s fries in Chicago. My shake was the only thing that was passable, but that’s probably because the brain freeze I got from drinking it wasn’t making my hangover go away.
Sunday happened to be Ben’s birthday, and the weather was gorgeous, so we decided to venture to Central Park. As a Chicagoan, I’m thinking Central Park is just a slightly larger version of Grant Park… I was completely wrong. Central Park is the largest park I have ever attempted (and failed) to walk through. But how breathtaking! I was literally commenting to Ben at least once a minute at how beautiful everything was.
I was amazed at how “fall” everything still looked for late November, but I think we were in the city at the perfect time. We walked for about 45 minutes looking for Strawberry Fields (the John Lennon memorial across the street from the Dakota Apartment at which he was killed):
and we climbed some rocks:
After about an hour and a half of walking, we realized we were only a quarter of the way through the park (that’s when I realized it’s enormousness). We started to get lost, not caring that the sun was setting soon, and we found another couple to take our picture:
The more and more we walked, the darker it started to get, but I wanted to make it to Belvedere Castle to see the view, but instead we just took some silly self-portraits, as is our nature:
We started to head back, I was directionally challenged, and I had no idea which way we were headed even with the map in my hands. By the time we had made it to the end of the park (coming back around), we Ben watched the Jets beat the whoever they were playing, while i took pictures of the Plaza Hotel:
Further down Fifth Avenue, we walked past Tiffany’s. I wasn’t desperate to go inside, and I could tell Ben wasn’t either, so we passed up the opportunity. I know, I know. You’re probably wondering what I was thinking passing that by, but, well, I window-shopped. I’m not one for jewelry, okay?
We walked up toward Bryant Park and strolled through their Christmas market and watched the ice skaters and then we decided that we were famished, so we walked to our hotel, and then to John’s Pizzeria (the Original) for Ben’s birthday dinner! After dinner, we walked to a bakery to get a birthday cupcake… and it was closed. I was so bummed. Everyone needs cake on their birthday, right? We found another “about to close” bakery and Ben picked out a little chocolate pastry. When we made it back to the hotel, I lit a match and sang the birthday song. This was the most rich pastry in the world. It was SO chocolaty that it was almost too much to handle, so we put it in the fridge for later. And our night ended falling asleep watching Dexter. Ben says that it was his perfect birthday, and I say it was my favorite day in the Big Apple.
After waking up around 8:00am, Ben and I prepared for a really long day out and about. First, we took our first NYC subway ride. I was expecting to see a bunch of crazy New Yorkers (no offense, non-crazy New Yorkers); instead, I encountered mostly tourists. When we stopped in Battery Park, we walked to the line for the ferry that takes you to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. I felt like I was actually coming to America for the very first time when they made me take off my shoes and socks and searched my belongings and then herded everyone like cattle into this overheated/overcrowded waiting room. I didn’t pay for the 19th Century Immigrant experience, but what an upgrade!
We sat at the top of the ferry because I wanted to see the Statue as we approached it on the water. The view was breathtaking. It’s magnificent to think about the symbolism of that statue.
While we were there being tourists, we took a lot of pictures with Lady Liberty. (This is as good place a place as any to note that I abhor looking like a tourist; however, I did purchase a crown souvenir crown on the ship that I had to carry around the city for the rest of the day.)
We also saw this man, a total tourist, writhing on the ground to take his picture of America’s birthday gift.
After our little history lesson about Freemasons and Frenchmen, we sailed to Ellis Island. We sort of rushed through it, but we spent some time in the room of “immigrant cultural references and prejudices” where we saw a silly wall of racist sheet music that was popular in the early 20th century. People could definitely not get away with singing any of these songs today.
After we raced back to the ship and returned to Battery Park, we took the subway to the famed 42nd Street and went to the Ripley’s Believe it or Not museum. I wasn’t really sure what to expect, but I learned so many weird tid-bits and I loved how silly everything was. For example, certain tribes used to use an oosik to club their enemies to death. What’s an oosik (below)?
Answer: A walruses penis bone. Gross, I know. Maturity was something we must have left at Ellis Island because we were giggling at the sight of this. It’s name alone is enough to make you crack up. Ooooooosik.
Moving on, we saw an entire exhibit about torture devices:
And there was a portrait of Frank Sinatra that someone made out of dead butterflies:
All in all, this place was weird. But it provided a lot of laughs among the stress of being in an overwhelming city.
After our tourism day, we went back to the hotel to rest a little before we met up with Ben’s old friend Peter.
Of course, meeting anyone for dinner that you don’t know/haven’t seen in a while can cause some anxiety, but there was no reason once we sat down for dinner. Peter was so kind and treated us to dinner at Les Halles on Park Avenue, followed by birthday drinks at Banc at the corner of 3rd Av. and 30th St. Ben turned 24 at midnight, so we were favorites of the bartender since we started drinking around 9 and hung around until 1am. We ordered a Manhattan Sewer for Ben, a cocktail that I’m pretty sure contained 7 different kinds of whiskey. Delicious? No. Funny? Absolutely.
Afterwards, Ben and I trudged home down 3rd Av. and up to Times Square, but not before we went shopping at Forever 21 at 1:45am. Being drunk in a store that already makes you feel like you are drunk without any alcohol is a terrifyingly thrilling experience!
This time last week, I had just arrived at in Intercontinental Hotel in Times Square, New York. Check in took a while longer than expected, but the wait was worth it. Our hotel room was more than halfway up and overlooked 8th Avenue, a block away from Times Square. We were starving so we grabbed the best pizza in the city (at least, that’s what the online ratings said) and we went to Times Square to eat it.
Then, we went to the M&M Store.
And then we took a nap. I only wanted to sleep for an hour so I could get ready for the show we were going to, but I overslept just a tad. It was well worth it,though. In the middle of our nap, a hotel staffer came to our door and dropped off a plate of fruits and glass bottles of Evian. Yay, for being Premier Members! Haha. It was great. And those apples were delicious.
After our nap, we got ready for the show Promises, Promises starring Sean Hayes, Kristen Chenowith, and Molly Shannon. I had been going back and forth with Sean’s people on getting our tickets in order and then getting to visit backstage, and that all came through right at the box office at the Broadway Theater. The show was incredible. I’m glad Ben liked it. It was his first professional theater production. We went backstage afterwards to see Sean. His personal dresser for the show loved my shoes and I didn’t have the heart to tell him I had boots in my bag for the walk back home.
Afterwards, we walked back to Times Square and had dinner at an upscale diner. I had a burger, Ben had a corned beef sandwich. Finally, we headed back to the hotel after gawking at the city once more.
