Travelers' Notebook

New York, New York

We have long discussed the idea of traveling to New York City for a vacation and this Thanksgiving we made it happen. Despite tackling the busiest travel period of all time, our travels were easy. Kevin, in particular, had wanted to see a Broadway play and despite the stage hand strike, we saw one of the few unaffected shows, Mary Poppins. Eve was also able to arrange grandstand seats to see the Macy's Day Parade and we were invited to my high school friend Jerry's house for Thanksgiving. We had four full days of non-stop sight seeing and have a list of things we missed for our return visit. You can see the photos here and read highlights from my traveler's notebook below.

Traveler's Notebook

Thanksgiving Day was 65 degrees for the parade. In 81 years they said it was the warmest parade on record. Glad I wasn't selling handwarmers.
The Macy's Day Parade was nice, but can't hold a candle to (or a flower to) the Rose Parade. There is something wrong when someone says "here's balloon that has been in the parade for 20 years" and comparing that to flowers that last just days.
We went from 65 degrees on Thanksgiving Day to 34 degrees on Black Friday. We experienced fall colors at their height in the Park and the bitter cold of winter the following day.
We worried we would look silly wearing ski clothing in New York, but even the locals were sporting ski wear.
We toured NBC Studios which was largely unexciting for someone who grew up in Los Angeles, except for some reason I was thrilled to see the famous Saturday Night Live studios.
The hot nuts sold by street vendors can only be described as "hot nuts!"
We went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and spent $50 for my family of four (after lying about Kevin's age). We went, in part, to see my grandmother's donated ivory on display and I felt like saying "my family already donated, let me in for free," but instead decided to feel good about my contribution to the arts.
The Empire State Building was an hour long line that snaked at least a mile. After which we made it to the 80th floor (six floors from the observation deck). There was another 30 minute snake until we heard we could walk it. We did. It was packed. The wind was howling. My fingers were numb. We could only stand a few minutes outside. Hard to say if it was worth the effort, but pretty photos nevertheless--thank god for fast shutter speeds.
The "World Trade Center" is still on many signs around a town, but the site today is simply called Ground Zero. After six years it's not much more than a hole in the ground, but to see such an open space in the financial district of Manhattan is striking. The emotions unearthed by looking at this hole in the ground were doubly striking.
The Statue of Liberty is certainly the single most recognizable icon in the U.S. I would argue that the Golden Gate bridge is the second most important icon. What I didn't realize until taking my first trip to see Lady Liberty, is that it's a stunningly impressive sculpture and well worth the virtual strip search I endured to see it. Later I saw a sight seeing bus that had an image of Lady Liberty holding the torch in her left hand (the image was flipped for graphic reasons) and thought that there should be a law about photoshopping the Statue of Liberty, although I would later futz a bit with my images.
NY subways are reasonably priced and efficient and yet the mapping, labeling and signage is guaranteed to confuse anyone who has mastered the Metro or the Tube. Our trip to Central Park West mistakenly went through Harlem. My wife was clearly not amused by the detour, but I got to see a rat at the Harlem station busy collecting paper for its nest and struggle to get the paper inside its nest.
My friend Jerry has a multi-million dollar apartment with a stunning view of the Hudson River. We arrived in time to see the sun set. Equally stunning was the fact that it was originally a one bedroom apartment...and I thought California real estate was crazy.
I saw a menu with an $18 hamburger and ultimately paid $125 for a deli lunch for four.
FAO Schwarz still has the piano made famous by Tom Hanks in the movie Big for sale for just $250,000. This is most certainly the mother of all toy stores. I guess I've only been in Toys R Us of late, and I experienced a certain thrill at entering FAO Schwarz that I'm sure I haven't felt since in 40 years of entering toy stores.
We saw Enchanted (new Disney movie) which was shot around NYC including one scene shot right in front of the Zigfield theater where we saw the film.
The best bargain in New York is the flat $50 cab fare from JFK. It took us an hour and a half in traffic...that's a deal!
Kevin wore his SF Giants baseball cap throughout the trip and was approached on numerous occasions by New Yorkers (including a policeman), who wanted to talk baseball and give him a hard time. I wore an old Yankees hat that I had from my days coaching t-ball and did my best to blend in, the hypocrite that I am!
The NY Fire Department was called to Times Square for some reason. The issue was resolved before we arrived, but the firefighters were finding it difficult to vacate the scene because of all the tourists who flocked around wanting to take a photo with NY's heros.
The elevator at our hotel epitomized the New York experience. It opened and gave you about three seconds to get your butt inside before it closed the doors again. This is not a city where you can dawdle, much to Scottie's disappointment.
And finally, when I visited Europe in 1980 at the age of 18, I was an avid photographer. I took 10 rolls of film with me that lasted for six weeks. That's 360 images. I had four full days in New York, brought two digital cameras and took over 700 images. Given the traffic jams created by tourists snapping pictures, I wasn't the only one with a happy trigger finger.

November 26, 2007