Saturday in NYC!!

It’s Saturday!   Day 3 in THE city…the word of the day is “windblown”…. We have much to do today and most of it involves some mode of transportation that will force wind to be whipped through our hair.   We get up about 8ish – we want to leave about 9 and try to be to the harbor cruise by 10.   The cruise is a part of our two day bus tour package, and it leaves every hour on the hour between 10 and 3, so we want to go first thing and be sure to get it.  We’re hoping that everyone else doesn’t have the same brilliant idea.  We have the boat, and then we need to do the downtown tour, the Brooklyn tour and the night tour… we can do this!

Just a note, I am posting this on what is actually Day 4 instead of day 3 because I didn’t have much time to write this up ON day 3 – I was out late with Hugh Jackman and BP last night (spoilers!), so I didn’t have time to finish it last night and had to work on it today (Sunday)…. Confused?  GOOD!   Let’s continue.

The Saturday morning conversation is just as weird as the conversation was the night before… some things you might have overheard had you been here would have been Brittany and Dana discussing the shake weight.  BMc thinks that it looks obscene – but Dana avoids that, “Well, I don’t open my mouth.” (Ahhh… great tip!)   We’re watching the Today Show, and I see our new friend Lester Holt – I say, “Hey, its LESTER HOLT”… the Brittanys in chorus..  “WHERE!?” – um…. On tv.   In front of you.  What you are watching currently.   Oh HEY!  We know him.   Yep.  We sure do.  I’m not sure if you can count him as a celebrity that you saw if you can not later identify him on your own. 

 I bought cherries from a fruit vendor on the street at one point and I’ve told everyone that they can eat whatever they like of the cherries… but BM doesn’t like fruit that has seeds.   “I gotta really be in the mood for it.  If I have to work that hard to eat it.”    BP is struggling with the sheet that covers the couch she’s been sitting on – it’s a fitted sheet and the elastic keeps popping off and hitting her.  The first time it happened – she thought she had been shot.   I’m sure it’s a similar feeling to being shot.  She seems to be the only one with this issue.

BP is so cute – she and Becki have been sharing a bed and apparently their feet are higher than their heads when they lay down – a little awkward.    They talk about other ways to sleep, like maybe tonight they’ll try putting their heads at the other end, or they can change it up and have one person with their head up and one with their head down. She says to Becki, “I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t sleeping in a weird way to annoy you…”   Oh BP, the way you sleep is so annoying.    She starts telling a story and then gets a little flustered, “YOU GUYS ARE LOOKING AT ME!”… well, you are speaking.   We typically do that in our culture… We get a big kick out of BP.  I told her at one point that I would not have made this trip without her.   She doesn’t believe me, but it’s true.  Such a positive source of energy, “I don’t even mean to be funny and you guys just LAUGH!”   Yes, that’s because we love you BP!

In the midst of all this silliness, we’re actually managing to get ready and we make it out the door by a little after 9.   We’re taking the subway to the boat today, so it’s a little exciting – our first ride this trip!  Google maps on the iphone is a great tool for this, you just put in your destination and hit the public transportation option – it’s much better than any of the fancy smancy NYC apps that I downloaded to do the same thing.   We decide to get the 7-day unlimited pass so that we can just hop around the city with no worries about fares over the next week – covers trains and buses.  We are SO going to be pros at this after a week.  (Right?)

There is still a little bit of a walk (about 6 blocks) once we get off the train – we probably could have taken a bus, but we’re not that confident yet with the system.   Baby steps.   So we’re walking, we’re walking – and having a good time, snapping a few pics along the way (Becki is such a law breaker, she was just STANDING THERE, when the sign CLEARLY says that she should not be doing that at ANY time.   I also point out the signs for “Don’t Block the Box” – they have those in DC too, so I’m familiar with them – it just means don’t block the intersection, the “box” is the box that is made in the center by the sides of all 4 streets intersecting – don’t be left hanging in it when the light changes.  Some intersections actually paint a box to not block, but most just have the sign.  We will have a pic of Becki with a sign at one point – but in the meantime, no box blocking!!    We pass right by the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel and it reminds me of the movie “Elf” when he tells his story, “I passed through the seven levels of the Candy Cane forest, through the sea of swirly twirly gum drops, and then I walked through the Lincoln Tunnel.” – see, what others would just walk right by, we turn into photo opps. 

We’ve created a new phrase – that we’re careful to use – but it just came out.  We were just about to cross the street to the boat, and the light turns, but we don’t see the green, we just see the “walk” indicator.  I wanted to say, “Hey we have the green”… and it was halfway out of my mouth when I realized I didn’t want to say “green” because it wasn’t green, dog gone it, and I was in a literal mood.  So I said, “Hey, we have the… white….. man…. Walking.. “   So now when it’s time to go we follow the white man, or the we have a white man.   I start hearing RENT lyrics in my head, “Follow the man - follow the man, help me out daddy, if you can… “,  You see, this is something that you’re reading right now and you’re saying, “She’s blogging THIS?” –   Ya.  Ya. 

We get to the boat just at the perfect time, and we’re one of the last people to get on – so we’re at the “back” of the boat.  The top is full (dang!), so we find a seat and figure once it starts moving we’ll find a place to be.   Well, turns out that we were in the primo spot and didn’t even know it.  As soon as they close up the gate they say that we can step up to the railing outside, and it’s actually the front of the boat, so we have unobstructed view of the entire cruise.  

This was one of my favorite things that we’ve done so far – I’ve been here a few times but I’ve never done the cruise.  Totally recommend it if you’re in the neighborhood.  Our guide was a salty New Yorker that was a little grumpy with all of us tourists– he was sure that no one was paying attention to him and kept mentioning that (and basically calling us idiots in the process).   He made fun of a few people for trying to get pictures of the Statue of Liberty too early – she was little small at the time – and he assures us that on the way back that we’ll be “close enough to the lady to get her number” – so don’t panic.   He says, “You can lead a horse to water but a pencil must be lead.”  It made us laugh (and only us) a little too hard.

Becki, Dana, BM and I stand up at the front rail, but BP stays seated inside.  She insists that she got the same experience, but we don’t think it can compare to our “King of the World” perch at the front of the boat.  She says that the guide scares her.  He’s cranky.   But he speaks from the heart, especially about the events on 9/11 and he really made it an informational and fun tour.   We start off on the West side in the Hudson river, follow the coast of Manhattan around and up to the East River (going under the Brooklyn Bridge, Manhattan Bridge, and other bridges that I wanted to call the Queens Borough Bridge).   World Trade Center Tower One, or the Freedom tower is prominent – just last month it became the tallest “structure” in New York, passing the Empire State Building.  It can’t be called a “building” yet because it isn’t completed.  He points out the empty space in the skyline, it’s clearly visible, and that’s where the Twin Towers stood.  It will be 1,776 feet tall when it’s completed (for the year that we gained our independence, 1776) – taller than the Twin Towers, but fewer stories.  I believe 104 stories, as opposed to 110.   We have tickets to the memorial on Thursday, so we’ll see the pools that now sit in their foot prints.

We turn around and head back, and get closer to the Statue of Liberty for pictures.   Becki is just a little disappointed.  She thought it would be bigger.  Lady Liberty is big – 34 stories high – and if you stand next to her, especially.  But she not as LOOMING over the harbor as Becki expected.  She would fit under the Arch.

Look, she found the Staten Island ferry

Brooklyn Bridge

BP found a ticker on the sidewalk!

Having a pretzel in NYC

 

We get off the boat and we hitch a free ride back to Times Square so that we can get our Downtown tour bus.  It’s nice that they provide you a free ride back.  The bus is NICE, BP wants to just have all of our buses be like this.  It’s like a charter bus, cooshy seats, enclosed (no wind blowing).  The seats on the double-decker busses are hard plastic.   Although Dana has her knees to her chin because she’s sitting on the tire well.  J

Get off at midtown, and we grab some food from a street vendor.   Hotdogs for most – Becki gets a pretzel too – and BM has to “Sally” her order even with a street vendor.   I joke that she’s just like Sally in “When Harry Met Sally” – she has to give special instructions for all of her food. 

We wait a while and it takes a few buses before we can get a ride, but eventually we grab the downtown bus, and we have a colorful tour bus lady today, thick New York accent.   We’re the first people on the bus – first choice of seats.   Some of the buses have a bubble thing on the front so you can tour and not get wet if its raining.  But it’s not raining and it blocks your view of the skyline.  At the back of the bus they have 5 seats that are all together in a line, and so we take those seats, but we quickly realize that we are not going to be able to hear her talking about the buildings, and I like to learn stuff.  Learnin is good.    We move up and while the seats in the back were hot, these new seats are BURNING!!   Hot, hard plastic seats – they’re like hotplates.   We make a comment and the tour guide says, “oh yah, careful you’re get ass-burn.   I get it all the time.  And it doesn’t make your butt smaller, so there are no benefits”.   It takes a long time for it to go away… whoa.  We learn interesting facts on our tour, there are only 18 gas stations on the island but 192 Starbucks, and that’s with 110 closed in the past year.   Wow. 

The downtown bus will be going through a lot of great neighborhoods, Greenwich Village, So-ho, Little Italy.. we decide to get off at Soho and walk over to Little Italy because BM has researched “authentic” slices of pizza and we want to eat at Lombardi’s – the original pizza place in NYC.  Our tour lady has is talking about Soho and mentions that this is where the Kardashians now have their new shop called “Dash” – we see the Brittanys exclaim with their inner high-pitched squeal, and we know that we’ll be going there.   We get off right near Spring street and that has everything that we’re looking for, Dash and Lombardi’s..   along the way to Dash we find a girl handing out cards for “C Wonder”.  It’s a little store that I saw on A&E’s “The Pitch” and it looked like something we would like.  Cute little boutique-ish – so we add that to our list of places to go.   We find Dash, and we step up to the door… until the doorman appears.  They have a doorman for the store, and a LINE.  And a ROPE with the line to wait behind before you can enter.  Becki, Dana and I decide that we don’t need to wait in a line behind a rope to enter a store that we will not be making purchases, so we head across the street to an interesting looking store called Evolution while the kids stay to wait for Dash.    They get in and are little disappointed – there are no Kardashians in there, and after they quizzed themselves to make sure they remembered all the girls’ names just in case they ran into them in the store.  Posh store, and not even their own designs – just expensive stuff from other designers.  Meanwhile, in Evolution – wow.  It’s a weird store where they sell a lot of bones and previously alive things.   There is one super cool thing that is a butterfly in a jar – it responds to your taps and looks like a real butterfly flapping around in a jar.   They also have these coin purses made from REAL FROGS – they’re gross, but amazing.  I think I need one… but I don’t get it, but I got a picture, and a lot of grief for even considering buying something so disgusting.  They also have “raccoon penis bones” for sale.  I ask if they serve a function (they look kind of like a skinny shoe-horn) – and the clerk says, “It’s a penis bone” – like um, that IS the purpose. 



Waiting in line at Dash

FROG purse!!



This is "Deer butticus" monkey..

Oh my!

PIZZA!!!!

We meet up with the girls and walk back toward C Wonder and Lombardis.  C Wonder is not as cute (or as big) as I imagined, but it is unique in many ways.   They have these HUGE lime green doors that open up and it looks like the front doors of a palace or something, and there is a DJ with a turntable at the front entrance, music blaring, and the staff are all dancing!   Hmmm…   Cute brightly colored things are everywhere.   Becki even makes a purchase (sworn to secrecy) – which makes her the winner of the “cute shopping bag” award (pics to come later).

Moving on down the street to Lombardi’s!  Getting hungry, and looking forward to our authentic slice.  It always reminds me of the episode of The Office when Michael goes to NYC for an interview that falls through or something, and at the very end he says that it’s not all a wash, because he always likes to stop off at his favorite little restaurant for an authentic slice of NYC pizza… pan up, and he’s running across the street and entering Sbarro’s.  J  We will NOT be eating there.    We officially hit Little Italy (you can tell by all the Italian flag banners)… Little Italy.  Say that 5 times fast!   It looks easy on the page, but it’s deceptive.  SAY IT! 

The wait time for Lombardi’s will be 25-35 minutes – I don’t tell the group the 35 minute part thinking that the kids may groan at the idea of waiting that long and hoping that it’s just to prepare us, but not an actual wait time.   We are parched – it’s a warm day, with sun beating down, BUT our best day so far weather wise.  It was high of 80s – it’s the sun that beats down.  We’re all out of water and since we have 25 minutes we think we have enough time to jet over to the little corner shop across the street.   We grab some beverages and I’m checking out… and my pocket vibrates – our table is ready!   It’s been MAYBE 5 minutes so we are caught off guard.  Dana and BM take the vibrating thingy and head over to grab our table while the rest of us check out.   We all get checked out and it takes a little while to get in, it’s a tiny door – Dana had asked the waiter to wait for us because we were trying to get in the door, but he wasn’t having any of that.  Once we get in, it’s a MAZE.  We head back through the main room, through the kitchen (literally), up some back stairs… and we’re in a room that is above the kitchen and just below the top of the very thin roof.   It’s warm – but we’re adjusting.  The floor is really warm – BP gets a shock when a bare toe touches the floor.

We order a large, and I wanted something traditional like just a pepperoni and sausage, and BM is thinking meatballs and ricotta pizza – so we get half and half.   BM was right, she wins – the meatball half of the pizza was amazing.  This was some of the best pizza I’ve had – we look forward to having more!    We think we’re doing pretty well – we’re getting a lot accomplished, but it’s getting later and we don’t think we’re going to be able to make the Brooklyn tour.  We’re a little disappointed.   While we’re sitting there Becki tries her new juice box and it doesn’t sync up with her phone.  My charging pack has also failed me… so she lets me use her juice box to get my batteries get recharged. 

We head back to where we pick up the downtown bus, and it takes a while for a bus to come – and in fact the entire downtown bus experience takes a lot longer, works at a different pace than the uptown tour.   All the stops are extended…  in our down time we meet two women who are stuck in NYC because their flights were messed up. They’re supposed to be in Copenhagen right now – but they’ll fly out tmw and just meet their boat two days late.   They aren’t really happy, but I wouldn’t be either.  

Rotisserie Brittany - She's DONE!

Bmc is not dealing well with the heat and the sun – How do you feel BM?  “Like a rotisserie chicken”…  What?  Like you feel like you WANT a rotisserie chicken.  Like yum, a rotisserie chicken would be great about now?  OH, like roasted!  She says that she’s immune to sunscreen, and she is a little red.   This is her on the bus feeling a little done.  At this point we’re not missing the Brooklyn tour.

We finish the downtown tour and it’s right at 5:00 when they’re supposed to end, so they stop at their final destination, which is actually better for us since it’s only blocks from our apt.  We are beat!    On the way back we get ice-cream from a vendor, most get dipped cones, BMc gets a strawberry dip, Becki and I get choc and peanut dipped… yum!    We get back to the apt, and typically at this time of day we nap – and I usually blog a bit just to keep up with it, but today I opted for a nap rather than a blog...  Napping was SO good.  Everyone slept but BP and she almost crumbled under the burden of having to wake us all up (had to ask Facebook for advice on how to wake up 4 snoring people).   She says she can't do that anymore.  No more, I say! From now on, we have to set alarms!  The pressure is too great for one BP to bear alone.   The night tour starts anytime between 6:30 and 8pm and we want to start later so that we actually get the lights at night – and bonus, the night tour goes into Brooklyn so you can see the Manhattan skyline at night.

As we’re walking to the stop for the bus, Becki and I are leading the charge.  We head left, and Becki says “we’re lefting”…   I instantly LOVE it!   We need more new verbs like this!   Changing the world one verb at a time.   Creating new verbs: Lefting.  Righing…   Verbing, nouning...  Rotissering.   Hehehee…   We crack ourselves up entirely too much!

Waiting for the bus takes a long time – we see one bus has broken down, another bus has an audio system that isn’t working, and we have a woman in line behind us in line for the night bus who is having one of those very loud “personal” phone conversations. She's alone on the tour and is talking about whoever is back at the room who has a nasty attitude (we think its her son), they’re vomiting, and for some reason didn’t want to do the night tour.   But here she is with a fever (and standing really really close to us, breathing on us – we’re a little concerned that she’s spreading her germs) and she's back out here sore feet and all.  It’s a very negative drone that goes on for much too long, we wonder why her companion has left her alone (not).  We decide she's not a ya-ya. She's a no-no.

BP is our trip celebrity spotter - she's been looking up some tips and says that if we go to Letterman's stage door it's a good way to see Celebs.  Our apt is right around the corner from his theatre, so we’re stoked!  While we’re waiting in line, BMC googled who will be here this week... Emma Stone, Channing Tatum (BP LOVES HIM!), and Maroon 5 on Tuesday, and since they're going to be at the Today show on Friday, that means we'll see them wandering the streets all week!  (That’s BMc and BP squealing).   So they say that we need to figure out what the rest of the band looks like, so when we see them we’ll know that we’re seeing them!  Oh!  And Jenna Fisher from the Office (also from St. Louis) tweeted that she's here for Pride and looking for a great place to eat in Chelsey...  BM gets excited!!  “Hey!! We're in Chelsey!! So that’s where we are!!”  The way she put that together for us to witness... it was Ah-mazing.  It’s been a long day and we kid!   We love our Brittanys

We’re still waiting, and BMc needs new tennis shoes, and Becki sees some hoodies she wants to look at… we discuss shopping for hoodies and shoes after the tour. ... If they're not closed...(that's a joke – they don’t close).   BP looks down and there is a big clump of HAIR floating around her feet – ugh.  So what does she do?  She flips it toward Dana’s feet… it heads down the street like a tumbleweed…  It's a TUMBLE-WEAVE!

The bus is taking a really long time to load.   Becki checked us in 49 min ago.  It's 8:14 and the last bus was supposed to be at 8.   But they still have a long line of people to put on a bus.  The bus that was just here only had space for one more person – so the no-no behind us gets on the bus!   We’re a little excited that we won’t have to be with her, and that we will be the first people on the next bus.   We ask how long?  5 minutes.  That's always the answer.   It's all good - its still pretty light outside and we want a NIGHT your with lights in the dark...  There are street performers on the other side of te street and we're a little jealous. All we hear is oohs and ahhs and clapping...  We want clapping ... BM sways and I start swaying in the opposite direction..  Before you know it WE will have a crowd. :)  But no one threw money.   Finally they tell us that they have a bus for us, but it’s around the corner, and it’s actually a bus from an opposing tour bus company.   We’re fine with that.   BMc struggles with the headphones that we’ve been given to plug in and listen to the tour – “They don't fit in my ear holes”…  Becki turns, pained, “Can you stop saying "ear holes".  BMc, “ You're welcome.”   BP is not struggling because she’s working her own ear buds like a boss.  

The bus heads passed Bryant Park and it looks like FUN activities happening, outdoor movies and I think that I want to be there when the tour is over.  BP says, “Oh yah, that’s Tropfest – it’s like a mini-movie festival and Hugh Jackman is hosting it… “    WHAAAAAT????  HUGH JACKMAN is RIGHT THERE and this is something that you’re just now mentioning??   It’s like 8:30 right now.  I google Tropfest and it just started at 8p, but it’s only short films.  Really cool because they show all the short movies right there and then the crown votes on best actress, actor, movie and director – cool!   And HUGH JACKMAN.  I’m a fan of anyone who can be Wolverine and sing and dance on Broadway in gold lamay pants no less.   Please.   I’m a little disappointed as the bus pulls away – but it’s all good, we’re on a BUS. 

It’s beautiful at night – the trip across the bridge, gorgeous, and the weather couldn’t be better.  The headphones are hit or miss – every now and then it just sends shrieking beeping noises directly into our ear canals.    BP notes that we are now even with many water towers.   We’ve been looking for water towers since we arrived and I pointed them out to the group.  In our Midwestern towns we have the typical water towers with the name of the city on them.  No such water towers in NYC – they’re at the top of each building.  And if you don’t see them, look for a box, and that’s a box containing a water tower.   Once you see them you can’t stop seeing them – but if you’re not looking for them they kind of blend into the background.  

We drive back by Bryant Park on the way back and there are still people there watching movies!!  BP and say that we’re going to walk back there, but the bus keeps going, a little further away than we expected and so now she’s not so sure she wants to walk that far back.  But there is a subway stop RIGHT near us and I google map a route to Bryant Park – booyah!   BP is with me, we’re going!   Becki, Dana and BM head back to the apt.   Becki poo-poos the idea that we’re going to see Hugh just a little – we didn’t see Kardashians in Dash, we won’t see Hugh at Tropfest.   But we have to try!  

We get off the train and figure out which way to head to get to the park (its so easy to get turned around) – we get to the park and it looks over.   No movies are being shown, people seem to be leaving and packing up.   But we ask security if it’s over – yes, the movies are over, they just have to announce the winners.    Well, that is EXACTLY what we’re looking for because we figure that it has to be Hugh announcing the winners, right?!    There are lots of people on blankets on the grass, and BP and I weave our way through all of them and get right up at the front of the stage JUST IN TIME!  THERE IS HUGH!!   The lights are so bright that any picture I try to take is just a blurry over-exposed mess where you can’t determine facial features, so I opt for video.  It looks a little further back because I can’t zoom it – but we are CLOSE, and there is HUGH!   He’s a great host, very funny, and so nice to all the winners, he makes sure to make it about them.    I posted a short clip of him singing “New York, New York” with the winner of best picture, and I’m uploading the full version to Youtube to be posted later (takes a while).   We are stoked.   I’m really geeking out and BP is a little surprised to see me in this state.  She also notes that he looks just exactly like he does on TV, not a letdown at all.

We decide that we’re going to try and catch the bus back – but after waiting for a while we decide that we can walk it, it’s only 10 blocks and it will be fun to walk in the city at night.  We’re also on a quest for dinner.  We walk through Time Square at night and we decide that we could eat pizza again.   There is a place just near our apt and decide on a slice of the shicken hot wing pizza.  Makes our chapped (wind-blown) lips burn a little, but it tastes great, and the diet coke is the coldest possible diet coke without being frozen.  It’s perfect.   BP says that we need to be out at night like this more often, NYC at night is way cool.   During this time BMc is texting and Hey-Telling us… and we’re telling her all about HUGH and how she missed out.  We really can’t believe that the person most interested in the celebrity spotting thing didn’t come with us.  But they were beat. 

We get an account of their evening – BM got a street quesadilla, cannoli, and soda – for $22 – welcome to NYC.  She says,  “My canolli tastes horrible – it’s in the frig” (if you want to taste my horrible cannoli).   Becki and Dana get pretzels and asks BMc what she would like, when she says nothing, he gives her a free pretzel and he gave Becki a free diet coke… Brittany keeps trying to tell us this exciting story of getting a free pretzel as if she’s trying to say this as if it justifies missing and therefore equals the experience of seeing Hugh Jackman… No, no Nannette…  And the only reason that we’re giving her a hard time about it is that she’s the one that insists that we’re going to see famous people roaming the streets freely on the streets of NYC.    We all settle down after our exchange of exciting stories and I write a few things up, but I’m beat too.   Man, we have done so much in these few days and we have a WEEK left!   A lot of what dictated our pace in the past few days was the time constraint of the 48 hour bus tour.  So now that its over we can relax just a little.   Tomorrow we literally have no plans.   Becki and BMc want to get pedicures – but it will definitely be a lazy Sunday.

HUGH!!!

MMMM!  Pizza!!!