Before you get all excited about the title of this blog, I’m just kidding. Looking for attention, I suppose.
Yesterday was our first big day in NYC on the way home from Turkey. We were tired. Things didn’t go so swell. First, it rained and we had lightening and thunder and the thought of traipsing around was a non-starter. It literally took us until noon to brave the city.
Being the intrepid travelers that we are, we went to the subway and rode into Manhattan with the intention of seeing the Statue of Liberty. Well, we did see her but from afar. In a moment of inattention and confusion, we hopped on the Staten Island ferry. Then as the ferry left the dock, the Rayman announced, “We’re on the wrong ferry.” So, we did what any old person would do, we just stood there and watched the statue from afar as our ferry chugged along toward Staten Island. When we arrived at Staten Island, a man came through announcing that everyone had to disembark as the ferry was not returning to Manhattan. This reminded us of the time in Paris when the train conductor expelled us from the train because the train was not going any further that night. We have a knack.
We spent the next 30 minutes in the terminal waiting for the next ferry. A muslim family apparently was attracted to us because they came and plopped down across from us. The mother was in the full regalia. Older daughter in head scarf. Too funny. Felt like Turkey all over again.
When we got back to Manhattan, we jumped on an hop-on, hop-off bus which drove us all around the city and pointed out all the sights. We sat across from a man and his daughter, about 11 years old, I’m guessing. They were fiddling with their camera when we heard dad say, “Gina. You just erased all our pictures.” She tried to convince him it wasn’t so. But it was so. Mom and brother were sitting behind us. Dad couldn’t bare to talk to his daughter. The steam coming out of his head was almost visible. She didn’t try to talk. Pretty sure she felt horrible. But what could she do? (At this point, people, please make sure you download your pictures on a daily basis. It is just to easy to screw up and erase everything and there is no way to get the pictures back.) We felt really badly for them. Then it stopped, the bus that is, at Times Square and the guide said the bus was not going any further, that we could catch another bus up the street. Really? Really.
Then it started raining. We made a mad dash to the Metro and rode it back to Brooklyn. Rain had stopped and we walked to the hotel. My back was killing me. Why? Probably from pushing bags around. I found it exceedingly difficult to get going. Once I started walking things got a bit better…but this was not a good situation.
Back at the hotel, we received a great restaurant recommendation and took a $7/5 block ride to the restaurant because it was raining again. At the restaurant, we spotted Kristen Schaal who appears on the Daily Show as one of the correspondents. As soon as we were seated, I ran over and said, “We watch you on Comedy Central. You’re a scream.” She looked up at me with a big wad of bread in her mouth and replied, “Thanks.” I retreated to my table and we had an excellent meal…Italian Trattoria.
We walked back to the hotel, no rain, and threw ourselves into bed and spent the rest of the evening reading. No Broadway plays for us. Not even a movie. Hell, not even TV. And that’s how we spent our day in NYC.
It’s 6:00 a.m., Tuesday and this is our last day in Brooklyn. Tomorrow we move to Newark as we have an early morning flight out of Newark on Thursday.
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