So, about that trip to New York...
March 9th, 2007 12:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shiredancerIt was quite a fabulous trip.
We flew out safely and took a taxi safely (!) from the airport to our delightful hotel on 79th Street, between Broadway and Amsterdam. For me, it was like a fairy tale coming true. When I lived in Manhattan from 1978-79, it was a life-altering experience, and I have had many, many dreams about it ever since. Bizarre dreams -- skewed landscapes, strange faces and experiences, but all linked with actual memories. Strange, strange. So I fluttered around while we settled into the hotel around 10 p.m., and looked out the window at the city streets and lights... the city! My city! I was just, so happy. And we went out at 11 p.m., because you can do that in New York, to find a place to eat and see the streets at night, and landed in the Broadway Diner, open 24/7, with real New York diner food and cheesecake and *everything*.
We walked down Broadway the next day, past Lincoln Center where we took lots of pictures and met a workman who is an overseer of the rebuilding of World Trade Center site, and kept on down to Columbus Circle, where we finally got on the subway... the subway! My subway!... and rode to Times Square to buy cheap tickets to "Chicago" that night. Peter's old college roommate works on Broadway as a musician and sometime-conductor, filling in as a substitute, and "Chicago" was his current gig. And so the week went, meeting the friend for dinner or afters, seeing four Broadway shows ("Avenue Q", "Rent", and "Hairspray" in addition to "Chicago"), meeting my fabulous, wonderful cousin who sheltered me once so long ago, eating in fabulous funky restaurants called things like Vynl and Abigail's and The Noho Star, and the *best* dessert place in Manhattan (Serendipity III, requiring an hour's wait in the cold at midnight, even longer during peak times), shopping with Kidlet, and doing whatever we wanted. We did *not* see the Empire State Building or the Statue of Liberty, or my old haunts. We *did* ice skate at Rockefeller Plaza (and how scary is it that I, who have been on the ice maybe four times in my adult life, was a better skater than 90% of the tourists there??), and walked through Central Park (where we found the Balto statue, yay!), and toured the Natural History Museum, and saw the tribute museum to the World Trade Center (which made me cry, of course, and I couldn't bring myself to look at the actual, empty site). We also met one of my grad students who's currently working at NYU, and saw a bit of the campus and bookstore -- Kidlet is determined to go there now! Kidlet met two working Broadway professionals and got to talk about careers and plans and expectations: Peter's good friend, of course, and through him, the dance captain of the "Chicago" company -- a lovely, wise woman who gave Kidlet much useful advice (not that she is heeding the bit about "Don't try to rush things; you have plenty of time to make your dreams come true"). Kidlet also found one of her high school friends there. We were looking for Rockefeller Plaza on Wednesday night, and heard someone say "Look, there's (Kidlet)!" And lo and behold, here we are with folks from Santa Barbara, and Kidlet and friend making fast and furious plans for the rest of the week. I took him along the day Kidlet and I shopped on Fifth Avenue -- he loved every minute of it. Oh, and the best store to shop at in Manhattan? Mexx. Wonderful stuff, reasonable prices. Heh.
So, did I say it was a great trip yet? Because it was. We had Starbucks for breakfast every day, and rushed around until dinner. We bought tacky "I Heart NY" tee shirts for all of Kidlet's friends. Times Square was way too crowded but the lights at night are spectacular. Each of the shows we saw was truly wonderful, in very different ways. Kidlet fell in love with the city just like I did -- she has stars in her eyes. Peter loves it, too. If she moves there, we won't be too unhappy about visiting (although, she's only 14 -- who knows what will change between now and high school graduation?).
Most of all, it was thrilling to go back there with people I love. Even though I met a lot of wonderful people during my first stay, I was essentially alone. I explored the whole city, sometimes with my roommate and sometimes with a friend, but mostly alone. And it was always a bit awkward, a little intimidating, and hard to navigate -- definitely not the easy way to do things. This time, everything felt smooth and easy and friendly. It's partly because New York has been really cleaned up and made more tourist-friendly, but mostly because I was with the two people I love most in the world. What an amazing difference...
There you have it, then. I Heart NY.
ETA: Yep, it looked too long -- behind the cut it goes...
We flew out safely and took a taxi safely (!) from the airport to our delightful hotel on 79th Street, between Broadway and Amsterdam. For me, it was like a fairy tale coming true. When I lived in Manhattan from 1978-79, it was a life-altering experience, and I have had many, many dreams about it ever since. Bizarre dreams -- skewed landscapes, strange faces and experiences, but all linked with actual memories. Strange, strange. So I fluttered around while we settled into the hotel around 10 p.m., and looked out the window at the city streets and lights... the city! My city! I was just, so happy. And we went out at 11 p.m., because you can do that in New York, to find a place to eat and see the streets at night, and landed in the Broadway Diner, open 24/7, with real New York diner food and cheesecake and *everything*.
We walked down Broadway the next day, past Lincoln Center where we took lots of pictures and met a workman who is an overseer of the rebuilding of World Trade Center site, and kept on down to Columbus Circle, where we finally got on the subway... the subway! My subway!... and rode to Times Square to buy cheap tickets to "Chicago" that night. Peter's old college roommate works on Broadway as a musician and sometime-conductor, filling in as a substitute, and "Chicago" was his current gig. And so the week went, meeting the friend for dinner or afters, seeing four Broadway shows ("Avenue Q", "Rent", and "Hairspray" in addition to "Chicago"), meeting my fabulous, wonderful cousin who sheltered me once so long ago, eating in fabulous funky restaurants called things like Vynl and Abigail's and The Noho Star, and the *best* dessert place in Manhattan (Serendipity III, requiring an hour's wait in the cold at midnight, even longer during peak times), shopping with Kidlet, and doing whatever we wanted. We did *not* see the Empire State Building or the Statue of Liberty, or my old haunts. We *did* ice skate at Rockefeller Plaza (and how scary is it that I, who have been on the ice maybe four times in my adult life, was a better skater than 90% of the tourists there??), and walked through Central Park (where we found the Balto statue, yay!), and toured the Natural History Museum, and saw the tribute museum to the World Trade Center (which made me cry, of course, and I couldn't bring myself to look at the actual, empty site). We also met one of my grad students who's currently working at NYU, and saw a bit of the campus and bookstore -- Kidlet is determined to go there now! Kidlet met two working Broadway professionals and got to talk about careers and plans and expectations: Peter's good friend, of course, and through him, the dance captain of the "Chicago" company -- a lovely, wise woman who gave Kidlet much useful advice (not that she is heeding the bit about "Don't try to rush things; you have plenty of time to make your dreams come true"). Kidlet also found one of her high school friends there. We were looking for Rockefeller Plaza on Wednesday night, and heard someone say "Look, there's (Kidlet)!" And lo and behold, here we are with folks from Santa Barbara, and Kidlet and friend making fast and furious plans for the rest of the week. I took him along the day Kidlet and I shopped on Fifth Avenue -- he loved every minute of it. Oh, and the best store to shop at in Manhattan? Mexx. Wonderful stuff, reasonable prices. Heh.
So, did I say it was a great trip yet? Because it was. We had Starbucks for breakfast every day, and rushed around until dinner. We bought tacky "I Heart NY" tee shirts for all of Kidlet's friends. Times Square was way too crowded but the lights at night are spectacular. Each of the shows we saw was truly wonderful, in very different ways. Kidlet fell in love with the city just like I did -- she has stars in her eyes. Peter loves it, too. If she moves there, we won't be too unhappy about visiting (although, she's only 14 -- who knows what will change between now and high school graduation?).
Most of all, it was thrilling to go back there with people I love. Even though I met a lot of wonderful people during my first stay, I was essentially alone. I explored the whole city, sometimes with my roommate and sometimes with a friend, but mostly alone. And it was always a bit awkward, a little intimidating, and hard to navigate -- definitely not the easy way to do things. This time, everything felt smooth and easy and friendly. It's partly because New York has been really cleaned up and made more tourist-friendly, but mostly because I was with the two people I love most in the world. What an amazing difference...
There you have it, then. I Heart NY.
ETA: Yep, it looked too long -- behind the cut it goes...
