Thursday In New York City

May 21, 2019 By Carole

Today I will wrap up our April vacation in New York City.

After 3 days of being on the go and up early, when Thursday came we all slept in (I was fighting off a lousy cough) and checked out of the hotel at 11. We had a 3:30 train and literally had one goal for the time we had to kill until the train: PIZZA. We took the subway to what is reportedly the best pizza in the city: John’s of Bleecker.

We were not disappointed! They have an original coal fired oven and the pizza is huge with very thin crust in the middle and big chewy edges – perfect for folding! We weren’t the only tourists there but there were also plenty of locals. The pizza definitely lived up to it’s reputation and I’m so glad we made the effort to go there.

After lunch we walked up to Washington Square and then, worrying about the time, we headed back to the hotel to collect our luggage and go to the train station. The traffic was heavy and we were getting nervous but . . . we needn’t have because once we got to Penn Station we saw that our train had a 90 minute delay. That delay kept getting longer and longer and, believe it or not after all that time we almost missed the train because we went down the wrong escalator, but we finally got on and got seats in the quiet car.

Did I mention I was fighting off a cough? So yeah, there’s me, hacking away and making a fair amount of noise while doing so, and getting glaring looks from everyone around me. I’m pretty sure they all thought I was Typhoid Mary. Good times.

All kidding aside, this trip was nothing but fun! It was great to have all that time for exploring the city, going to shows, eating fabulous food and drinking plenty of wine with Hannah and Dale.

I’m already plotting a return!

Thursday Things

May 16, 2019 By Carole

Today I’ve got 3 more pictures from our Wednesday in New York City. And they are all from when we went to see To Kill A Mockingbird. This whole trip was based off Hannah’s request that we all go see this play together and when I was there with Jo-Ann in March I was able to score terrific box seats for the 3 of us. In case I’ve never mentioned it, To Kill A Mockingbird is one of my most favorite books and, because I’ve raised Hannah right and also because I married the perfect person for me, they both agree. We are all also pretty big fans of Jeff Daniels, both from his role in the movie Gettysburg and also from The Newsroom. This is all just a round about way of saying that going to see this play was a no brainer for us.

And it was fabulous. Hannah was so excited she was shaking and Dale was all verklempt and really, it’s just a wonderful wonderful play and unforgettable experience.

So, because we were with our fangirl, we waited outside the stage door for the actors to come out. We saw Jimmy Fallon – who was obviously not in the play but had been in the audience – as well as all of the other actors.

One surprise cast member for us was Dakin Matthews. He played the judge in the play but we have known him for years as Headmaster Charleston from Gilmore Girls. When he came out I urged Hannah to not only get his autograph but to also tell him how much she loved Gilmore Girls. So she did and he immediately stepped back, thrust out his arms to the side, and said in a loud sing-song voice “someone in the fan line said Gilmore Girls!” He then proceeded to pull out a photograph of himself with Alexis Bledel (Rory Gilmore) and Liza Weil (Paris Geller) which he autographed personally for Hannah. It was a terrific moment and he gave her a huge smile and said, “aren’t you glad you said it?”

We waited for Jeff Daniels, of course, and Hannah got his autograph and Dale said to him how much he enjoyed his portrayal of Joshua Chamberlain (one of Dale’s serious Civil War crushes) in the film Gettysburg. While Mr. Daniels wasn’t as excited about the mention of Gettysburg as Mr. Dakin was about the mention of Gilmore Girls he still seemed pleased that Dale brought it up.

And there you have it. Three pictures, with stories, from our night at To Kill A Mockingbird.

If you wrote a post for today please include your link below and thanks for joining in.

Tuesday in New York City

May 1, 2019 By Carole

I’ve given a fair amount of thought as to how to best organize and present our trip to New York City. I considered covering things by event (shows, museums, etc), by food (boy did we eat good stuff), and by location. And then I decided . . . let’s just go the traditional travelogue route and share by day. I already told you about Monday. And now I’m going to share what we did on Tuesday:

We started our day at Bryant Park with coffee and pastries. It was a very close walk from our hotel room in Times Square and spring was sure in full swing that morning. It was lovely and sunny, the flowers were in bloom and there were people enjoying being outside but it didn’t feel crowded at all.

When we left Bryant Park we walked around to the front of the New York Public Library, which I affectionately call The Mother Ship. I fell down hard in the library gift shop, buying books for Jackie, book bags for me, a Christmas ornament, note cards, and more. Dale went off to check out the Walt Whitman Exhibit while Hannah and I shopped but on our way out Dale asked me to take this photo of him outside the exhibit. Striking resemblance, no?

By then it was lunch time and we headed to the Lower East Side to Katz’s Delicatessen.

This is a must for me every time I visit the city and I always get a half of a corned beef sandwich and the matzo ball soup. This is the first time I’ve actually gone to the counter to order rather than have table service and I must say I felt like a real New York-er doing that! Dale and Hannah split a pastrami sandwich and we all enjoyed the fries, pickles and beer. It was filling and satisfying and makes me wish we had real deli around here.

After lunch we took a tour at The Tenement Museum, another must for me when I’m in the city. We picked the Hard Times tour which focuses on two families living at 97 Orchard St, one during the 1870s and one during the 1930s. The family from the 1930s was Italian and Hannah really enjoyed that since her boyfriend Mikey is Italian. I have to say there was a striking resemblance between Mikey and Adolfo Baldizzi – I guess those Sicilian genes are strong!

It was approaching late afternoon when our tour ended and we headed back to Bryant Park and had wine at an outside cafe. That was pretty darn relaxing but . . . being in the city . . . also expensive so rather than have another drink we packed up and walked back to our hotel. We had some wine and snacks there and got ready for our evening’s entertainment.

Hamilton! I’ve always heard that you can usually get a single seat at the box office and I scored big time when I visited the box office back in March when I was in the city with Jo-Ann. I was able to get 3 single seats for Dale, Hannah and I. We put Hannah up in the mezzanine (young eyes and ears) and Dale and I had seats in the 4th and 6th row. We were dead center and so close I still can’t believe it. All around me I could hear people chattering about how much they paid and how long ago they had bought the tickets and I’m sitting there thinking . . . yeah, I bought these a month ago and paid $235 each. Amazing.

I have to say, it was even better the second time. I think that was partly because I was sitting so close but I also thinking sitting by myself contributed to the experience, too. I was completely immersed in the whole thing with no thought as to whether my companions were enjoying themselves. They were, of course, and we had plenty to talk about after the show, but for that time I was truly in the moment.

And that’s a wrap on Tuesday. It was a long (like this post) and fun (hopefully also like this post) day!

Our Visit to The Color Factory

April 23, 2019 By Carole

One of the first things we did on our trip to New York City last week was visit The Color Factory. Tickets are timed and must be purchased in advance so I bought us tickets for Monday afternoon. The timing worked out perfectly – we were able to check in to our hotel room early, navigate the subway to SoHo successfully, get some lunch at City Winery, and then go to this fabulous pop up museum at 3:30.

You start with a group of 15 of so people but there are 16 different exhibits/rooms that you move through at your own pace. It was busy but not overly crowded and we were given mochi ice cream to try while we waited.

These strips of color paper hang in the lobby. They are stunning.

Each room is unique and full of . . . color! The exhibits encourage you to play and explore your relationship with color and consider how color influences your daily life. There are plenty of treats throughout the show, including these beautiful macarons.

It’s visually stunning and stimulating. We danced, we drew portraits (badly, I might add), we ate candy, we tossed helium balloons around, and we laughed.

Our favorite part, by far, was the giant ball pit! Dale, of course, plunged right in because he’s a big kid who has never lost his ability to play. Hannah and I were a bit squeamish for a second (all those balls and all those germs) but we only hesitated for a second or two and then we jumped in as well.

And then we played. And laughed. And took a whole bunch of fun photos.

It was the perfect start to our vacation!

Sometimes Mondays

April 22, 2019 By Carole

Are all about memories. Specifically, memories of a whirlwind trip to New York City.

Here’s a quick look at our vacation in 1.5 second snippets thanks to 1SE.

There will be more to share but for now just know that we had an utterly fabulous time!