Monday Finale

On our last morning in New York we had a few hours to play before we had to head to the airport to fly home. 

We stopped at the United Nations right by our hotel.

Hummed a little "Feelin' Groovy" 59th street bridge song as we walked under the Queensborough Bridge 

Took a bus to Rockafeller Center and watched Steve Harvey guest on a live taping of Access Hollywood. Ironically, Nancy O'Dell was on our flight to Chicago. 

Ate delicious turkey club and chicken salad sandwiches at Bouchon Bakery. Lunch was so good we went back in for almond raspberry croissant and pain chocolate. Again, delicious. I decided then that if I were a bird, I would live outside Bouchon Bakery and survive on croissants and bouchon crumbs all my life. We ate at the outdoor dining area and realized we are getting used to the cramped spaces of NYC when we squeezed into two of the 3 vacant seats right in the middle of an 8 person table that already had two people dining at one end and a group of three dining at the other end. And then another stranger arrived moments later to have his coffee at the final empty seat. A chair is a chair in the city. You don't own the table if there's still an empty seat available. 

We took a bus to 5th avenue to shop for our last hour and passed Serendipity and Trump Tower. I bought I ❤️ NY shirts for Corbin and Soren, and HAD to stop in the American Girl store and get tiny AG NY shirts for Reese and Quincy's dolls. Today was a good day to shop for the children. They'll cash in well on my mommy guilt for leaving them for 4 days. I miss them tremendously and and am doing all my blogging from my flight so the memories of my trip will be recorded before I forget everything. Once I'm home I know I will want to focus on my family and won't take the time to blog anything. 

We did some shopping at H&M and passed The New York Public Library and a sweet ping pong tournament in Bryant Park on our way back to the hotel to pick up our luggage and catch our airport pickup. We had 15 minutes to spare so we grabbed one last snack at Cafe Olympia and ate in the car on the way to the airport, making sure to squeeze every last drop out of our vacation. Considering how much we crammed into 3ish days, I'd say we did a pretty good job. We saw every part of Manhattan and spent a day in Brooklyn. 

New York was dirty. Like really dirty. And unless you're standing outside a bagel shop, pizza place, or a bakery, it smells terrible like a horrible cocktail of urine, cigarettes, garbage, wet dog, b.o., and mystery meat kabobs. I was armed with candy to eat non stop so I couldn't smell anything, which helped enough to keep me from throwing up in the street. 

The diversity, crowds, poverty, swift pace, public transportation, panhandlers, garbage in the streets, and general rudeness of the general public is so different than anything like how I am privileged to live my every day life and I am so thankful for the lifestyle I am greatly blessed to have. I say the sand thing every time I visit California and feel the contrast of the life I have and the life there. I love whee I was raised and wouldn't change it. But I think both it and  I have changed enough that I prefer to only visit there and live my new life in Ar. Just like a visit to Ca, I truly LOVED my trip to New York for everything I experienced there, and now that it's over I am relieved and grateful to be headed home to the contrast. Looking forward to my place of comfort and the people I live for. And a shower. Holy crap I need like 20 showers to wash the city off my body.  I feel like I've been touched by all the things. Time away was good for me. Coming home is SO good for me. 

Sunday in the Park

Sunday morning in NYC, we had brunch at EuroPan and then walked to church on the 3rd floor at the ManhattanTemple. Fast and testimony meeting was great. The youth in the Manhattan ward are pretty amazing and their testimonies were moving. 

It felt a little strange to walk out of church into Columbus avenue and buy a pretzel from a street vendor. 

We walked over to Central Park and started our "Sunday in the park" at the sheep meadow. 

Boats on "the lake".

People watching at it's best in Central Park. 

We walked past the John Lennon  Imagine Memorial, Strawberry Fields, Marionette Theatre, and Shakespeare's Garden. 

Belvediere Castle 

Turtle Pond

It started to get hot and we'd walked around so much and over so many hills we were tired. We exited the park through the miners gate and there was the Met with an hour and a half left before the closed, so we powered on. 

Dan Grahame rooftop garden commission exhibit. 

This was a glass wall with ivy growing behind it that reflected the ny skyline onto the glass. So. Cool. 

There was a 365* view that did not disappoint. Thankful again for perfect weather! 

Inside, the art was great! 

For dinner, we set out on a quest for cheap and delicious Chinese takeout, but after two attempts where we ended up at fancy schmancy Chinese restaurants that were completely empty. Empty is not a good sign in the city. We gave up and went to Little Italy in search of pasta. 

Oh. We found the pasta motherland. 

Eataly came highly recommended from several foodie friends. We found it to be a bit of a tourist trap and less authentic than we hoped, but good nonetheless. Eataly is an indoor Italian marketplace and every corner of the market has something different for sale: a fish and butcher/deli, a bakery, a pizza place, a dry goods market, produce market, wine and spirits, a cheese bar, a fresh pasta bar, and a Nutella shrine room where you could buy crepes. It was a really fun place to walk around. 

We are at the pizza and pasta restaurant and had terrible service and over priced but decent food. We decided Eataly was like the oriental trading company catalog knock off of little Italy (which was right down the block and much lore what you'd expect. But even though dinner was kind of a bust, the view from our table upstairs that overlooked the marketplace was really good and we enjoyed the energy of watching everyone else shop and eat and eat and shop. Good fun. 

NYC Pizza quest day 3 gave us a fire grilled margarita pizza (missing basil, ironically) with artichoke hearts. We also shared some penne pasta that was very al dente and much like something you'd eat at a pasta buffet for starving college students. Nothing to write home about. It was fun to watch our pizza being made though. 

Dessert was another adventure to find the highly acclaimed Donut Plant. Cute place, probably better at breakfast time when the selection is better though. The walls were decorated with donut pillows and the benches were donut mosaics. My kind of decor ;). While we ate, the employee came out from behind the counter to make out with her girlfriend, and the big guy sitting next to us fell asleep sitting straight up.  We were approached by a drunk transvestite asking for money and a homeless person slurring together the words to ask where the hospital was, but only as a trap to get everyone on the street to stop and talk to him, while we waited for busses.  Walking around in Chelsea at night was a little "iffy", but crowded enough that we still always felt safe. We were still grateful to be able to hop on and off of bus routes easily, instead of braving the subway, which surely would've had even more questionable characters on board.  One woman asked us for money and then kept shouting congratulations to us on "our" baby, "you gonna need all yo dollars and all yo cents to feed that baby you growing! There might be two babies in there, you never know the way you carrying it!" as we walked away.  We were pretty relieved to reach our hotel room that night. 

Saturday in Brooklyn and Phantom

I walked up these subway stairs and immediately fell in love with Brooklyn. The crowds were gone, there was a picturesque park across the street and a pretzel vendor calling my name. Brooklyn neighborhoods look like the set to Sesame Street. 

The Brooklyn Bridge was one of my favorite experiences this weekend. The architecture is brilliant, the walk was lovely, and the views of Manhattan and Staten Island were outstanding. 

Kasey and I saw so many young people taking selfies posed exactly like this, we decided do create our own, but couldn't keep a straight fave long enough to snap the pic. I thought I was going to pee I was laughing so hard after. I highly recommend doing this trip with your bestie. I laughed my face off this weekend. 

For lunch, we sweated out (literally) the sweltering 30 minute wait for Grimaldi's Pizza under the Brooklyn Bridge. It was totally worth the wait! 

We walked around and took a few busses around Brooklyn, got stuck behind a huge wedding party and a parade with street performers offering religious texts and social commentary, anddound some gorgeous buildings and clever street art. 

We picked up half price tickets for Phantom of the Opera and headed back to our hotel to change, grab a bite, and headed over to Broadway. 

The show was even better than I expected it to be. Wow. I knew the singing would be top notch, but it was really the orchestra really blew my mind.  

I've listened to the soundtrack to phantom many many times but hearing the instruments live was really what makes Broadway a bucket list experience. The pit needs more credit. We also lucked out and caught Sierra Boggess' last performance. What a voice. Everyone was really on and the whe show was so good, I'd pay as much to see it again. 

The sky finally opened and poured buckets on us right in Times Square after the show (and every other show on Broadway) let out. It was madness. We just laughed, busted out the umbrellas, and ran through puddles and downpour to the bus. 

No, not daytime...just the billions of lights lighting up Times Square at midnight. This was just before the clouds spilled over on us.