How did April, one of my very favorite months, go by so fast? For that matter, whither March?
I never wrote about our Spring Break, which was way back in mid-March. Since this blog is primarily a family history, I thought I should keep a record of our travels, so in ten years from now, when my kids ask, "Why didn't you do this for us?" I can point to this blog and say, "See! I did!"
Case in point: New York City. We visited my brother- and sister-in-law when they lived in Brooklyn in 2007 or 8. If I were writing a blog then, I could look it up. As it is, I could dig through photo albums and find the prints from that trip, but I'd rather finish writing this and get some other things done today. I just remember that our sixth daughter was in the baby backpack. Thus, I could tell her she had visited NYC when she asked, even though she doesn't remember. Her older siblings don't even remember much about that trip. Heck, neither do I. although I do remember we traversed Manhattan from the Statue of Liberty to Chinatown, and we got to peek in the lion cages of the Central Park zoo where my sister-in-law's sister worked. Or was it the Brooklyn or the Bronx zoo? See, I need to go back, or ask my sil.
At any rate, for spring break this year, that backpack baby had a track meet in NYC, so we made a vacation of it. This time, we only had 2 kids with us, instead of 6 with us, but a good chunk of our time was spent at the Armory, the historic indoor track up by the campus of Columbia University in Washington Heights. I was geeking out a little bit on the track history, although the "Hall of Fame" there could be so much more than what it is. We stayed at a hotel recommended by the track club, the Radio Hotel in Washington Heights, very close to the Washington Bridge over the Harlem River, not to be confused with the George Washington Bridge over the Hudson River, which is also not very far.
This is a gift of traveling - you can begin to make a distinction between those two rivers and have some sort of sense of what upper Manhattan is like and where things are - and just how big that island is. All of my reading of novels set in NYC doesn't really approximate a knowledge of the city's geography, scale, or the reality of daily life there, no matter how good the author is. For the most part, my imagination is colored by television and movies, but it still isn't the same as being there, and visiting is not the same as living,.. (You might say the same about seeing a Giotto fresco in the church of San Francesco or the Last Supper in Milan, or hearing a live concert, watching an opera on the stage, or eating a gelato, or an In n Out burger or good cheese or fine wine - no matter how well it's described. Experience defies description! And yet Art! Does it exceed what it imitates?)
Leaving aside philosophical digressions to return to the travelogue:
We had three days in the city. What began with a sunset uber ride from JFK airport to the hotel was followed by a delicious, although not fine, Italian dinner at a crowded little taverna in the neighborhood. Our daughter's friend joined us, and we were entertained by the toddlers at opposite tables who were watching and testing each other in the way that toddlers are fascinated by each other. After dinner, I'm sorry to say, we stopped in the urban Target down the street to get energy food for the girls, and then returned to the hotel to crash.
The hotel is relatively new, but it felt old - the halls were dark, the elevator was intended to seem industrial with spray painted, grafitti-style, aged superheroes on the wall. The room was tiny, and the bathroom design need input from an actual user - to save space the since was sideways, which caused way to much water to splash over the edge. And the shower door was outsized adn opened out into the tiny bathroom. But the price was right, the service people were nice, and I appreciated some of the tiny room design features like hangers than opened up, clever coat hooks, and drawers under the bed.
One of my favorite things about the hotel was its location - not close to most of the touristy parts of NYC, but convenient to the track, with a somewhat open view over the river, and, the highlight, a great coffee shop next door. They served Dominican specialities - corn fritters, Dominican coffee, and something they called sweet wheat. We went in every morning and tried something different. I love trying different places, but there is also something satisfying about sticking with someplace that is good, and having them great you again on the third day. It was called Milo's, if anyone ever reads this and happens to visit that specific area.
Our first morning was spent at the track - cheering on our daughter, watching her friends, enjoying the spectacle of a big meet with elite runners. We got sandwiches from a convenience store for lunch - which became a theme, and a thrifty lunch. We were still on our meatless Lent, so a grilled egg and cheese sandwich was a satisfying source of warmth and protein to fuel our days.
After her events were complete and a quick clean up at the hotel, we jumped on the subway for an hour ride down to the tip of Manhattan to catch the last ferry out to the Statue of Liberty. We hadn't actually ridden the ferry the last time we visited, and our nine-year-old really wanted to. For that matter, who doesn't love a ferry ride? My husband was happy to reminisce about living his preschoool and indergarten years on Governors Island, when it was still a Coast Guard base. My mother-in-law often recalls how bad the cockroaches were in their apartment, and my husband said his dad through rocks at the island on their final boat ride back to the mainland, but it was a happy time for my dad and his brothers. I'm surprised it hasn't been converted into high end real estate.
The trip to see the Statue was short - no tours up to the crown this day. But we did meander through the museum, because we missed the last ferry to Ellis Island - it was leaving 15 minutes after our arrival, and even though we trotted around the base of the statue to try to make it, they still roped us out, which was disappointing, but at the time we were happy to go into the museum and gift shop, and we got back to the ferry landing 30 minutes earlier, so we had time to get to the 9-11 memorial before the sun started setting. That was a moving experience, and I'm glad the younger daughter had had the opportunity to learn a little about it this past fall. She had read a story about a girl whose father had died, so we found his name.
We didn't go into the actual museum - it was closing in 30 minutes, so we elected not to spend the money on admission. Instead we went into the space age Oculus mall/train station across the street, which satisfied the teenager's desire to go into some higher end shops.
From there we trained back up to Times Square for a quick stop to see the lights and pop in a couple shops, just to say we did, and then we had to catch the subway back to the north end of Manhattan to meet her team for a team dinner at a pub style restaurant that had family style seating. We arrived just before most of the team, but ended up being served almost last because of some server error, but that gave us time to make friends with the other family at our table, also in town for the track meet, but from the East Coast. The dad ended up being a college cross country coach, so we had a lot of common interests.
The next day was our mostly free day. After our coffee shop stop, we took the train down to Central Park and the Natural History Museum. After about 3/4s of the museum, runner daughter wanted to go back and watch friends run, so my husband generously offered to take her. Younger daughter and I finished to museum with the dinosaurs - now on the top floor (I feel like they used to be lower?) - and then meandered through Central Park with a pretzel and a corndog from a food park over to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Let me tell you something about my travel philosophy - I would rather spend on museum entrance fees than on food. Many people do not feel the same way. I'm happy to go hungry in order to see great art. Now we are financially stable enough that we could afford a nice lunch, but we also had to budget lunch. So food truck snacks fit the bill of being quick, easy, tasty, and relatively cheap - although these particular trucks were in a prime location and their prices reflected that.
Our route through the park took use through the Shakespeare garden and the castle folly. It was too early for much to be in bloom except hellebores and a few forsythia and redbuds, and yet still the park was lovely in its late winter muddiness. New York is huge, dirty, and expensive, but give me New York over LA any day. Public transportation, food, parks, interesting people, and some of the world's finest museums. Of course, LA does have the ocean, but there's something about New York. . . .
The Met was extremely crowded. I'm not exactly sure why - just a bunch of art lovers out on a Saturday morning? A free day fpr residents? At any rate the non-resident line was shorter, so we were able to skip the wait. And we skipped the Egyptian tomb, which is super cool, but the line wrapped around the gallery. Instead, we blazed through the mummies, flew past the classical sculpture, and then raced upstairs to the Impressionists, because we only had a little over an hour before we were supposed to meet up with friends near the carousel in the southern part of Central Park. And of course, the 8 year old wanted to see the works she had seen in books and on PBS kids - and we needed time to scan the museum shop, which has some of my favorite jewelry and children's play sets. But since we were short of time and money for souvenirs, we didn't shop long. We didn't even get a postcard because the lines were long. We can buy it all online anyway. Hopefully we'll be back to linger in the galleries longer. I also want to get to the Museum of Modern Art one of these trips.
But this trip was all about NYC highlights. So after the two big museums, we met up with some dear friends we met in Guam who now live right in midtown Manhattan. Such a contrast! In between duty stations, they lived in Washington State near the mountains. He works for the FBI, not the Navy, so they have more options for assignments. They guided us around the rest of Central Park, pointed in the direction of Times Square, Rockefeller area - I missed the Public Library to my dismay - I wanted one of those photos standing between the lions! Ha! - but the 8 year old again got her way by stopping at the American Girls Store, which happens to be very close to St Patrick's where we were planning to attend Mass. She had a slight meltdown there because of all the choices - so many things! - and no one else wanted to spend as much time browsing as she did. Fortunately, she recovered from her tearful quandary when I said she could pick one thing for souvenir and another for her birthday. A stop in FAO Schwartz, which is in smaller accomodations now, was not as fraught with indecision because I said we were buying nothing. Problem solved.
Mass at the cathedral was solemn and lovely, even though we were in our jeans. A wedding party had just departed as we were making our way in, and they left behind fancy programs and match books. Someone must be someone to get married on a Saturday afternoon at St. Patrick's cathedral.
The worst moment of the trip followed Mass - hungry and tired, we left the cathedral to find dinner. Immediately across the street were some food trucks. Best gyro ever, my daughter claimed. But I did not want a gyro; I wanted a dinner. So I pouted a bit until I finally ate a few bites of pizza. But the bit of gyro I did have was really good.
Sunday had us back at the track for a couple more races. In between events, my husband and younger daughter and I walked up from the track to the shrine to St Francis Cabrini - Mass was going on, so we heard the end of the liturgical rite and participated in the eucharistic rite - had we gone to confession we probably could have received an indulgence, but we lacked motivation to do that. The shrine was a small chapel in the back of the church with some articles of clothing from Mother Cabrini and information about her dogged persistence in helping the poor.
After a short stop at a playground, we continued north to the Cloisters, the former home of ... which is now Met Museum home of medieval art. We did not go in because we were short on time and the entry fee was steep, but the gardens were lovely. Walking back, we stopped for pressed sandwiches from a convenience store and some good coffee and Irish soda bread from a cute coffee shop.
The final event of the track meet was probably our daughter's best showing - the 4 by 400 meters. Her team placed 5th, so they received medals, so there were lots of photos. But this meet was also a clear indication that our daughter will have to work a lot harder to compete at the next level. She has gone far on natural talent, but she doesn't put in the hours on the track or in the weight room to compete at elite levels. I think she has the potential physically, but she needs the mental strength.
With the meet over, we had one more free evening. The track team kids all went back to Times Square for pizza and shopping, while my husband and younger daughter and I got out of chaperoning to go to Washington Square and check out the Strand bookstore, where I felt as overwhelmed with wonderful choices as my daughter did at the AG store. I put back at least 10 books and left with 3 - Cricket in Times Square, The Girl with the Curious Hair, and Brian Doyle's ,,,,
For dinner we stopped at a Mediterranean place kind of like Cavi but a little more formal - they had wine.
By the end of that day we were all exhausted and felt like we had seen a good bit of NYC. There still is so much I could explore, but only so much time and energy.
The next morning my husband caught a flight back to Texas, while I took the subway a couple miles south to pick up a rental car. I made a short detour through Central Park, just to pretend I was local. It was a gray and cool day, but hints of spring made the day seem brighter. I imagined I could live in a big city, walking everywhere, whatever I need a subway ride away or simply not necessary.
The rental car was to get us from NYC to Boston with some stops at colleges on the way. My original list was scaled down to just Providence College and Holy Cross. Since our daughter is a junior this gave her a chance to see what a school on the East Coast was like. The track was right by Columbia University so she got to see that, too. And in Boston we again visited our son's friend at Boston College.
I started this over a week ago. So now I'm going to add some photos and hit publish to be done for the moment. Maybe someday I'll write about the second half of the trip.
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