December 2, 2008
thanksgiving, NYC
I just got home from spending the thanksgiving holiday with my family. We celebrated Thanksgiving with my sister's friend and her out of town visiting family. It was really great to see everyone. There was plenty of great food and fun. Of course the most exciting part of the trip was taking my sister's oldest two daughter's to New York City!Click here for photos of our trip!
It was a really amazing day. Unfortunately it started off a little rocky as while I had printed Google Maps directions my sister persuaded me to take her Garmin GPS travel guide, which is really cool; and I would highly-recommend it as long as you also have a car charger with you. We did not, and when we were nearly there (I had already seen the Manhattan skyline while driving over a bridge to Staten Island) the Garmin's battery died. The directions I had printed were a little different than the path Garmin had brought us so we spent an hour or so driving around Staten Island until finally we found the Staten Island ferry station.
So after parking, racing to a public bathroom, we were all set to take the ferry past the Statue of Liberty to Battery Park in Manhattan. When we got there we found a hot dog vendor and then proceeded to buy all day passes for the Subway. The Subway is an extraordinarily convenient mode of transportation. New Yorkers are lucky to live in a place with such excellent public transportation. We took the Subway to SoHo/Little Italy and found a great pizza shop where we had lunch. Then we wandered around until we found the Landmark Sunshine Theater, where we had planned to see either Labyrinth of Synechdoche, New York; but upon finding the theater we decided we'd be better off making the most of our trip by seeing more of the city. So we found a Subway stop and took a train to a station on 34th street where we got off and walked to Times Square. This was our first of at least three times walking though Times Square. Being that it was the day after Thanksgiving, the streets were mad with shoppers. I wasn't the first or last time I felt a little nervous about chaperoning two teenagers in NYC. At Times Square we took the Subway to Columbus Circle and walked into Central Park. It was getting dark so we only stayed a little while, but enough to walk on the huge rocks beside the playground I had visited once before. And we played on the swings. I saw some JMU students walking out of the playground area. I didn't ask them but I bet they were with the Marching Dukes who played at the Macy's parade.
We then walked from Central Park to Times Square, then to fifth avenue trying to find the infamous Apple Store. At the Nintendo Store an employee told us how to get to the Apple Store so we took a Subway from under Rockefeller Center to fifty-eighth street and cut over to fifth ave and sure enough, there was the glowing Apple Store. Its a pretty cool idea for a store; its all underground except for a glass cube at street level, illuminated with a large Apple logo. After that we walked back to Times Square where we caught the Subway that took us back to the ferry to Staten Island.
There really isn't anywhere else like NYC. I'm glad I got to experience it with my sister's oldest daughters – I think its an experience they won't soon forget.
Labels: NYC, thanksgiving
