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September 26th, Monday - New York, New York
New York City for thirty bucks a night. Who would
of thought it was possible? The 79th Street Boat
Basin has turned out to be an unbeatable location for
us. We picked up a mooring instead of tying up to
the docks, hoping to avoid any issues with cockroaches
and other nocturnal creatures that plague the city.
We are two and a half blocks from the subway with
fabulous waterfront views, for a whopping $30 a night.
I'm not sure why we would ever leave!
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I
am afraid that we have not even nicked the surface of
this amazing city in our various outings. We have
walked around our immediate neighborhood as much as two
young children allow. There are many playgrounds,
of which Cassie and Juliana never tire. The
restaurant selection is incredible. I imagine that
we could stay here for another five weeks without
exhausting our choices just within a ten block radius.
Needless to say, I have not been doing any cooking on
the boat. We have also been taking field trips
instead of following the standard lesson plan for
school. We'll have plenty of time to make up for
missed lessons when we get back to Annapolis.
By
lucky coincidence, Joe's mom, Vivian Boyle, was in town
for an Elder Hostel trip. We had made previous
arrangements to meet with her and the Macombs for lunch
on Wednesday. The Boyles and the Macombs spent
time together in Cairo in the early 60s. Suk Soon
Macomb is an opera singer and spends much of her time in
the City. They treated us to a phenomenal Korean
lunch that we will not soon forget. Ed Macomb was
also able to join us. He and Joe went to
elementary school together while they were in Egypt.
Amazing. There was a lot of story telling and
catching up to do.
Following our meal, we walked around the
corner to the Empire State Building. The views
were spectacular, but we didn't feel
it was worth the $60 it cost for the five of us to make
the ascent. We couldn't resist the pedi-cab ride
back to Vivian's hotel after the whole affair.
That was well worth the $40. Vivian and I had the
better driver, chatting and narrating the whole way.
Apparently these guys are out there year round, snow be
damned. "I guess you don't need to buy a gym
membership with this job," I commented. "I just
finished a two hour work out with a trainer, as a matter
of fact." Wow.
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The weather was spectacular again the next day.
After breakfast at the Manhattan Diner on 77th and
Broadway, we hopped on the subway and made our way up to
190th Street to visit The Cloisters. It is a
branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and consists of
an old monastery overlooking the Hudson River and its
surrounding gardens and park land. The building is
largely reconstructed from the ruins of ancient
monasteries and churches brought over from France.
Tapestries, sculptures, stained glass and frescos were
among the many types of medieval art on display.
We subjected the kids to as much of this as we could get
away with, and then hit a playground on our way back to
the subway. We have found that we have about a two
to two and a half hour window with our little tourists
before things start getting ugly so we have really
limited ourselves in our touring ambition. I guess
we'll just have to make it back here again sometime.
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As
always, one of the highlights was seeing old friends. We
hooked up with Scott Brunner, a friend from Annapolis, on
Thursday. He had an extra ticket to a Los Lonely
Boys concert here and invited one of us to join him.
Since we had already made arrangements to meet with one
of Christy's old high school friends, Greg DeLuca, for
dinner, Joe was treated to a fabulous show. He was
almost sorry though, because he missed an outstanding
meal at Rosa Mexicana. The place is reputed to be
the best Mexican food in NYC and the girls and I really
enjoyed it. The highlight for them was the wall
waterfall of blue tile with hundreds of little white
plaster divers cascading down the facade. The
highlight for me was reconnecting with another St.
Stephen's friend. Despite 20 years of silence,
Greg and I fell right into a comfortable dialogue
catching up on each others lives. We graduated in
the same class and actually walked down the graduation
isle together. What a treat to see him again.
We
all reunited on the boat after dinner and the concert.
Joe and I had a ball showing the locals a whole new side
of New York. It is really wonderful for us to be
able to return the hospitality of the people we meet
along the way by showing them a side of their hometown
that they have not been exposed to before. It
really is amazing to be sitting here, in our home, in
one of the swankiest cities in the world. Being
able to share it with friends makes it all the more
incredible. It also makes us appreciate it more.
It is all about the people!
I
don't want bore you with a blow by blow account of our
days in New York, but we did manage a Broadway Show.
We got tickets to the Lion King on Friday night.
The girls loved it, as did we. The opening scene
was so amazing, the way they did the animals, it
literally brought tears to my eyes. It was a late
night for the girls and we had planned on taking a cab
(our first one since arriving here) back to the Boat
Basin, but the subway turned out to be much easier with
all the crowds.
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Bruce, Alison and Holly made it up from Annapolis for
the weekend and we romped around Central Park in
glorious weather on Saturday. The three girls
attracted quite a bit of attention, holding hands and
giggling their little heads off. There was some
live music in one area and the girls put on a dance show
for anyone who wanted to watch, but actually mostly for
themselves, on top of a large rock. Bored college
students had set up a sign promising a prize if you made
them laugh and the girls stepped right up to the
challenge. All three girls told mildly funny jokes
that amused our friends enough to part with a smiley
face balloon for each of them.
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Despite the millions of things left undone on our list
for New York, we are planning to depart this fair city
tomorrow morning. We have good wind in the
forecast and hope that they are right about the force
and direction of it. More times than not this
summer we have wound up sailing in conditions different
enough from the
NOAA Marine Forecast to make us somewhat skeptical
of their accuracy. It should take us around 36
hours to make it back to our home waters in the Rhode
River. We'll write again after we make it home.
Love,
Christy, Joe, Cassie and Juliana
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Many thanks to our
friend Craig Homenko for his assistance in setting up
the website.
We also would like
to thank our buddy Scott Brunner who has been kind
enough to host the website on his server.
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