Saturday, December 29, 2007

Good times in NYC


Our big trip to NYC was yesterday. It was great. We were able to take an express train and were in the city before 10 am. We took the subway from Herald Square up to and walked around Rockefeller Center and saw the giant Christmas tree (which is incredible, btw). We walked up 5th Avenue and peeked in all the fancy stores along the way. Mom and I ducked into St. Patrick's Cathedral, which was pretty impressive (both in size and beauty). W really enjoyed a spin around F.A.O. Schwarz; he especially liked the giant stuffed puppy dogs, which he would back up and run into head first, giggling with delight. We had a tasty lunch at a hamburger joint, which looked kind of like a hole-in-the-wall, but was actually really good, and well-priced, considering it was situated between 5th and Park avenues. Then we walked over to the CitiGroup Center and saw the holiday model train display (Mike loves model trains!). I was pretty amused at the woman in line in front of us. She had a little girl who was probably 2 and a half or 3, who was decked out in a Juicy Couture t-shirt, True Religion jeans, and silver cowgirl boots. Her mom was made up within an inch of her life and was carrying a couple of shopping bags from Fendi and Prada. You weren't allowed to bring strollers in to the train exhibit, and I noticed, after she abandoned her fancy-schmancy stroller, that there was a good-sized Tiffany's bag in the bottom basket. I thought, for a split second, about asking her if she thought it might be a good idea to carry it with her instead of leaving it like she had done... but something told me she probably already knew it and just didn't care.
After that, we took the subway over to Grand Central Station, where we were able to see the holiday light show on the ceiling (W thought that was pretty neat). By then it was close to time for my parents to take W back to NJ, so we escorted them back to Penn Station to catch the train. Mike and I then considered catching a train to Canada (ha!) but decided instead to amble around the Union Square area. We people-watched on a park bench for a good long while and even saw a guy wearing an LSU sweatshirt (Geaux Tigers!). We went to Strand Books, an incredible bookstore with over 18 miles of books.
By 5:30, we were getting super hungry, so we went on to Union Square Cafe. Let me cut to the chase: Our meal was incredible. We started with the calamari, which came with this anchovy mayonnaise dipping sauce. We also had their homemade garlic/parm potato chips. Mike had duck, I had steak. I had excellent red wine with my meal. The only disappointment was the mashed potatoes that came with my dish; I told Mike they tasted like school cafeteria mashed potatoes; he agreed with my assessment based on sight. We had a wonderful server; in fact, in searching for an image of USC to put in this post, I found this article about her! Very neat! After eating we considered staying in the city a little longer, but we were so tired that we just went ahead to the train station and just barely caught the 8:07 train. We were home by 10, as this wasn't an express train. All in all, a fantastic day. I'll post pictures soon.
And to top it all off, W did NOT fuss when my mom put him to bed. A miracle!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

this sounds so much FUN! i can't wait for my visit in the spring! muah! miss u...

black betty said...

looks like you guys had so much fun! glad you enjoyed yourself!