Yesterday started with all of us getting up very LATE--which meant my schedule plans exploded! Did I tell you that I am 'that' person while on vacation? You know, the woman who has an itinerary and keeps everything flowing smoothly??? Well that's me! So, getting started at 9:30 am was really messing with our plans of hitting the Statue of Liberty at 8am, before the mobs of people arrived at 10am. Darn!
So we went with an alternative plan, and took a cab up to the Natural History Museum. My boys love the animals and dinosaurs at museums like this. Me? Well, my heart wanted to be across Central Park at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I sort of feel like my lifetime fossil viewing allotment has been reached--thank you. But the kids enjoyed it, and that's what mattered.
Before we went inside the museum Joey desperately wanted to try a hot dog from one of the street vendors. As crazy as it sounds to those of you who know my typical OCD tendencies, I bought him one. He did fine, no food poisoning (whoo hoo) AND he listed THIS $3 experience as one of his "favorite things done while on our vacation"!
Like I mentioned in my previous post, it is BUSY here in NYC. Much busier than I have ever seen it. It's Disneyland-summertime-busy! (People from California will get that analogy). Which means a lot of waiting and security checks, everywhere. If you want a coffee-- or if you want to eat at any restaurant--or if you want to see any site in the city... there's a looonnnnggg line. To include the museums!
Dave's cousin told us about a great burger joint that happened to be located inside the Le Parker Meridian Hotel. This is a fairly nice place in uptown, so we were worried they might trick out the burgers with truffles or other non-necessary frou-frou things. Nope. It's a real burger joint that serves what smelled like amazing hamburgers.
Yes, smelled-like. The line was out the door, and ever table was full, and I had two kids who were about ready to eat...um ...$3 street hot dogs! So we went with what we knew, and headed down town to Little Italy. Total score!!
My oldest son somehow knew about this little pizza place, called Lombardi's. It was AMAZINGLY good! In fact, the best pizza we've had! Afterwards we walked in what Dave calls "the old neighborhood" and bought a few things to take back home. Tennessee is awesome, but I do miss the good Italian food and groceries that either coast (and Chicago) has to offer. Dave was walking around like he belonged there, and honestly, he blended in pretty well!
After coming back to the hotel, I stood in the mile long TKTS line to see what Broadway show tickets I could get for that evening. I wanted Mary Poppins, but everyone with larger amounts of testosterone chose Phantom of the Opera. I got the tickets at 50% off face value! Great seats, too!
Many, many years ago I sat in that same theater with my new husband dreaming of the day we would bring our children back with us to see a real Broadway show. Last night was a bucket-list moment. Both boys did great! It was hard for Joey to not talk during the show, but he managed to be "mostly" silent! As for the French couple who sat in front of us...I hope they recovered from my "mommy-death-stare" that I save for people who try to mess with my kids.
After the show we took the kids to Sardi's for an after dinner treat. They loved looking at all the caricature pictures on the wall, guessing who was who. Their favorite celebrity picture was that of Kermit the Frog!
As we left Sardi's an earlier light rain had turned into a full on down pour, so we hopped in a cab for the three block drive back to our hotel! The cab driver actually argued with Dave about taking us "only" three blocks. My poor husband had literally reached his limit with cab-driver attitude, and to me it sounded like he somehow channeled his inner Tony Soprano after the kids and I left the taxi.
After getting our "second wind" we noticed it was 1am and we were all still up, not sleepy at all. Uh oh, I bet we have trouble getting up in the morning...again.
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