Halfway between our 4 day trip, we knew we were gonna step it up a notch and see all that we wanted to see in two days time!
Saturday morning we met up with our friends the Hills . Together we toured Little Italy and ChinaTown. For any who may not know, those are sections of Manhattan known originally for their influx of immigrants from those respective places who built up the areas to mimic their homelands. I imagine it's far different now from the startup, but you certainly can still see the influences in those areas. ChinaTown had many pop up shops filled with chinese trinkets and stores whose only lettering was in chinese. Little Italy had a plethora of Italian ristorantes; we ate at one & we were pleased to have carbonara, braised short rib and risotto. I wanted to lick my plate clean!
Graham's only real point of interest was the 9/11 memorial. It truly felt like a sacred place, everyone was respectful and fairly quiet, considering it was a tourist spot. Everyone who lost their life during that event had their name etched into around the huge squares symbolizing the spots where the towers had once stood. There were small flags and flowers to celebrate their birthday or, from my understanding, if visited by family. It brought back my own memories of learning about the horrible acts of terrorism at 9 years old.
After we parted ways from our friends, we walked a few blocks down Wall Street. Graham is a business man and it was so much fun to see! We saw the NY Stock Exchange building, passed many other points of interest, but Graham really wanted to visit the Charging Bull. His current work has a bull as their logo, and it just seemed to make sense. This statue had a crazy long line, with those waiting to get pictures from the front and the back ;) We bypassed the crowd and snapped a quick picture by his thrashing head.
Then we caught a subway down near the Brooklyn Bridge to walk across it. It wasn't freezing, but chilly enough that I was beginning to dread our 30 minute expedition to get to the other side. However, we ended up trying to make plans for that evening and it let us on a wild goose chase to find a booth that sold half-price tickets to Broadway shows. By the time we found it, selected a show and bought them we didn't have the time to cross it. We decided to walk towards the bay and BOY did we get a sight! Both bridges and the glorious lights in Brooklyn caused a wonderful scene. It was also quiet and romantic, uncommon for the area.
Keeping up with our schedule we made our way back up Manhattan. Listen to me when I say we kept the subways hot. I'm still not sure if I actually like it, a bit of it felt more difficult to figure out than I thought necessary. Although, hearing locals play tunes is always a favorite of Graham's. While searching for the exact spot for our upcoming show, we checked into Yelp to look at highly rated restaurants. We popped into a tight squeeze with no room to get to the bathroom, that was banging Missy Elliot and Biggie Smalls. They were dubbed the best sliders in town, no small feat for a multi-million population so we order 4 of them, a basket of fries and a cinnamon toast crunch milkshake. I don't really like cinnamony things, it's just not who I am, but THIS ONE. Oh, This One. Heavenly, sheer heavenly.
As soon as we walked out we saw the bright letters saying STOMP. We had purchased two seats to see eight incredibly talented percussionists make music with the most insignificant things. My favorite was when all 8 lined up with a metallic lighters in each hand, flicking and lighting to their own beat. Graham liked when they used the trash cans like clash cymbals whilst jumping and dancing. It was very good entertainment because it was so ingenious and full of ingenuity, not to mention the tickets were reasonable!
We tucked into our hotel for one last night and just enjoyed our room. Every night we would leave the curtains open, and sometimes a window, to just take in the splendor of the Big Apple. The night was very cloudy and the top of the Empire State Building was covered. But the clouds mixed with the bright lights below made for a pretty view. It was hard to turn away from that place in the morning! But onward we trudged, waiting for our flight that afternoon as we drug our luggage with us through the subway.
Our last stop on the entire whirlwind journey was to see Central Park. Originally I had planned for us to visit it twice but time was short and we eliminated the first excursion, that made us really want to come by before departure. As we were rolling our suitcases up the stairs there was a older Asian man with a pad of paper and charcoal. I had pleaded with Graham all during the weekend to get a sketch of us, but either it was priced too high or we didn't have a way to carry it. He finally agreed and we got our artist to drop down his $60 tag (which I wasn't even thinking about paying) to $20, which felt reasonable. I posed in a still frame, eager to see the final product. Overall, I loved it! Graham's looked a little unlike him in areas, but it was because he posed with a smile different from his usual one- we were asked not to use teeth. But it's framed up in our apartment right now, cause it's sweet a pie to me, a great memoir.
When our sketch was still rolled up with a piece of tape, and our arms were loaded down with our traveling belongings we walked into Central Park. After a bit, we parked it onto a bench, it was perfect because it was a gorgeous spread of the area. We played around taking a series of pictures of us individually and collectively, some of our best to date, I think. It was a relaxing ending, even if we had to ward off scam artists a time or two!
NYC was just fun! It surpassed all the expectations I had lined up and I'd happily return.
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