We just got back from a trip to NYC. We took the boys and my mom. We stayed at "
On the Ave", a hotel on the Upper West Side. It was very nice, with a large room and very comfortable beds. It is in a seemingly safe part of town, and there is a nice market across the street.
Pictures from the tripHighlights of the trip:
Wed - We get into town and have
Big Nick's Burger and Pizza Joint. The boys take showers (no tub in the room!) and think it's lots of fun.
Thurs - I take the boys to the
Children's Musuem of Manhattan while Caroline and Mom go to the
Martha Stewart Show. The guest is
Jim Cramer. After the show, Caroline asks Martha two questions, one about banana pudding, and another about the cherry plants on her set.
Then Caroline and I go to a taping of
The Late Show with David Letterman. The guests are
Andy Samberg,
Paul Teutel, Sr., and a performance by the cast of
West Side Story. Caroline and I are seated right on the aisle, four rows from the stage. Before the show, Dave comes out to warm up the crowd. At the end, he asks if anyone in the audience has a question. Of all the people there, he picks Caroline! Her question is "After working so long with
Paul,
Biff, and
Alan, is there anything they do that annoys you?" But she never gets the question out because she and Dave instead chat about Indiana.
That night, we eat at
Vai, which is right across the street from our hotel. It was wonderful! I had a pork chop, and Caroline had
Branzino, which is Mediterranean sea bass.
Friday - We take the kids to Toys 'R' Us in Times Square, and they have a blast looking at the
Spiderman and
Superman vignettes and all of the
Legos displays. They ride the
ferris wheel, and we see a real live Spiderman, and get their picture taken with him.
That night, Mom, Grant, and I go see
Mary Poppins on Broadway. Grant LOVED it!! At the end, Mary Poppins flies away, out into the crowd. She came right at us and then over us.
Saturday - We take the kids to the
American Museum of Natural History. We see the
Butterfly Conservatory, and a show in the planetarium about cosmic collisions, which was really cool. We saw dinosaur fossils and a bunch of dioramas, and some very famous gemstones. Afterward, we took the subway down to Grand Central Terminal, and saw
Melman's clock. We ate at the
Oyster Bar. We also stopped at
Crumbs cupcake shop on the Upper West Side. The Florentine cookies are REALLY good!
That night, Caroline and I went out and had dinner at
BLT Steak. The food didn't blow us away. Then we went to Broadway, and saw a show called
The 39 Steps. Our seats were in the second row, center stage. I joked before the show that we might get spit on, and indeed, Caroline did. The show was hilarious. I wish I'd watched the
movie first.
Sunday - First we went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and then to
Sony Wonder, which is a free museum about technology and media. It was pretty cool, well worth the price of admission. Then Mom and Caroline went to see
Wicked on Broadway, while I took the boys to
Central Park. We saw the
Bow Bridge, where Mary Jane Watson breaks if off with
Peter Parker. We threw the
frisbee, and
Andrew fell down and got a mouthful of dirt. We saw some neat fountains and performance art, then walked down
the Mall, and over to the carousel, which the boys enjoyed immensely. Then they played on a playground. We walked a long way, but it was a blast!
Sunday night, Caroline and I went out for our 12th anniversary to
Tony DiNapoli's on the Upper East Side, and the veal parm was super! Then we went to an old coffeeshop
M. Rohr's and just relaxed.
Monday - We went on a
Circle Line cruise from 42nd street on the Hudson, down past Battery Park to
Ellis Island and the
Statue of Liberty, and then up the East River past the 59th Street Bridge, and then back. We had lunch at
Fraunces Tavern and saw the
NYSE and
Trinity Church. For dinner, we went to
John's Pizzeria on
Bleecker Street. The pizza lived up to the hype!
We packed a whole lot into just a few days, and the boys held up remarkably well! It was pretty cold most of the time, especially for us Southerners.