Part 2: New York City

Quote of the day: Sounds like my kind of guy! -Juliana
Song of the day: NYC from the musical Annie

We had decided to go into NYC on Saturday, and that’s what we did. It was great and though the forecast was rain, it was beautiful and sunny all day long in the city.
We were taking the 10:07 train into Grand Central Terminal, so we woke up around 9:15and ate bagels that her mom had gotten for us. We were planning to leave around 9:45 and at 9:40 realized we were still eating and better get ready. I wore my red and white striped shirt so that we could play Where’s Waldo all day. Her mom drove us the short ride to the train station and we made it on time. The train ride was about an hour but not too bad of a ride. Toni braided Molly’s hair and that was the most interesting thing that happened.

Once we got to GCT we decided to take the Subway to SoHo to start the day. On the subway some random guy kept talking to us. Apparently people are friendly in New York. Once in SoHo we walked around a bit and went to a flea market. I got a cool winter hat that I really like and MoPo got some sunglasses. We tried to walk toward Chinatown so we could eat lunch there by ended up in Chelsea instead. We walked “through” the campus of NYU and Toni was fascinated that their academic buildings are dispersed throughout several blocks of the cityOn 6th Ave (“Avenue of the Americas”) in Chelsea we found a street fair and walked through. Juliana finally got the corndog she’s been craving since midwinter. We got some flavored kettlecorn and Starbucks iced coffee ‘fo free!’ . We also passed by Murray’s Bagels, which apparently is famous and Toni “saw it on the Food Network!” She told everybody, even the people sitting outside. We went in and she bought a bagel. I got a cookie… it was still good.

Since we were getting hungry and clearly not getting anywhere near Chinatown, we decided to stop at the next lunch place we walked by in Chelsea. We ended up at this place called Lenny’s, which is a sandwich place that also does catering. I got a tasty “American” sandwich that was huge.

After lunch we got back on the subway and headed to 59th, right at the entrance of Central Park.Before going into the park itself we decided we need to hit the fun stores that are right outside it. First we went into the Apple Store, which is just cool in its design. The whole store is underground except for the glass elevator and stairs that come up to ground level in a small cylindrical glass room. Once you go downstairs its still pretty cool, and all the shelves are only half-height so you can see the whole store. There were cool Apple gadgets all over the place and it was neat to walk around. We went down the stairs to get in and up the elevator to get out. Sweet. After Apple we went into FAO Schwartz, the coolest biggest toy store I’ve ever seen. I loved FAO Schwartz. We took a picture with the “guard” at the door, but it’s on Juliana’s camera so it may be lost and gone forever..haha. When we walked in we saw these huge lego statues of Harry Potter and Star Wars characters. It was sweet.

We went a little further and came across this kiosk thing where these guys were playing with rectangularly shaped bean bags and doing some tricks. They were actually pretty fun, and I learned some stuff. The guy tried really hard to sell me one and I took it… but I put it down a few feet away when he wasn’t looking… I didn’t really want to buy an $8 beanbag that I probably won’t play with. When I took one the others just said they live with me and would use mine… not really true anymore, but oh well. Going up the escalator led us to the Harry Potter section of the store. They had lots of cool memorabilia including wands, a sorting hat, the Marauder’s Map and other little collectors items and figurines. I noticed that on a wand sign they spelled “Professor” wrong and "Voldemort". FAO FAIL! Aha. I was proud of myself for noticing. We kept going and walked through the Barbie section and the plushie section.

Molly got really excited in the plushie section because of all the stuffed toy dogs. Molly loves dogs. LOVES them. Every dog we saw in NYC she tried to pet. It was absolutely insane; Juliana was holding her back by her braid. Ahahah. Awesome. “I touched it guys, I touched it. It brushed up against my leg” she said after stalking one dog for a block or so. Anyway in the store she loved the dogs and kept petting them. It was funny to watch.

The big piano was my favorite part of the store. This piano is so cool. When we arrived they told us to take off our shoes and we could go play on it. I played some random notes, then I played the melody part of Heart and Soul. You had to listen pretty carefully though because there were other people stomping on different keys as well. Then Toni and I decided to play Chopsticks. At first we tried to play an octave apart from each other, but were too short to be able to play parts by ourselves. So we collaborated on the first section and it sounded really cool. I’m sure we looked silly jumping, but it was awesome. I played the second and third sections and I heard a lady say, “she’s really good!” As soon as I finished the song Juliana made me get off because there were other people waiting…. Man I wish I had one of those for myself. I think it was like $200,000 though. Oh well.

We left FAO Schwartz and got ice cream cones from a truck on the way to CP. I got mine dipped in chocolate…yum! We ate our ice creams as we wandered around Central Park, and we eventually found a grassy place to sit down and people-watch. We were facing the road that people run & bike on that goes around the park. We hung out there for a while and took pictures. It was fun and relaxing, especially since we’d been walking a lot. We spent most of the day walking up and down 5th and 6th avenues but we saw all kinds of stuff because of it. On our way out of the park we saw two guys practically handfeeding a squirrel. Woah.

After CP we decided it was time to head down toward Times Square, which is predominantly 42nd to 46th streets. Since we were walking down Fifth Avenue we of course had to stop at all the fancy stores.

First stop: Louis Voutton.
Notes: They have great bathrooms. No purchases.

Second Stop: Tiffany & Co.
Notes: Their bathrooms are also nice. They call them “lounges.” When we walked in an employee told us we need to be ‘empowered women’ and that we ‘deserve the best’ and that (since we’re from around Boston) someday we are going to meet a guy who loves sports, and after a while he’ll ask us to marry him, and then after 3 years he’ll want to have kids, and these kids will be two 6’ 2” and 6’3” beasts who will be forced into football by their father and blah blah blah and you don’t want to be with someone like that do you? I’m not really sure what the point of the story was except that we should tell whoever it is that we want Tiffany’s. Juliana said that this so called undesirable husband sounds like exactly the kind of person she wants to be with, and I told the guy that my kids are going to be swimmers. He tried to change the story as if my kids would be swimming without the permission/approval of their dad… I don’t know. I say my children can do whatever they want as far as that is concerned. Anyway he was really nice and pointed out to us the famous Tiffany Diamond. Apparently when discovered the canary diamond was 284 carats…. Cut down to 128. Still huge, but over half gone? That’s ridiculous. We perused the diamond floor as well as the metal floor and it was very sparkly. No purchases.

Third Stop: Abercrombie & Fitch
Notes: it was plaid day. All the guys had plaid shirts on and jeans and the female employees were wearing plaid shirtdresses. They were all model/employees. One girl just had to stand there and move a little to the music. Imagine getting hired purely to stand there and look good? The music was too loud and we didn’t spend long here. Again, no purchases.

We went in some other random stores and attempted to get cheap tickets to see the Little Mermaid on Broadway. The available tickets were the exact opposite of cheap, so we didn’t buy any. We also crossed 52nd Street, where BeBop was founded. In jazz history I learned that BeBop began at Minton’s Playhouse and Monroe’s Uptown house on 52nd St, hence its original title of “52nd Street Jazz.” We didn’t walk down but I took a picture of the sign.

Destination: Time Square
Hooray! We made it! Upon arrival we made a beeline for the M&Ms store, where they were giving out free samples of their new “Strawberry Peanut Butter” m&ms. They tasted a bit like eating peanut butter and jelly and were pretty good. The store was cool because a couple of the walls were lined with columns of m&ms in many many colors and mixes (example: The “taxi mix” had yellow, white, and black m&ms).The only thing I bought in this store was a squished penny for my dad’s collection. 51 cents… probably the cheapest thing in the entire store. After that we stopped by the Lindt store, which also had a wall lined with chocolate. I got a free sample of a Lindt truffle…. So good. I took a picture of Juliana in front of the chocolate wall and as she was taking one of me an employee told us no pictures were allowed… then offered to take one of both of us “before my boss sees me.” It was great.

We were getting hungry so we decided to find a place to eat dinner. Molly knew of an Italian restaurant she had eaten at before, so we went towards it. WE ended up at Scarlatto’s, a nice Italian restaurant next to the one Molly had previously been to. I had spaghetti and meatballs which was very tasty. There was a guy constantly refilling our water glasses and there was bread with oil. Their bathrooms were rather small. Overall dinner was very enjoyable.

We planned to take the 8:48 train back to Mount Kisco, so after dinner we headed over to GCT. They others wanted to stop at Starbucks on the way, and while they were inside I took a couple pictures of a “Bubba Gump” sign across the street, as well as some pictures of Times Square in general. We had been taking “where’s Waldo” pictures during the day so we took a couple more and got on the train as scheduled. Molly’s mom picked us up at the station and brought us home, where she had birthday cupcakes waiting for us. My birthday is in April, but Molly, Juliana, and Toni all have their birthdays at the end of May, so it was a little bday celebration. The cupcakes were from a new local bakery and were pretty delish.

That night we hung around Molly’s house. We all felt gross from being in the city all day so showers were the first thing on the agenda. Afterwards we got our beds ready, started watching “Inside Man” with Clive Owen, and continued eating the cookie dough from the night before. It was still good. I was the only person who managed to stay awake for the whole movie (ironic since I didn’t drink any coffee) but I enjoyed it. On the bus ride home the next day I had to explain the ending to both Juliana and Toni. Ah well. Toni slept on Molly’s air mattress and refused to move, so Molly and I shared for the night. I think we all slept like babies! I know I did at least.