Escape to New York City!

OK, so enough about the renovations....they are STILL underway. At this point, I don't feel like they will ever be finished. I'm sure they will, and today they are tiling the bathroom. At least that's what I hope. I still feel like I'm living in a warehouse.

So, in the midst of all this unrest and construction going on here at home, I escaped. Big time. To New York City! NEW YORK CITY! My girlfriend had asked me to go with her to her cousin's wedding. Well, being the nice Southern girl that I am, and how I hated to say no (remember, I am unemployed and it's not like my calendar was FULL or anything), so I told her I'd go. No clue that the wedding was anyplace other than good ole SC. When she told me New York, I was beyond thrilled! New York City - the land of the rich and fabulous. The land of the WTC being reborn out of the ashes, like a Phoenix. So, to be sure we had everything we needed for our trip, we packed. And packed. And unpacked. And repacked. Then we packed some more. Instead of a huge suitcase, it felt more like we were carrying trunks. Trunks packed to the gills. Trunks packed with things we mostly did not even wear. But we had them.

This Southern girl has been to New England many, many times. Remember, my husband is an EYE-Talian Yankee from Massachusetts. I love it up there. That's no secret to anyone. All I had ever seen of NYC was what I could see from the George Washington Bridge as we were driving thru the Bronx headed to the Nawth. We landed at Newark and the view of the city that I was greeted with was spectacular. Almost as breathtaking as seeing the Golden Gate Bridge upon landing in San Francisco many years ago.

We collected our trunks and waited for the car to pick us up. In the meantime, we collected propaganda. I love propaganda. I mean we collected brochures about EVERY LITTLE THING that could be seen, visited, or done in the city. More to put in those trunks. Then our driver arrived - holding a sign with my name on it so we'd know he was there for us. He loaded our trunks and off we went - headed to the hotel, which by the way, was lovely. We stayed at the Hyatt on the Hudson, Jersey City. I highly recommend it. The view of Manhattan from there is unparalleled.

When we arrived at the hotel, the room was not ready, so they held our trunks for us. We got the claims ticket, made a quick 'potty' break and a quick mirror check to be sure we still looked great - (I mean, we're in New York City and we did NOT want to look like tourists), and off we went. Exploring. We've only been in town 30 minutes and we're already prowling around. We found the water taxi, bought our tickets, boarded, and I had a ticket taker call me Scarlett O'Hara. Welcome to the South, boys! We cruised across the Hudson River,and docked at the Financial District. We had some version of a map in our hands, and we started walking. Our first stop was the WTC site. We did not have tickets to go 'down' into the memorial, but we took as many photos as we could of what we COULD see. Then we went into the Museum. They had artifacts (if you can call them that) on display and of course, the usual coffee cups, tshirts and calendars. Capitalizing on tragedy. Sad. And it was working. People were in lines 5-6 deep making MAJOR purchases. We bought post cards. We quickly decided our next stop had to be Little Italy. After consulting our map, we knew we could not walk that far. We hailed our first taxi. That was pretty easy, because they were virtually on EVERY corner. We got in, told him where we wanted to go and off we went. This man was driving like the devil himself was chasing us. I mean he drove unlike I've ever seen anyone drive, except the cab drivers in Rome. He squeezed the car in places I really didn't think it would fit. But it fit. He got us to Little Italy in what I think was 'record' time. We got out, started walking and saw lots of Italian momentos - most of them being offered by Chinese people. What in the hell? Oh, that's right - China Town and Little Italy are butted up right next to each other. In fact, both names are on the street signage. What's going on, people? Italy and China are nowhere close on the map. Someone needs to brush up on their geography.

We decided we were hungry and found this place that just oozed Italian charm. The restaurant was called Ristorante Da Gennaro and we had the best meal. I had pasta with olive oil and garlic, and AM had Chicken Francaise with a side of pesto penne. Yum. Of course, I had chianti. She had a beer. Then we had espresso and profiteroles with hazelnut chocolate drizzle on top. Having filled our stomachs, we were on the go again.....this time we just went across the street and plopped down in ANOTHER restaurant where we ordered Prosecco (Italian champagne) - one glass each....with a strawberry floating in it. Wonderful. We toasted New York, and her cousin's impending nuptials, and we toasted ourselves. We toasted to the fact that we were such saavy New Yorkers....even this Southern girl. After we polished off our Proseccos, we quickly checked our map - you see, we had a LIST of must-sees, must-visits, and must-do's. Our next must-see had to be the Empire State Building. Sunset was rapidly aproaching and we knew that the view from the top was the best. We did what we did best - hail a cab! Another mad dash thru the street and we arrived at our next stop. We bought our tickets and stood in line to ride the elevator to the top. That elevator must've had the devil chasing IT too. We flew to the top in a record 30 seconds. When the doors opened, I was greeted with a view of New York City that would take your breath away. We took many photos, and sunset from that vantage point was indescribable.

Once we left there, we decided we'd had enough for the day. Our feet were throbbing and we still had MILES to go. Oh, and it was time to EAT again! We got another cab back to the dock, where we boarded the water taxi yet again. We were getting pretty good at this! We got back to the hotel, where we ordered a salad in the VU lounge. And a VU it was. A view to die for. We couldn't walk another step, but had the waitress bring our salads to us while we sat there by the panoramic view of the city....feet propped up. By this time all of Manhattan was lit up just like twinkling stars. And all for our viewing pleasure. We managed to crawl to the elevator and upstairs to our rooms where we collapsed into bed, talking in the darkness and giggling like teenage girls. Tomorrow - more fun!

The next day, we had the wedding to attend. We were fabulously dressed, went downstairs where we all were taken to the church in cars, and the bride rode in a vintage Rolls Royce. The wedding was in midtown Manhattan and the ride took about an hour. The ceremony was beautiful - Roman Catholic Italian wedding, complete with Mass. Then it's back to the hotel for the reception, which was absolutely fabulous. The wedding cake was baked by Carlo's Bake Shop. (http://www.carlosbakery.com/) Now, I don't know if you are aware of who that is, but it's the Cake Boss (on TLC). It was red velvet and absolutely delicious.

As is typical of Italian weddings, the reception with the fabulous cocktail hour and dinner/dancing lasted way into the night. We left at 11:30 and headed back to our room. Tomorrow was another long day of sightseeing for us.

We woke early - got dressed, and off we went. Our first stop was Lady Liberty. We boarded a train, got off and walked about a mile to reach the Station we needed to board the ferry from, and bought our tickets. The lines were LONG. I mean, REALLY long. Keep in mind that it's Saturday. The wait just to board the boat was 2 hours. We decided not to see her up close. We just didn't have that much time too spend there. Too much too do and too little time to do it in...plus it's Saturday and we had all the tourists to deal with. We boarded the water taxi and headed back across to Manhattan. Next stop, uptown! We outdid ourselves today. We saw: Rockefeller Center (where they were assembling the ice rink), Park Avenue, Fifth Avenue, Madison Avenue, St. Patrick's Cathedral (where a wedding was underway), Madison Square Garden, Trump Towers, every store you could imagine (Prada, Van Cleef & Arpels, Gucci, Harry Winston Jewelers, Salvatore Ferragamo (shoes), FAO Schwartz, The Plaza Hotel, and Central Park,which was full of many types of people. This was the weekend of John Lennon's birthday, so his music was everywhere. Check out THIS Lady Liberty!!

We walked from Central Park back to Times Square, which to me, had a circus atmosphere. Saw the 'ball' which drops every New Year's Eve. I can't imagine how packed with people that would be, because this day we were there it was chaotic. This Southern girl needs to find some trees and open space! Back to Little Italy we go.

I had contacted an old friend from over 20 years ago who, to my surprise, was meeting us for dinner. We were looking forward to it. We bought some pastries, Italian cookies and bread and ended up at a restaurant called Angelo's. Had a fabulous meal, and we three ladies walked back to the restaurant where we had the prosecco - Caffe' Napoli. My friend had two of her buddies join us, and we sat there until the wee hours of the morning....talking, sipping Prosecco, and laughing. (and resting our feet) When we realized the time, we knew we had a HAUL to get back. They called a cab for us, paid for it and put us in (and got in with us) and took us to the Path Station. They put us on the direct train back to our Path Station near our Hotel. We were back in about an hour. By this time it was nearly 2 am. These girls did quite well in The Big Apple!

Next morning, we packed our bags, had breakfast int he restaurant and we waited for our car to come get us. We got to the airport in record time, had uneventful flights and arrived back home in time for din-din on Sunday night. All in all, a fun-filled, wonderful LONG weekend in New York City!

Oh, and by the way, the renovations continue.....