New York City recap

Well, it was such a whirlwind weekend that I don't want to bore you with all the details. But I had so much, fun, I'm going to bore you with quite a few of them :)

We took the train there and back, as well as to get from NYC to the cute little town in Jersey where we were staying with my aunt. And let me tell you...trains are cool, but there are some characters who ride them. On our trip out (we went from Elyria, Ohio to Pittsburgh, then on to New Jersey), our train was two hours late to the station in Elyria. Which was fine, except the (unstaffed) station was nothing more than a remodeled double-wide trailer...where a homeless man was sleeping. A bit nerve-wracking, especially in that part of town. But we were on our way without any major incident.

Then, while we were waiting for our train in Pitts, a woman comes over to where Matt is sitting (I had stood to stretch my legs) and plops down in my seat! She kept saying she needed to sit, and we kept trying to make her choose any of the dozens of other seats that weren't surrounded by our luggage. So she stands up, only to sit on my suitcase! And starts talking about how she's been throwing up all morning. I secure a bottle of water and a trash can for her, then we start to gather our luggage to move to a different seat. When I put my hand on my suitcase, she reaches out for it, claiming it was hers! I showed her it was mine (thank God for luggage tags) and she bursts into tears--she doesn't know where hers is. (Someone else in the station pointed it out to me. It was three feet away from her.) Our train boarded then, so we left Crazy Lady in the hands of station employees.

There was another woman on the transit from the city to Jersey, who didn't get the hint that she was being intrusive in her conversation with Matt and I. She went so far as to ask how many black people and gays/lesbians live in Columbus, and to ask whether it was "safe" to talk to black people, because in Philly (her home for the summer), she didn't talk to black people. What?!?! I hardly knew what to say. Who does that?

Matt and I in Times Square.


North view from the Empire State Building, with some of my faves pointed out.

Crazy train adventures aside, it was a lovely weekend. My aunt and uncle were wonderful hosts, and the city was so incredible. The first day, we stayed mostly in Midtown. Explored the Empire State Building, walked up and down 5th Ave (didn't get to do too much window shopping, but Matt let me drool in front of the Cartier store for a bit), saw St. Patrick's Cathedral, Times Square, the Museum of Modern Art and the Rockefeller Center. We also entered the lottery for tickets to The Book of Mormon, but we didn't win. We walked 10 miles if we walked two feet, and I wore the worst shoes. (But hey, at least I looked cute...even if I physically couldn't walk at the end of the day, haha.)

Starry Night at MoMA


A Jackson Pollock at MoMa

Saturday, armed with better footwear, we tackled downtown. Hung out on Canal Street in Chinatown (scored a sweet bag and some perfume!), rode the Staten Island Ferry past the Statue of Liberty, checked out Battery Park, saw the World Trade Center Site, and mastered (not really) the subway. We headed back uptown to enter the lottery again, which we lost again, but we got a nice dinner in Times Square. The waiter even brought us free dessert! It pays to chat up and be friendly to your waiter :)

On the pedicab

Sunday, we tried to go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I wanted to get into the Alexander McQueen (swoon) exhibit, but the line just to get into the museum was about two hours long (!!!) and we only had four hours until our train left. So we passed. I was really disappointed, so do you know what Matt said? "Do you want to go back to Madison Ave and look at that shoe store we passed?" He was referring to the Christian Louboutin store that I almost jumped out of the car for. Yeah, he's pretty much the best boyfriend ever. So we went down Madison and I left a nice noseprint on the window of the store. Gross, I know, but I was dying. Those shoes! Oh God.

The Christian Louboutin store. I die.

We walked through Central Park after that for a bit (not nearly long enough to do it justice, unfortunately), then headed down to the biggest Macy's in the world to get Matt some clothes for the job interview he had Monday morning. Macy's on 34th St...is there anything quite like it?

So that's the fast and un-detailed version. Or at least, the fewer-detailed version. I have a few Flickr sets here if you want to see more photos. I took even more than what's in the albums, but you don't really need to see every single piece in MoMA, do you? Ha.

Phew, that was long. If you read it to the end, thanks! If not...hey, I understand ;)