New York City Vacation, Day 6

Today was our final day in New York City. We visited the American Museum of Natural History in the morning and then walked through some of Central Park.

Then we headed to the airport to fly from Newark, NJ, to Bismarck, ND. Saying goodbye to our daughters wasn't so hard this time because we'll see them all again within the next few months--so instead of embracing and sobbing for several minutes, like we usually do, we hugged and thanked them for a great vacation but then said, "See you soon!"

We have walked so much--down the sidewalks, across the streets, up and down the steps of the subway stations, through the museums, etc.--that our legs and backs are in pain, and we are exhausted. To quote American writer Elbert Hubbard, "No man needs a vacation so much as the man who has just had one." 🤣

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A couple photos from Central Park. It was slightly overcast and cool outside, so it was good weather for a stroll through the park.

Susan and I took a bus to the airport. Hillary and Suzanna had a driver arranged to pick them up for their own flight a few hours later, so they "saw us off," waving to us from the sidewalk outside our hotel.

Abigail had to be at the hospital for clinicals today, so here is a photo of her from the other night. Mostly Abigail traveled from her place in Brooklyn to our hotel in Manhattan every day to join us in our adventures. However, Sunday night she had a sleepover with Mom and Dad in our hotel room! Here's the requisite hotel room mirror selfie.

New York City Vacation, Day 5

This morning we walked around Midtown Manhattan a bit before going on a guided walking tour of food trucks and food carts in the area. In the afternoon we visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art ("The Met").

We had supper at Gayle's Broadway Rose, where the servers are all talented Broadway performers who take turns singing musical theatre hits while people dine. That was just a few doors down from the Lena Horne Theater, where we saw the musical Six.

We ended the night with cocktails at The Joyce Public House near our hotel.

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This is one of many photos we took of the gorgeous interior of St. Patrick's Cathedral in Midtown. It's situated between Madison Avenue (associated with the advertising industry) and 5th Avenue (famous for fashion and high-end shopping) ... a good location to serve congregants who are battling pride, greed, lust, and gluttony, I'm guessing.

It was drizzling, so others' umbrellas partially obscured the view of Prometheus, the golden statue at the front of Rockefeller Center. Prometheus oversees the area where people ice skate in the winter and where the gigantic Christmas tree stands each year.

This is one of five food carts and food trucks that were part of our guided walking tour. We had half-servings at each spot, and still we were all pretty much full after the second stop! We had South Asian chicken biryani, Indian kati rolls, Greek chicken souvlaki with pita, South American arepas, and Belgian waffles topped with a gingerbread cookie butter (from Wafels and Dinges).

After our waffles, we walked through Bryant Park and past the New York Public Library to the historic Grand Central Terminal for a subway ride to The Met. The museum has nearly 500,000 works of art from around the world and spanning 5,000 years, so you can just imagine the many famous artists whose work we were able to view. This bronze statue is Edgar Degas' "The Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer," which we have seen over the years recreated on posters and greetings cards. Note, however, the hat on the man who is walking past the statue. A daughter pretended to be getting a good shot of the statue but was actually aiming for a pic of that man's unusual hat. Naughty girl!

Six is a musical comedy performed in the style of a pop concert. It features the six wives of King Henry VIII in a contest to determine which of them had the worst experience as a queen to that notorious king. Each of them sings an autobiographical pop song meant to make her case--and Six did win a Tony Award in 2022 for Best Original Score (and one for Best Costume Design).

New York City Vacation, Day 4

We started the day with visits to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. In the afternoon, we walked through several neighborhoods in lower Manhattan: The Battery, the Financial District, the Civic Center, Chinatown, Little Italy, the Bowery, and the East Village.

Along the way, we had Chinese ice cream at the original Chinatown Ice Cream Factory followed immediately (and excessively) by a stop at Ferrara Bakery and Cafe in Little Italy, where we shared gelato and cannoli and had Italian cocktails (mine was a double espresso with Frangelico).

In the evening, we dined outdoors at Veselka, a Ukrainian restaurant in the East Village. The food was delicious: similar to the Ukrainian food that we have in southwest ND but "with the volume turned up," in terms of flavor and authenticity (see details below).

We ended the night with a stop at a speakeasy-style cocktail bar in the East Village. To enter, we had to go into a hot dog shop, find a phone booth there, and pick up the receiver to request to be admitted to the speakeasy. Then the back wall of the phone booth opened, and we were escorted into a hidden space with a cocktail bar and a few tables and booths in a dark room with jazzy world music playing in the background. An unusual experience!

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We took a ferry from The Battery to Liberty Island to see "The Statue of Liberty Enlightening the World." Fun fact: although Jake had already proposed to Suzanna in March (in Paris, France), he recreated the act at this spot this morning. Suzanna played along, looked surprised, and accepted (again), and onlookers clapped and congratulated them! Silliness.

A cool view of the Statue of Liberty and the Manhattan skyline in the distance.

Our walk through the neighborhoods of lower Manhattan took us past a variety of buildings: new skyscrapers, old offices and government buildings, concert halls, churches, apartments, shops, and restaurants galore. On many blocks, we saw the old and the new side-by-side.

For example, in the Financial District, here is Trinity Church, a nearly 200-year-old building just down the block from the New York Stock Exchange where Wall Street meets Broadway. Fun fact: Alexander Hamilton is buried in the church yard.

At Veselka, I had borscht, three kinds of pierogi (braised beef, potato, and sauerkraut/mushroom), pork-stuffed cabbage with mushroom gravy, and grilled kielbasa, all served with sides of sour cream, sautéed onions, and burachky (beets and horseradish).

These were our cocktails at the super-secret Please Don't Tell speakeasy. They were all craft cocktails made with specialized ingredients and developed by their team of mixologists. And they were delicious.