I’ve been on the East Coast for three years now, and until last week I had never made the trip to New York City. This was not a deliberate choice, and I always meant to make the trip, but something always seemed to prevent it. Last week an event I couldn’t pass up was taking place in New York on July 4th. The Minnesota Twins were playing in Yankee stadium, and Johan Santana was pitching. I had to go.
Day 1
Because of a lack of vacation days, Miss Viking and I only had time for a two day trip. We took the train up early on the 4th. Rail is the only way to travel. I’ll admit that the lack of security on ‘The Vermonter’ made me a little nervous, but the train was more spacious, cheaper, and far more relaxing than a plane. If you factor in the amount of time you spend on tertiary tasks when you fly (getting through security, getting a cab at the airport, etc…) the train is almost as fast door-to-destination if you’re going to Manhattan. Also, the airplane doesn’t give you picturesque views of lovely Wilmington and the backside of Baltimore, so you’re missing that piece of Americana when you fly. What better way to celebrate the birth of the nation than riding a train past images of stereotypical urban decay? To be honest, there was some nice scenery in parts of Delaware, but there’s more than one reason people don’t want to live near train tracks.
We made it into town with just enough time to check into our hotel and hop on the train to Yankee Stadium. First impressions of New York - not nearly as overwhelming as I’d been expecting and the people were more polite and approachable than I’d anticipated. Granted, I was only in town for two days, but my sense is that most New Yorkers are less prickly than your average Washingtonian. As long as I wasn’t doing something really stupid like asking which street I was on while standing in front of a sign, everyone I approached was helpful without making me feel like an idiotic tourist. This worked out nicely for me, because on several occasions I had trouble determining if an approaching train was uptown or downtown bound.
The trip to Yankee Stadium is one that every baseball fan should make if they have the chance. While the park didn’t inspire the type of awe that it obviously does in some Yankee fellaters like Billy Crystal or Bob Costas, I was constantly aware of how much baseball history was inextricably linked to the field below me. I kept imagining Joe DiMaggio or Mickey Mantle running down fly balls in center field, and when Lou Gerhig’s ‘Luckiest Man on the Face of the Earth’ speech played on the jumbotron during the 7th inning stretch it gave me a neck tingle.
For most of the game it looked like rain, but we didn’t get wet. The Twins managed a win, and Santana pitched solidly, if un-spectacularly. Miss Viking and I had a few beers in one of the Bronx pubs while waiting for the crowds to disperse enough to get aboard a train without having to trip children and shove the elderly. Miss Viking looks down on these activities as a legitimate past time.
After stopping in the hotel to wash up after the game, we enjoyed a fantastic dinner at a little Italian place in TriBeCa that was recommended by a friend. Like much of the rest of the city, the restaurant was sparsely populated because of the holiday, and for most of our meal we had the upstairs dining room to ourselves. The entrees were only very good, but the pasta course we shared and the cheesecake I had for dessert were ridiculously delicious. As you might expect, a multi-course meal with the amount of wine Miss Viking and I can drink during an extended meal was quite expensive in New York, but it was well worth it. After our long day, a giant meal, and the usual amount of wine for a Wednesday, we cabbed it back to the hotel and proceeded to crash hard. The only fireworks we saw was a brief flash between skyscrapers as the cab took us home.
Day 2
What very easily could have turned into an exercise in killing time turned out to be the better of the two days we spent in New York. Our train didn’t leave until 3:30 that day, and without a good place to leave our bags (Penn Station no longer lets you leave bags in lockers…stupid terrorists) our options for the day were limited. Since most of the museums won’t let you in with a giant duffle bag and a huge pink backpack, we decided to walk from our hotel in Mid-town East down to Penn Station.
It was a gorgeous day to trek across Manhattan. We stopped at Grand Central Station so that we could say we had seen it and then had a great breakfast at Pershing Square. It goes without saying that the people watching in New York is exceptional, and that was how we spent the morning. After finishing breakfast we walked to the New York public library. I wanted to go inside and re-create the opening scene of Ghostbusters, but we didn’t feel like hassling with our bags, so I took a picture in front of the Lions instead.
After Miss Viking resisted the urge to spend a month’s rent on all manner of smelly powders and lotions in one of the fancy boutiques on 5th Avenue we killed the afternoon along with whatever cash was left in my wallet at an outdoor bar in Bryant Park. It was around noon when we sat down, and we had a large time sitting in the perfect summer breeze, drinking $9 beers, and watching Manhattan walk past us on its way to and from lunch.
We made a brief stop in Times Square after lunch. It was the only place in New York that gave me that sense of New York as you see it in a movie or on TV. The sheer size and color of the place is dazzling. Everything about it is over-the-top. When I first saw it, I couldn’t help but crane my neck back to see all of it like some kid from Nebraska that just fell off the turnip truck. People are swirling around you, and the noise is constant. After 5 minutes of standing there like an idiot I realized that Time Square might as well be part of Disney World. Most of the people there were tourists, gawking just like I was, and all of the eateries are hyper expensive chains that no local would ever spend money in. After realizing that I was standing in a Potemkin village for tourists, some of the shine was off Times Square, so we walked down to Penn Station and split the most expensive pastrami sandwich ever before leaving New York.
Miss Viking snored on me for most of the train ride home.
Labels: really bad travel writing
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