A few weekend ago, my grandparents left the ADK to venture into the big wilds of NYC. Since they both grew up near NYC, stories of the old city came out as we navigated around. Our adventures started in the rat maze that is the new Penn Station on Friday at rush hour. Luckily, years of camping has made them light packers and so we quickly navigated the throngs of meandering masses and headed to the subways. A few stops later we were on my island and taking Nissa out for a walk and settling into their hotel room. I have to say it is nice having a hotel room in your apartment building.
Since any visit to NYC isn’t complete without food, we took a zipcar into Queen to enjoy some fabulous Spanish tapas at El Boqueron. The sangria was good, the Chianti was great, and the food was fabulous. Everyone enjoyed the food and diets took a back seat for the night. We were enjoying ourselves enough that I even got to take advantage of my zipcar app to extend our use by an hour. I was so excited to have a car, I dragged my grandparents in a tour of Queens trying to find the suburban –style supermarket I had seen a few months ago to get a large bag of dog food but succeeded only in getting us a bit loss. Instead we stopped at my local Gristedes for an overpriced, small bag of IAMS. That was preferable to trying to drag it home via subway later though.
The next day we had tickets to the Yankees against Kansas City in the new stadium in the Bronx, which is right next to the old stadium that is still standing. First though, we headed to Chelsea for French toast at la grainee cafe. I love that place and tend to take all my visitors but it is crowded and hectic, so it wasn’t as big of a hit as the tapas place the night before. The tapas restaurant is very continental in style – dinner starts late with only one seating expected and staying for 3 or 4 hours is normal.
After brunch, we jumped on the subway and got an express all the way to the Bronx to see the bombers. Sadly, they were not in top form and Kansas kicked their butt from the first inning. Alex had a chance to hit his 600th homerun but instead didn’t even get a single. Scorecards were $10 so I found a free app for my phone to keep track of the game instead, it was pretty good. Yankee stadium hit a high of 112 degree that afternoon so it was a bit warm. Grandfather treated us to $5 waters – best water ever. I had gotten good advice from a co-worker on seats and so we were in the shade along the 1st base line which also helped. After realizing a rally was unlikely we jumped the queue and got to the subways quickly. Amazingly we got an express again and so were back at my place in no time enjoying the AC.
Nissa was happy to see us and we were having dinner at home. I had picked up fresh corn and Omaha steaks. We started with one of those yummy stuffed breads from Omaha with the cheese and pepperoni in it, then corn, summer salads and grilled steaks and finished with Skinny cows. (Cows are low calorie, high fiber ice cream sandwiches Liz introduced me too – they are really yummy and fairly guilt free). We relaxed with a movie and drinks; I think Ba watched my view more than the movie however.
Sadly the next morning they were off on the train back to the ADK, but overall a great weekend in the city for all involved. Luckily for me, there was still time left in the weekend, Liz and her mom were on their way in to NYC.
Liz and her mom arrived that afternoon and headed to tkts to see what was available that evening. They got us amazing orchestra seats, dead center, to In the Heights. It was a really fun musical, a bit of West Side Story without the gangs and more real people you could really understand. Very fun, I came away wanting a snow-pop.
It rained that day and really cooled off. So we decided to extend the evening with dessert. We headed to Harvey's. We started with fries and the largest chicken fingers I had ever seen and finished with some really tasty NY cheesecake. Liz was planning on getting French toast at “the place” the next morning but sadly I couldn’t join since I had work. Cest’e la vie.
Quote of the Post:
Take me out to the ball game ... I don’t care if I never come back.
-Jack Norworth
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