Having a lot of fun with this series on the trip Jena and I took to New York over the Christmas holidays. When we last left our fearless couple, we had just left Grand Central Station after I got caught once again staring at a ceiling full of stars. We left the train station right out onto 5th Avenue, probably the busiest window shopping district in the world. We were not their to buy anything, just browse, and browse we did...with about 2 million of our closest friends.
When the day started, the streets were busy, but relatively calm. We had figured there would be a lot of people in town that day because of the upcoming New Years Eve party. There were signs on boards all across the city warning people of impending road closures and the like in anticipation of the event. However, for most of the morning and early afternoon, the streets were busy, but they moved very well. However, as we got into the afternoon, the stereotypical New York pedestrian frenzy started to take shape. Every other crosswalk we had to come to a stop and find ourselves in the middle of a mass of humanity waiting to cross the street. We were both very cautious of pickpockets who have a notorious reputation, but we were willing to give our fellow tourists the benefit of the doubt as we worked our way to the next destination on our trek: St. Patrick's Cathedral.
The Gothic architecture is astounding both on the outside and inside of this building. It seems to go on forever when you walk inside, and I'll give the people credit for maintaining a (relative) sense of reverence as we entered, and as I just said, there were quite a few of them. Jena has been to mass at St. Patrick's before, and she was forced to sit in the back...and watch the proceedings on television. Nevertheless, Jena's parents have been to Rome, and have seen St. Peter's Basilica. If St. Patrick's is big, St. Peter's is mammoth. In any event, St. Patrick's is certainly the largest church I have visited in quite some time. They even had an almost life-sized creche scene in the nave. The nuns were cute trying to explain to the visitors what everyone was looking at.
After we toured St. Patrick's we went back onto 5th Avenue and made our way across the street toward Rockefeller Plaza. It's amazing in New York. It's such a huge city, but you literally can go across the street from one major tourist attraction to the next. We had hoped to go up to the top of Rockefeller Center (Top of the Rock) becuase we had written off going to the top of the Empire State Building earlier in the day as a lost cause. Unfortunately, Top of the Rock was out of the quesiton too since the next available time to go up was after our bus was scheduled to leave, and since we already missed the bus the first time in the morning, we didn't exactly want to tempt fate and have it leave us behind a second time. So we spent a little time watching the ice skaters and mused about A) how much it cost to get onto that ice rink and B) how long those people had to reserve their spot ahead of time. Neither answer seemed reasonable enough for us to want to try to get out there (at least that trip), especially since we were already timed out of what we really wanted to do in the first place.
After spending some time at the skating rink, we went back up 5th Avenue and took a look at the Saks window display. Every year, all of the shops try to dress their windows up according to a theme. Last year, Jena said that the theme was everything to do with electronics. This year, we determined that the theme had to do with things that moved. The Saks window featured a mannequin riding a bicycle up and down the entire display. We didnt try to go into the store, nor did we try to get into FAO Schwartz afterward, because the lines were just rediculously long. We DID go into American Girl. No, we did not buy any dolls, we needed a bathroom break.
After we looked around the shops, Jena and I went into Central Park, right across from FAO Schwartz. By the time we got to Central Park, the sun was starting to set, and the skyscrapers were all starting to light up, leaving us with this pretty picture:
It was cold, very cold, and we were shivering, but there were quite a few displays to keep our minds off of the temperature while we were in the park. For example, we commented on how the horse carriages had little catch baskets for when the horses...shall we say...go #2. We also partook of a street display of some very very large bubbles. All in all, it was a very relaxing, yet cold, walk in the park. By the time 5 o'clock rolled around, keenly aware that we were still 15 blocks from the bus stop and that if we were not on the bus by 5:59, we would be left on the island of Manhattan, we started to work our way back to the corner of 8th Avenue and 46th Street. We had time to make a quick stop at Starbucks (Jena had a gift card), buy some pretzels for the ride home (from a street vendor of course), and do some quick souvenir hunting. We made it back to the bus stop around 5:40...with all of the bus riders already there waiting as well.
We were gone at 6:00, and it took much longer to leave the city than it did to get there. As I noted above, as the day grew on, the traffic (both foot and automobile) grew heavier, heavier, and heavier. Fortunately, we were on the way out...and there were A LOT more people on their way in. It was backed up on Route 495 all the way from the Lincoln Tunnel to the New Jersey Turnpike. By 6:30, we were already at exit 14 on our way home.
I hope you enjoyed my little recap of Caputo's Corner's first ever trip to the borough of Manhattan. Many thanks to Jena for coming along for the ride with me, and for all of you for sticking with Caputo's Corner for all of your blogospheric coverage.
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