(no subject)
First child-free vacation, completed! We so needed some time for ourselves, and nothing says vacation like walking most of the length of Manhattan in a day.
We took the Bolt bus down on Thursday, met up A-Dot for dinner at a really nice bar, and went to see a cheap UCB improv show that was done by some of the Daily Show staff writers. We stayed at the Library Hotel that night. The hotel had a rooftop bar, and the night was pretty nice, if a little brisk, so of course we had a drink up on the roof. The hotel is stupid expensive, and it was pretty luxurious. They upgraded our room for no charge when we got there, and we happened to be put into the Law books room. We had a great view of Madison Ave, but with the view came the price of it being loud really early in the morning.
Friday we went to the Frick Collection to look at some art. It was surprisingly worth it. The building is gorgeous, and it's a reasonably small collection to look at, so you don't get art fatigue. Maybe I'm weird getting tired of looking at priceless works of art, but there's only so much I can handle. So that was totally worth it. We wandered around some after that, got lunch, then moved along to check into our next hotel, the Kitano. OMG, I want to live there. Everything about this hotel was so comfy, the beds and pillows were amazing, the toilet seats were heated (!), it was super nice. After a disco nap we walked down to the Village to our favorite place in the city, Vol de Nuit. Moving along, we grabbed some pizza and then made our way to Burp Castle, which is now my new favorite place in the city. The bartender regularly shushed everyone, and amazingly, people obeyed! It was awesome. Great beer, a place where you can actually hear each other speak... if only more bars could be like that.
Saturday we saw a bit on the news about a festival in Tribeca (there was a film festival and a family festival), and we also knew there was a street fair on part of 8th Ave., so we walked down to Tribeca via 8th. A few hours and some sore feet later, we popped onto the subway to head back up to midtown. Grabbed some lunch, then we figured we could walk up to the Met slowly and stop at some bars on the way. It turns out that at a certain point on 5th Ave bars kind of disappear, or they become only too-fancy-for-us hotel bars, so we ended up walking all the way up to the Met with no breaks. Seriously, so much walking. We had a ghost hunting tour of the Met scheduled for 5:00, so we hung around until that started. The tour was The Ghost Doctors of NY, us, and another couple on vacation. The other couple talked about how their house in LA is totally haunted and showed us a video of their pots falling off the wall hooks in their kitchen by what could only be supernatural means. So we all walked around the Met pointing EMF meters and thermometers and geiger counters at things to look for ghosts. Say what you will, but there was one area of old portraits where the EMF meters went totally bananas and the temperature was fluctuating wildly, and we were pretty sure we were onto something. Anyway, it was a lot of fun, and a nice way to see a museum we've already been to a few times in a completely different way. The looks we were getting from people were pretty priceless, too. Some people definitely thought we were crazy, but some people looked like they wished they could get in on the hunt, too. After all that, we headed back to our general hotel vicinity for dinner and drinks. We ended up wandering into a practically deserted bar called The Archive. We ended up chatting with the bartender and stayed out way later than we intended (and I drank more than I should have, a lesson I swear I never learn in New York). That turned out to be lots of fun.
This morning we caught the 9 am Bolt bus back to Boston. The bus, ugh. It's cheap and all, but now the cheap buses have to load/unload way out in the middle of nowhere, and there was no organization about lines or which bus was going to Boston and which was going to Baltimore, so it was just total chaos for like half an hour. I wish the train was cheaper to be a more viable option. Anyway, that's it, that's our little trip to NYC. West had a great time at Camp Grammie & Grampy, and he turned up the cutes all evening.
We took the Bolt bus down on Thursday, met up A-Dot for dinner at a really nice bar, and went to see a cheap UCB improv show that was done by some of the Daily Show staff writers. We stayed at the Library Hotel that night. The hotel had a rooftop bar, and the night was pretty nice, if a little brisk, so of course we had a drink up on the roof. The hotel is stupid expensive, and it was pretty luxurious. They upgraded our room for no charge when we got there, and we happened to be put into the Law books room. We had a great view of Madison Ave, but with the view came the price of it being loud really early in the morning.
Friday we went to the Frick Collection to look at some art. It was surprisingly worth it. The building is gorgeous, and it's a reasonably small collection to look at, so you don't get art fatigue. Maybe I'm weird getting tired of looking at priceless works of art, but there's only so much I can handle. So that was totally worth it. We wandered around some after that, got lunch, then moved along to check into our next hotel, the Kitano. OMG, I want to live there. Everything about this hotel was so comfy, the beds and pillows were amazing, the toilet seats were heated (!), it was super nice. After a disco nap we walked down to the Village to our favorite place in the city, Vol de Nuit. Moving along, we grabbed some pizza and then made our way to Burp Castle, which is now my new favorite place in the city. The bartender regularly shushed everyone, and amazingly, people obeyed! It was awesome. Great beer, a place where you can actually hear each other speak... if only more bars could be like that.
Saturday we saw a bit on the news about a festival in Tribeca (there was a film festival and a family festival), and we also knew there was a street fair on part of 8th Ave., so we walked down to Tribeca via 8th. A few hours and some sore feet later, we popped onto the subway to head back up to midtown. Grabbed some lunch, then we figured we could walk up to the Met slowly and stop at some bars on the way. It turns out that at a certain point on 5th Ave bars kind of disappear, or they become only too-fancy-for-us hotel bars, so we ended up walking all the way up to the Met with no breaks. Seriously, so much walking. We had a ghost hunting tour of the Met scheduled for 5:00, so we hung around until that started. The tour was The Ghost Doctors of NY, us, and another couple on vacation. The other couple talked about how their house in LA is totally haunted and showed us a video of their pots falling off the wall hooks in their kitchen by what could only be supernatural means. So we all walked around the Met pointing EMF meters and thermometers and geiger counters at things to look for ghosts. Say what you will, but there was one area of old portraits where the EMF meters went totally bananas and the temperature was fluctuating wildly, and we were pretty sure we were onto something. Anyway, it was a lot of fun, and a nice way to see a museum we've already been to a few times in a completely different way. The looks we were getting from people were pretty priceless, too. Some people definitely thought we were crazy, but some people looked like they wished they could get in on the hunt, too. After all that, we headed back to our general hotel vicinity for dinner and drinks. We ended up wandering into a practically deserted bar called The Archive. We ended up chatting with the bartender and stayed out way later than we intended (and I drank more than I should have, a lesson I swear I never learn in New York). That turned out to be lots of fun.
This morning we caught the 9 am Bolt bus back to Boston. The bus, ugh. It's cheap and all, but now the cheap buses have to load/unload way out in the middle of nowhere, and there was no organization about lines or which bus was going to Boston and which was going to Baltimore, so it was just total chaos for like half an hour. I wish the train was cheaper to be a more viable option. Anyway, that's it, that's our little trip to NYC. West had a great time at Camp Grammie & Grampy, and he turned up the cutes all evening.