Day Two:<\/strong>\u00a0 We had tickets for the 9\/11 Museum at 9:30 so we Uber’d it downtown.\u00a0 There is so much to say about the memorial that I will write about it in a separate blog later this week.\u00a0 It was a beautiful day so after our tour we decided to walk The High Line.<\/strong>\u00a0 The High Line is a recent addition to the New York experience and is well worth a visit.\u00a0 It is approximately 1.5 miles of unused elevated railway that has been transformed into a walking trail lined with beautiful plants and resting areas.\u00a0 It is a fabulous stroll, meandering through the Meatpacking district and Chelsea, and has totally transformed what was a blighted area<\/strong> into a neighborhood where apartments sell for a cool $5 M.\u00a0 That seems to typify New York…transforming an area where no one wanted to live into a place that is unaffordable for all but bond traders and trust fund babies.\u00a0 The other nice feature about the High Line is that for a brief period of time you are relieved from having to dodge the cabs that terrorize the streets<\/strong>.\u00a0 It would appear that most New York cab drivers take traffic lights as mere suggestions and running down pedestrians is what they do for sport.\u00a0 I imagine that at the end of their shifts they gather to see who “scared off” the most tourists.\u00a0 From the High Line we walked back up to our hotel, where I collapsed in a heap of total exhaustion.\u00a0 But, again, we didn’t go there to sleep, so after an hour’s rest, we walked up to Central Park.\u00a0 My two great-nieces, you see, had not had enough exercise<\/strong> for the day and wanted to get in a little run.\u00a0 Note to self:\u00a0\u00a0I need to be in much better shape to hang with 16 and 18 year-olds.\u00a0 After dinner at Alfies, we retired for the day.\u00a0 I checked my Fitbit – I’d\u00a0walked 20,000 steps (9 miles) that day.\u00a0 No wonder my knees ached.\u00a0 The good news is that the English ski team checked out so at least it was quieter.\u00a0 Except for the horns.<\/p>\n That night we skipped dinner – we were still full from lunch and cupcakes.\u00a0 We had tickets to see “An American in Paris”<\/strong> at the Palace theater.\u00a0 The play is magical – a combination of ballet, jazz, singing, and acting woven into a great story with a Gershwin score.\u00a0 It won several Tony awards and after seeing it I understood why. \u00a0It made me wish that I hadn’t given up ballet at age 10.\u00a0 I do have to say that the\u00a0only surprise of the night was how some people dress to attend the theater.\u00a0 The worst was a man wearing one of those “wife-beater” shirts<\/strong> – you know, the sleeveless\u00a0ones that instantly deprive the wearer of at least 50 I.Q. points – and shorts.\u00a0 Ironically, he was seated right next to a man in a suit and tie who clearly understood the sense of occasion.\u00a0 It made me think that perhaps we are becoming a nation of slobs.\u00a0 But again, that’s a blog for another time.<\/p>\n Day Four:<\/strong>\u00a0 No plans or tickets to anything.\u00a0 We ate a late breakfast and then took off walking.\u00a0 We strolled by Rockefeller Center<\/strong> and over to Fifth Avenue, the universe’s vortex of high-end shopping.\u00a0 It’s fun to window shop but on the theory that if you have to ask how much something is you can’t afford it, I didn’t go in any of the stores.\u00a0 I speculated that the necklace in Harry Winston’s<\/strong> window would have eaten up my entire 401k.\u00a0 We walked up the East Side of Central Park, crossed over to the West Side and then stopped for coffee.\u00a0 That’s the great thing about NYC, as my niece says, you can’t swing a dead cat without finding a Starbucks.<\/p>\n Later, on our last evening, we hit McHale’s<\/strong> for dinner and then decided to “do something”, although that varied for all of us.\u00a0 The girls wanted to wander Times Square and then go work out (seriously, it’s hard to believe we’re related), my niece wanted to see “School of Rock” on Broadway and I wanted to see “An American in Paris” again.\u00a0 I know, with lots of choices and infrequent trips to NY, why would I see the same show again?\u00a0 Well, it’s\u00a0that<\/em> good and I enjoyed it just as much the second time around.<\/p>\n The next day we woke to pouring rain – the first bad weather<\/strong> we had encountered.\u00a0 So it really was time to leave.\u00a0 Our group headed for the airport, flew to Dallas\u00a0and sadly said good-bye as we boarded separate planes for the final leg home.\u00a0 It was a wonderful trip – truly the adventure of a lifetime – spent with wonderful people.\u00a0 But I have to say, as I crawled into my own bed last night, I don’t miss the honking horns.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Suzanne Sparrow Watson I’m home.\u00a0 Tired, and with a banging head cold, but I survived my time in New York.\u00a0 I set a relatively low bar in terms of my expectations.\u00a0 I figured that if I wasn’t mugged, knifed … read more![\"Happy](\"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Happy-Hour-150x150.jpg\")
<\/a>Day One:<\/strong>\u00a0 My alarm sounds at 3:30 a.m.\u00a0 I check my phone and discover that the airline has changed my seat assignment.\u00a0 What they failed to tell me is they also changed the departure gate<\/strong> to another wing of the terminal.\u00a0 I have a whole blog worth of\u00a0observations about airlines and weird people on airlines but that’s for another time.\u00a0 So let’s just\u00a0pretend that through the magic of space travel we made it back to\u00a0NYC in time to have a glass of wine at an Irish pub.<\/strong>\u00a0 As it turns out, we ate at three different Irish pubs over four nights – West End Bar and Grill, Alfie’s, and McHale’s.\u00a0 All three places were filled with locals, had decent prices and – this is critical – awesome happy hours.\u00a0 We also frequented Hurley’s, the Irish pub next to our hotel, for an Irish coffee one night.\u00a0 We decided that it must be our partial Irish heritage that attracted us to such places, along with the aforementioned happy hour of course.\u00a0 In any event, we checked into our hotel, the TRYP Times Square, where we discovered our room to be approximately the dimension of a good-sized bathroom<\/strong> in any other city.\u00a0 But, as they say, we didn’t go there to sleep.\u00a0 And with the blaring taxi horns<\/strong> and the visiting high school ski team from England next door, we didn’t.<\/p>\n![\"2016-03-30](\"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/2016-03-30-13.49.24-Small-150x150.jpg\")
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<\/a>Day Three:<\/strong>\u00a0 Sometimes you’re lucky to know someone in town and this certainly proved to be the case in New York.\u00a0 A good friend of mine recently moved there because her husband became the General Manager of the Waldorf Astoria<\/strong>.\u00a0 The poor thing has to make do with a three bedroom apartment in the hotel.\u00a0 Can you imagine the hardship?\u00a0 Heck, I’d order room service every night.\u00a0 In any event, she arranged for us to take a guided tour of the historic hotel and partake in a wonderful lunch afterwards at Peacock Alley<\/strong> – named such because people used to watch the “swells” parade like peacocks between the old Waldorf and Astoria hotels.\u00a0 But here’s where it really came in handy to have a connection – the ma\u00eetre d’ gave each of us a box of FOUR of the famous Waldorf red velevet cupcakes upon our departure.\u00a0 I won’t say how many I ate but I’m not sure I walked enough to account for all of the calories.<\/p>\n![\"AAIP\"](\"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/AAIP-150x150.jpg\")
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