My first full day in NYC started with my first ride on a NYC subway. It actually wasn’t nearly as bad or as scary as I thought it would be. Initially, I noticed that the subway wasn’t nearly as dirty as I thought it would be...I’ve been told the subway around Times Square is frightening, but we never did take the train from that station...
We were headed in at a time when I guess a lot of people were headed to work so the subway was pretty crowded at times & we stood through most of our trip. It seems that there are three things that people do on the subway...1) read -- although there are signs in several places in the subway that say something like 25% of New Yorkers are illiterate, it would be hard to find evidence of that from the number of people reading on the train -- even reading through bumps and stops and shifting around to accommodate new arrivals to the train -- lots of people read on the train... 2) sleep -- a lot of people who aren’t reading on the train are sleeping...there were people who appeared to be homeless slumped down and sleeping...there were people who appeared to have partied all night with their heads flung forward or propped against a pole sleeping...and there were people who appeared to be coming and going from their jobs who simply slightly bowed their heads and were sleeping...and the final thing to do on the train is # 3) play the ‘do not make any eye contact under any circumstances game’ -- this was what I did on the subway and frankly, it’s challenging. I had a hard time not looking at people. But real New Yorkers are apparently well-trained champions in this game -- in fact, even kids as young as 5 or 6 years old seem very skilled at averting eye contact and God forbid, you actually exchange smiles with someone on the train... This one thing was odd to me about the subway. These people in such close proximity to one another are all apparently consciously making an effort to maintain their own mental separation despite the complete lack of physical personal space... All in all the subway (on this morning as well as others) was relatively uneventful and not at all as horrible as I’d imagined it might be. I mentioned to Jessie when we got off that I bet you could spend a day below ground in NYC and see a whole different side of the city and if you could actually get anyone to talk, you could learn about a vast variety of lives.
When we left the subway, we headed out on a cold and wet morning to find the Gray Line Tour Bus station, get our tickets and head out to see what we could see. The bus was a double decker and if it hadn’t been so cold, drizzly and windy, I feel like it would have been a really great way to see the city. I’d say the only real negative about the Gray Line bus -- other than the weather -- was the guides on board...or at least most of them...The first one we had was Grumpy...yep, just like the dwarf from snow white, white-haired, actually kinda short now that I think about it, and NEG-A-TIVE. He loved to complain about how little the tourists tip (and every single person that so much as speaks to you apparently deserves a tip in NYC) and how tourists don’t understand the NYC economy and how dependent it is on tipping and also how bad the economy is in general right now...I honestly don’t remember much about what he told us about what we were seeing, but as the wind and rain increased and his negativity dampened our spirits, Jessie and I decided to get off at the next stop and seek sanctuary...
And a beautiful sanctuary it was...Our next stop was the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, Episcopal Diocese of New York and the seat of its Bishop. This church is so gorgeous. It is absolutely breathtaking. In addition to all the architecture and stained glass that is magnificent, there is also a small area called Poet’s Corner. It has the names of many American authors, the year of their birth and death, and a quote by them engraved into a stone on the floor of the area (you’ll have to check out the photo share site for pics of this -- I took quite a few.) There were so many other things about this church that were truly phenomenal. There was an incredibly unique staircase and individual chapel type rooms around the walls. The church also includes a mausoleum. There was also an art exhibition of Holocaust paintings by Mikhail Turovsky, entitled Memento. I’ve always loved art, but as an aspiring art student of sorts (ok, I realize taking lessons on Sunday afternoons and making ridiculous attempts at doing more than doodling doesn’t make me a budding artist, but still...) I found these paintings even more interesting. They were not detailed paintings, but were a bit more like gesture drawings or maybe the art we’ve done in which you just express the light and shadow to form the picture. These pieces are all done in black, white and shades of gray, but are incredibly moving and really portray a somber mood that is appropriate of art that addresses the Holocaust experience. St. John’s wasn’t on the top of our list of things to see in NYC...honestly, other than being a stop on the Gray Line bus tour I don’t think I’d heard of it at all, but it was a jewel nonetheless and it was an incredibly beautiful and breathtaking cathedral as well as an absolutely great place to escape the elements for a bit. I think maybe I enjoyed it even more because it was an unexpected treasure and sometimes the things you just stumble across on a journey are the most magnificent things.
After leaving the church, we headed off to find a place to grab lunch. We were in the neighborhood of Tom’s Restaurant -- the one of Seinfeld fame. I am a pretty big Seinfeld fan, so we decided to go and eat there. (Yada, yada, yada...:)...The interior doesn’t look like it did on the show, BUT supposedly (according to Wikipedia) the interior has been remodeled since the show filmed there. I just had a grilled cheese and a cup of chicken noodle soup, which wasn’t anything amazing, but was filling and satisfying AND it was fun to eat at a booth where Jerry, Elaine, George and Kramer talked about everything and more famously nothing at all.
After we left Tom’s Restaurant we decided to get back on the Gray Line tour bus and head out to see more. If it’s at all possible to believe, the next tour guide was possibly even worse than the first. The guide was a Chinese girl and I am sure she was doing the best she could, but I am not sure why a tour bus company would hire someone who could barely speak English, or at least English that was understandable...Everything she said ended with the phrase, HUH? or Righ dare (translated -- or at least to the best of my ability to decipher -- Right there)...It was again distracting from the actual information that we were supposed to be learning about the city, BUT the bus was warm and dry and moved us on to another spot we wanted to see...Well, actually I’m not sure we wanted to see it, but when we arrived there and felt we were getting very little out of the tour, I thought it might be fun to see the Madame Alexander Doll Company -- and a free gift was supposed to be given at this stop...I only say supposed to be because as it turned out only one gift was given per group of four people who came in together. Since Jessie and I were a group of 2 they still gave us a doll, but just one doll. Jessie got a doll for Clara, and I looked around. I collected dolls as a girl so it was fun to see them and I do have 3 Madame Alexander Dolls. I found a few that I’d kind of like to have -- 4 dolls from Little Women, a Scarlet O’Hara doll, and a Raggedy Ann doll. We didn’t actually do the whole tour of the museum, so after visiting the display and gift shop we headed back out to the lobby of the building to wait for the next bus, which we missed OR which more accurately missed us...We stepped outside and it just went right on by. Since the buses run about 15 to 20 minutes apart we went into a small coffee shop next door and had hot cocoa while we waited. There are an amazing number of coffee shop/bakery type places around NYC. This one was nice and had big soft seats in front of the window where we could sit and watch for the tour bus.
We got back on the bus and rode through Harlem. It was miserably rainy and cold at this point and while there are a few things I would like to see in Harlem, it wasn’t really worth getting wet and cold to see them. We rode through Harlem and then up the side of Central Park where the zoo is located. We passed museums and a few other notable spots. The guide during this portion wasn’t terrible at all...in fact, had it been nice weather and had anyone been using the bus for more than a taxi, I believe this girl would have actually done a good job. We did get a beautiful view of Central Park and I was definitely looking forward to seeing more of it on Sunday.
We decided that our next stop would be in the area where FAO Schwartz, the Apple store, Bergdorf Goodman, Tiffany & Co., etc. were located.
The first store we decided to go in was Bergdorf’s...There are lots of beautiful things in this store, but I suppose unless you have money actually falling out of your purse and pockets or you are famous (more about famous people in a bit,) people there don’t notice you are alive. Not terribly shocking, but a little disappointing. There were lots of great things to look at. We headed up to the shoe department. There was a great selection of Manolo Blahnik shoes. I guess these shoes were -- at least for me -- pretty much made famous by Carrie on Sex in the City. And they are gorgeous shoes. Most of them are in no way practical or anything I would ever be able to wear (think 5 inch heels and extremely pointed toes with a price tag of upwards of $650) but there were a handful of smaller heels and even some flats that were really beautiful, but unfortunately unless I was going to wear them on an almost daily basis the prices still weren’t anywhere near reasonable.
While we were shopping in the shoe department, we wandered over toward the boots. There was a girl there with black hair wearing a pretty much see through white t-shirt and these terrible hooker boots. Both Jes and I noticed her and those boots...And suddenly as I was about to go toward the escalator, Jessie came over and said...That’s Jessica Simpson...NO, not the black-haired chick in the bad boots, but the girl she was shopping with...That’s right, Jessica Simpson was shopping at Bergdorf’s. It was strange because no one was gawking her, no one was guarding her, and no one was waiting on her, and no one even seemed to notice she was there. I suppose in NYC a famous person shopping in the store is not an unusual occurrence, but I thought she’d at least have a small entourage OR an attendant so far up her butt that it would be hard to ignore her...Neither was true...Jessie and I both walked around in front of where she was trying on boots while she text and we headed to the top of the escalator. We considered asking her if it was OK to take her pic...BUT 1) if I were famous I wouldn’t want to be bothered by everyone who wanted a pic of me -- heck, I don’t like to be bothered now by ALL the people who want pics of me ;) tehehehe... 2) She’s not smart OR at very least she pretends to not be smart...and for me smart = attractive and interesting and worth embarrassing myself to get to know... So, since it hardly seemed worth bothering her, we instead slipped around and took pics on my iPhone and Jes’ camera with no flash so we could at least have some photographic evidence that this celebrity encounter actually did occur --(although if I were going to fabricate a celebrity encounter, trust me I would have come up with someone more fabulous like Christopher Meloni or Derek Jeter.)
As we left Bergdorf’s we headed over to the Louis Vuitton store. It was fun to see all the bags, luggage, etc. there. The one thing that baffled me was that I have actually looked online at Vuitton luggage -- just for fun -- and found a pink vernis make up bag for about $650 BUT in the store a pink and brown scarf is $650...I’m not sure why I’d even consider spending as much on a scarf as I would on a make up case, but I guess when money is no object nothing like that actually occurs to you.
The next place we went was the happiest place on earth...NOPE, not Disneyland (not even a Disney store,) but Tiffany & Co. That’s right Tiffany’s...It’s AWESOME...and not just the diamonds, which by the way shine and sparkle like no other diamonds I have ever seen anywhere. But that wasn’t the thing about Tiffany’s that made me fall in love. It was the people there. 1) They were all so very nice. 2) They all seemed so very happy to be at their job and to be helpful. 3) Although I was making a very small purchase, they went out of their way to make sure I was getting exactly what I wanted...I had seen a silver bead bracelet with a little lock charm that said “Return to Tiffany & Co.” online and I really wanted one. I thought I remembered one that had a square lock, but the only thing I could find in the store was a heart-shaped lock. I mentioned that I really wanted the square lock so two different people who worked there started looking through the store to see if they could find the bracelet with the square lock. They could not, but they did find a couple of square lock charms and a different style of bracelet that did have the square lock. I could have had the square lock charm put on the bead bracelet, but I decided against that. The square lock was really just to big for the somewhat delicate bead bracelet. I decided to just buy the heart lock bracelet...SO, they wrapped it up in the blue Tiffany’s box with the pretty white bow and put it in a Tiffany’s bag. Since it was raining, he also put another bag upside down over the top of the other bag so that my little blue box wouldn’t get wet.
This place is all about good service...After I purchased my bracelet we were whisked on to an elevator and then had the contents of each floor described to us by the wonderful attendant -- who, by the way, also was delightful and seemed very happy to be at his job -- and then took us to the 6th floor to the Women’s Lounge. The Women’s Lounge (ie, restroom ;) is also fabulous at Tiffany’s. Clean, beautiful, smells wonderful and has marble walls that go from floor to ceiling -- that’s right, not stalls, actual individual bathrooms with wood doors... I’m telling you I’m just crazy about Tiffany’s...I’m pretty sure it’s the happiest place on earth...Oh yeah, and the jewelry there is as fabulous as the people...I’m pretty sure they have it under special glass or something because it shines like no jewelry I’ve ever seen...or maybe it just reflects the glow of the happiness of the place and people around it... ;) ...
At some point during this day we decided that we wouldn’t actually go back to Brooklyn and change into our fancy clothes before we went to Mamma Mia...It was cold and wet and fancy dresses and heels would not have been much fun & going all the way back to Brooklyn before the show definitely meant we’d have to cut our day of exploring short...So, we decided to stay in the city, do a bit more shopping, have dinner and then head to Mamma Mia...
More on that later...I know this blog is super long -- so was this day -- and I’ll post the rest soon...
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