New York, BaBY!

Last week, Tony and I made our first trip to New York EVER for his 40th birthday (and because my dad has been wanting us to go). I am a country girl, born and raised, with an unhealthy fear of anything new, unknown, or crowded. I don’t even like going to vet conferences where the parking is not an enormous football field-sized lot not to mention parking garages, traffic, subways, etc. New York City was about the last place on Earth I wanted to visit, but it still held a weird draw for me. I love so much that comes out of NYC – the art, the music, the entertainment, the people involved in all three, not to mention all the movies and shows centered around the city. So, I mentioned to my dad that I have a desire to go, but am terrified to go and just wish I had someone to show me around and he said “Me and Sheila (wife) like to go to NYC all the time, just come with us one time!” PERFECT!

The week before we were supposed to go to NYC, our bank account crashed. Between unexpected owed taxes (thanks National Healthcare for withholding information on subsidies when we signed up! Super fun!), a dying HVAC unit, animal control getting called on us for the pesky poodles escaping the underground fencing too many times and having to expedite a fence building, we were fresh out of money. Thank goodness the big ticket items had been paid ahead of time (flight and hotel), other costs, like the incredibly high prices of things like… well, EVERYTHING in NYC, would have to go on our credit card #cringe and we would certainly not be walking into a single store. So, creativity and lots of walking it is!

Day 1:

We landed and I giddily opened the window of the plane to look out over the wonder of a huge city I’ve only seen on TV only to see a blanket of white fog that only allowed me to see to the end of the runway. Oh well. We met up with my dad and Sheila in the airport (they had just arrived from Georgia) and shared an Uber together. I was so relieved to not have to experience the whole “call and Uber” and find where they were going to pick us up and not know if a tip was needed, etc – I really am a child when I step out of my comfort zone. They took us right to the front doors of our hotel and we stepped out into the rain and checked in. Then rode the elevator up to the 15th floor, opened the door to our luxury romantic getaway birthday celebration king suite only to be met with the smell that I can only compare to when you forget to take the garbage out before you go on vacation for a week. I looked at Tony with the stench face on and he just says “I think this is just how New York smells”.

You probably are thinking, just like my dad asked me later when we met for dinner – “well, did you go and ask for a room change?” The answer is, as a perfectly sensible human being: “No! That would have required me talking to a stranger… again. I’ll just live with it and hope it goes away, I mean I’ve had jobs where I literally slept on a blanket in a horse stall and showered in a public restroom.” We opened the windows, searched the room for a dead rat or a rotting apple under the bed, but found nothing. Eventually, we grew “nose-blind” to it, until we left and came back again.

After my initial meltdown that I was in a strange place, there were lots of people whom I was bothering just by being there, the rain, and a feeling of claustrophobia with all the buildings and just wanting a snack and coffee, we found a snack and coffee. Then, we met my dad for dinner and then went to the apartment they were renting for the trip and got to hear all about the finances required to live in Manhattan. This (very lavish) apartment was probably 1/2 the size of my house and they said easily a few $million$. THEN they told me that on top of the mortgage, you have to pay a monthly “building upkeep” fee of about $5000 – forever – even after you pay off your mortgage. Then we enjoyed the wondering of Crumbl Cookies – a huge cookie that was amazing! Highly recommend.

After a quick nap, we got all dolled up and went to check the first item off my list – go dancing at a club! It was Retro NYC and only played music from the 70s, 80s, and 90s, and only opened the doors at 10pm – hence the nap. I mean, my dad eats dinner at 5:30. This club wasn’t exactly what I had wanted to experience – the big giant clubs I’ve only seen in music videos where people are dancing in cages – it was quite tiny, maybe the size of my living room, but was SO much fun! I drank before we went so I wouldn’t have to spend a ton of money on alcohol and between that and my trying SO hard to embrace the my world, my rules thing I talked about in a previous blog, I literally danced like no one was watching (nobody here knew me anyway). We finally left around midnight (because we’re old) because the club was getting so crowded, you could barely move. And after we stepped out of that club and made the penny pinching decision to walk the 2.5 miles… at midnight… in downtown NYC, we learned a very valuable lesson about NYC = no matter how you feel, you PEE before you leave a place. Tony’s bladder decided it had worked too hard about 3 blocks away from the club – with only 30 more blocks to go and ZERO public restrooms in NYC, we started hoofing it to our hotel. I tried to talk him into going into the open McDonalds there, but he refused because you don’t go to McDonalds when visiting NYC. With his bladder on fire, he still made me stop at Radio City to get pictures. We considered running over to Central Park, but just knew a cop would pop out just in time, also we’ve seen enough Law and Order SVU we didn’t want to find a body.

Despite the streets of NYC being surprisingly empty at midnight on a Saturday night, one person surfaced just in time to see me holding Tony’s hand in support of his aching bladder and toss a snarky comment “how sweet!” which just made us laugh because of the one time 15 years ago a girl in a liquor store made fun of us for wearing striped sweaters together (which we then looked at each other, realized we matched and laughed). After lots of inspirational talking about getting through this and “just hold on!” and lots of sweating despite the wet 50 degrees that it was, we made it to our smelly hotel room, Tony made it to the bathroom, but just couldn’t make that 90degree turn to the toilet and released his bladder into the bathtub. Oh well.

Day 2:

We got up and I was ready to tackle the second thing on my NYC to-do list – get Bagels! We Yelp.com’d it and found a place called Zucker’s Bagels and we planned to pick up breakfast on the way to Central Park. We happily strolled down the sidewalk, watching all the different people as we went, just as happy as clams, then got yelled at when we arrived at the bagel shop. Now, I’m sure, if you’re used to NYC, it was just a polite greeting, but if you’re (me) from the south, I thought I might just melt on the sidewalk as someone in the bagel shop yelled at us to get out and not block the door. So, we waited like dejected dogs outside until enough people came out for us to stick our noses in and see if we got scolded again. We ordered our bagels and coffee, were promptly corrected not to order coffee here (like idiots), fearfully asked for coffee where we were told to and paid without any further abuse.

Bagels and coffees in hand, only a little emotionally worse for wear, we walked our happy selves down to Central Park. As we were coming up to it, I saw a very slight woman, looking worse for wear, holding one of those silver/metallic blankets around herself to keep warm and I thought “awe, she must be homeless”. Then, as we approached the entrance to the park, we noticed a LOT of people wearing those flashy blankets and figured out they were in the middle of the Shape+ women’s marathon. So we made our way inside the park (which is MUCH larger and convoluted than I ever imagined) to find a nice place to sit and eat our bagels. Unfortunately, due to NYC being the rainiest city we’d been too (and Seattle was the sunniest – at least the one week we were there), all the benches were wet and we didn’t think ahead. So, we walked until we were away from most of the crowd, and just like any other awkward couple, we found some benches right next to this very peaceful looking lady meditating, set our bagels down next to her and starting scarfing down.

Maybe it was the close proximity in an 800+ acre park or the smell of my smoked fish, wasabi, and everything bagel, but the sweet meditating lady got up and left quite quickly after we arrived. After we finished, we started walking around the park, avoiding getting run over by runners and cyclers everywhere. We got a few good pictures before the rain started up again and had to go back to the hotel, completely soaked, again. Let me tell, nothing smells better than a smelly room when most of your clothes are wet and you’ve added humidity to the ambiance.

After we returned to our smelly room and took a good nap, we decided to attend an open-mic women’s-only comedy club. This was AMAZING! Tony was the only man there, there were probably only like 30 people total and all of the comics were hilarious and it was neat to see people who were being so much braver than I was that day putting themselves up there for the first time ever in some cases.

We left and went to our reservation at a Thai restaurant. The seating was TIGHT. I was seated right next to another couple with just a piece of plexiglass between us. It was tight, but the food was SO good! Fried curry balls and fried tofu in peanut sauce was amazing! One thing we figured out in NYC was that making reservations at most restaurants was both easy and necessary. It was almost impossible to just walk up to a restaurant and get seating. But going onto my Yelp app, selecting a place, then just click the time you want to go and your party size and that’s it! No horrendous calling and TALKING to people!

Day 3:

We decided that with possibly the only sunny day here, we would make this our super touristy sight seeing day. But we started with the most unnecessary stress. When we woke up and my nose was burning from the rotten garbage smell, we decided that enough was enough… 1 hour before we had to meet my dad for a breakfast reservation that he’d had for literally, months. We ran downstairs, I fearfully told the front desk lady our conundrum, and despite my fears that she’d be like “Tough luck, STUPID. Hahahahahahahahahah! Also, you will now be billed double!!” she, instead said “Okay, would you like to change rooms? We’ll send a man up to help you move your bags in a few minutes.” So we ran back up to our room, threw everything into our bags and waited, nervously because we still had to walk 20 blocks to the restaurant. We waited, I paced, we waited, I paced, then when we only had 15 minutes, Tony ran back down to the front desk where the lady was just waiting on us with the new keys. I took the bags up to the new floor we’d be on, met Tony with the keys, we chunked our bags in our new (NOT smelly) room and dashed out the door. We walked as fast as we could, but were still 14 minutes late – getting there just within the 15 minutes over window. We were so happy to not lose our reservation in the extremely fancy little breakfast place as we were swapping the drenching sweat off our faces with the fine linen napkins and guzzling the water gracefully poured into stemmed glasses.

After an amazing breakfast of ridiculously thick French toast that was easily 45K calories, we parted from my dad and went strolling down 6th avenue, being as touristy as possible, taking all the pictures of the amazing buildings (though we would find a spot out of the way of foot traffic to take the pictures), passed by shops selling things I was afraid to look at for fear I would be charged a fee, bakeries with goods so amazing looking they could have come off the set of a movie, people of every shape, size, and color, speaking 10 different languages, and the smells!! Maybe it was because it had been raining for 2 days and all the organic material was rinsed and trapped in the cracks of the pavement and rotting, but NYC didn’t smell too good. I never in my life thought I would describe a smell as “burnt ice cream” but that’s the first thing that came to mind along with the odors of trash, flowering trees, occasionally fish, and the overpowering fragrances coming out of those expensive shops that made me a little nauseated.

I was so excited to see the Empire State Building, having done a project on it and it’s construction. I was scanning the skyline as we approached where it said it was on the map. I was sure I would be able to see it in all it’s glory from far away, just like you see in all the pictures. Then, we walked right past it. When we looked back and saw that we were right upon it, I was a little disappointed. There was a huge line to get into the building and since you had to pay to go up there and we had no money (or patience to stand in line, really), we took our pictures and then moved on. It was a pretty building though. We then made our way to The Highline.

The Highline was a really neat idea – they turned an old railroad into a walking path that is about 1-2 stories above ground and walks you through a couple of neighborhoods, apartment buildings, parks, and the entire way has been gardened to bring plant life and beauty to the area of the city. There are also some awesome architecture and art pieces showcased including a painting of Gandhi and Mother Teresa. It’s a nice little walk where you don’t have to worry about cars or bikes going about, but there were a LOT of people.

After our long walk to The Highline and along it, we made our way back to the building where we were going to see “The Daily Show” filmed!! I was so excited about this, having watched the show since high school and we were READY to get in line and wait to be let in. We walked by the place around 30 minutes before we were supposed to be there, and it was like a deserted island, maybe even a tumbleweed or two. So, we went to get a drink and sit in a local park to rest for a bit. We walked around what appeared to be a local school playground, looking nothing if not suspicious, then eventually went back to check on how the line was forming. But, to our dismay, nothing. Was this one of those secret entrance things where you had to have a special knock and a password? Was NYC playing a prank on just me and other suckers who thought they could dare be involved with something like this? Was this actually just “The Daily Show” warehouse and the studio is in New Jersey??? So, desperately, I looked at my phone where it SAID I had tickets and found out we weren’t supposed to arrive for another TWO HOURS. This is so me.

So, even though our feet hurt, we were tired from walking almost 10 miles already, we decided to go back to our hotel and re-group. So, back 20 blocks to our hotel, stopping at a little grocery store (which was likely the largest one in Manhattan) and buying some crap cookies compared to the Crumbl cookies and a jug of milk for a pre-gaming snack. I did a quick “whore bath” (a term I learned from a friend here in Virginia – where you just wash what people can see and smell – face and pits), changed clothes, put on even less comfortable shoes (because they went with the outfit), then marched the 20 blocks BACK to the studio where, thank goodness, people were starting to line up and there were people there to check us in WHEW!

So, we got in, were herded to the bathroom (because no peeing while taping), then herded to a waiting room, then into the studio. We were allowed to take pictures before it started, but had to put them away once it started. Then, a “warm-up” comedian came out to rile the crowd, picked on some crowd members, got us trained to laugh and clap, then, finally, we got to see Dulce

The show was amazing! Dulce was amazing, but the writers were all going on strike that day and so there would be no more shows for Dulce even though this was her first time hosting and we weren’t going to be able to see the other show we had signed up for (Late Night with Seth Meyers) – stupid writers wanting to get what they deserve!

Day 4:
The next day was back to rainy, but not as bad, so we went to get breakfast at a place that did not require reservations, was not nearly as expensive, did not have a super fancy atmosphere, but was just about as good of food. We went for another walk in Central Park as it wasn’t raining at that time. Then the rain came again. So, we saw this area where you could descend stairs and get under a bridge to get out of the rain for a second. In doing so, we discovered the most AMAZING area! My dad had told us when we got there that NYC was like no other place he’d been to in that you could just be wandering around and find the most amazing muscicians or performers just setting up in the middle of nowhere and he was right! We walked down some concrete stairs to this unassuming underpass situation and were greeted by a simply beautifully decorated area that felt like we had just stepped into the Systine Chapel in Italy. Columns, painted tiles, the ceiling was ornate (I don’t know all the proper terms for these things, but it was PURDY!). People were milling about, some, like us were looking for a way out of the rain, some were taking engagement/senior/prom/modeling pictures, but in the center of it all was a man just sitting on a fold out chair playing what I think was a mandolin. And he was GOOD. We went from being out in the dreary wet city and literally walked into what felt like a fantasy land (minus all the picture taking).

On our way out, we decided to use the restroom right outside this area (because never leave a public restroom without using it in NYC) and as I came out of the women’s room, Tony was looking sheepish. I asked him what was going on and he told me he was taking a picture of the scenery and then realized he had the camera pointed straight into the women’s restroom. So, we hurried out of that area and met my dad and Sheila to tour more of Central park before the rain started coming down even harder and we went back to the hotel room.

Later that afternoon, we went to meet my dad and Sheila for dinner at a Mexican restaurant and got to see a most pitiful site of a lady pushing a stroller with a toddler and begging a very tired looking (do they ever look spry?) Bassett hound named Sampson to get up off the very crowded sidewalk and keep walking. (Side note: Bassetts and bulldogs probably not a great pet to have to walk distance). Then we followed Sheila for 20ish blocks to see Rockefeller Center, a huge, beautiful cathedral (where you had to pay to pray), and then to BROADWAY, BABY!!! This was definitely on my major To Do list in coming to NYC. And! We got to see Moulin Rouge!!!! It was even more amazing than I anticipated! I expected it to have Broadway songs that were great, but that I wouldn’t recognize, like most musicals, but this was full of modern music and the DANCING!! I cannot express how visually astounding this show was! I even went home afterwards and stalked all the actors on Instagram! I was just so impressed that these people do this show EVERY. SINGLE. NIGHT. and sometimes twice on Wednesday or Sundays and still acted like it was their opening night with their energy and enthusiasm. As a vet, I get to do different things and new adventures every day and still have a bad attitude sometimes and drag my feet.

After the show, we walked to Time Square, saw all the amazing lights and commercials, got to see some performers, but were mostly just walking through. I was about full on my commotion scale as an extroverted introvert. We found a bar to finish the night in. I calculated that a bottle of sparkling wine has 6 glasses in it and it was $17/glass, therefore, we’d “save” money if we just bought a whole bottle ($69). Tony ordered and Old Fashioned and we got two orders of fries and the bill was $135! Anywho, a whole bottle, though more economical for the wallet, was expensive to my liver. We had a GREAT time talking and even worked out a few more kinks in our relationship issues, but my body eventually rejected the evening and Tony had to care for me (the best husband).

Day 5:

Thanks to Tony and my diligent “drink as much water as you can every time you wake up through the night” I wasn’t too sick the next morning and we sought out the same diner with the great food, no wait, and no one yelling at us to get out. Then, thanks to my brave husband, we tackled my next biggest NYC fear: the subway. Tony figured it all out on his phone while I was sleeping and it was really easier than I thought it would be. We got on our very first NY subway and started riding toward the Battery (where you can get on a ferry to see the Statue of Liberty – I didn’t know what it was called either).

On our second stop on the subway, a man jumps on the train with an accordion and started playing. He had his tip jar taped to the front of his accordion and seemed to be doing a pretty good job despite the jostling motions of the train. A very nice couple gave him $5 and it was all downhill from there. Once money was given, he played for another 30 seconds or so and then started his rant on how NYC was failing. According to this, what I can only imagine, very reputable economist, too many people are coming into NYC illegally and earning money illegally by not purchasing permits or paying taxes while raking in the profits of street performing. He then went on to let the poor couple, who has now been subjected to his rant for $5, know that HE was, in fact an illegal performer as he should not be allowed on the subway to perform for money. The poor couple then tried to get off at the next stop, but were followed by the accordion man. #lessonlearned

So, we got to the Battery, took pictures of the Statue of Liberty (didn’t get on the ferry because 1. sea sickness and 2. money) walked around, saw the financial district, the bull where there was a longer line to take pictures with the bull’s testicles than his head. Then we walked up the Brooklyn bridge which was really neat and crowded.

Then we went to the 911 memorial which was really impressive. It definitely brought back memories of when it happened. I was a senior in photography class and the teacher told us what was happening and that he wasn’t allowed to turn on the TV -but he did anyway. Seeing it on TV was horrifying, but when you’re actually there on the ground and just thinking about one of these behemoth buildings (not to mention two) coming down and ALL the people in and around it. And all the clean up for YEARS and all the tragedy and people… It’s just unfathomable. Of all things, I was brought to tears by the little survivor tree. It was the only living thing around the fallen building found after debris was cleared and was saved. You can still see where most of the branches were broken off and have grown new ones since.

After that, we got on the subway and went to see Little Island which is this ridiculously adorable little park that looks straight out of a Super Mario Bros. world.

Finally, we made our way back to the hotel via the subway, but had to get off 10 blocks early because my terrible motion sickness. That night was Tony’s birthday, we got pizza at a local shop, made our way back to Central park, sat in Strawberry Fields and listened to a lady playing Beatles songs. We walked a little more in Central park and ended our night early, got Tony’s favorite $5 cookie, Levain, and went back to the hotel. The next morning, I got up early, went to get bagels and coffee, then we shared another Uber with my dad and went back to the airport.

That was NYC!

A few impressions about NYC:

1. The people are generally BEAUTIFUL – I have theories that A: in that section of the world, you have to have money to live there and can, therefore afford nice clothes, makeup, other healthy things to keep you looking nice B: The eclectic mix of races and shapes and sizes of people make a beautiful kaleidoscope – like a candy store for the eyes. And C: you can’t be lazy there, you have to walk almost everywhere which made most people pretty athletically built.
2. As a southerner and country girl, I’ve always heard stuff about “city folk” being wimpy and not used to the outdoors. Go to any small town in a rain storm or cold weather and see cars dropping people off at the store front, people avoiding going out at all, letting their dogs out in the back yard to fend for themselves. People in NYC are outside whatever the weather. Street vendors just chilling out in the wind and rain, people still walking to work, taking their dogs out every time they have to go to the bathroom. There is zero change in the foot traffic weather it’s freezing, rainy, ice, snow, hot. NYC folk are tough. (AND, again, there are no public restrooms, so they have to have adapted to holding it).
3. Living in NYC, at least Manhattan is beyond expensive. An apartment there costs a couple of $million to start, but with the building maintenance fees, you’re looking at around $10K per month. When I asked around about what vets make in the area, it was only $125K-250K. Being a DOCTOR, serving people who make more money than imaginable, you still wouldn’t be able to afford living there. You would have to commute from hours away just to make ends meet, and likely still get harassed about the cost of your services and your heartless ways. No, thanks.
4. So, NY, you’re pretty cool and I’m not ready to say that I LOVE you, but I’ll text ya!