Insights From The Rocking Chair

Day 4 our last day in NYC started somewhat lazily. I am not ashamed to say that we were tired. We had covered miles and miles of asphalt, but it was a good tired because we were having the time of our life. Our first stop of course involved food. We ate a good breakfast at the little cafe we found a couple of days before then we went down to time square to stand in line to get discounted tickets to a Broadway show,"Jersey Boys". More about that later. After buying the tickets, we caught the subway down to Canal (aka China Town). We spent a couple of hours bargain hunting. It was fun "Jewing" down the prices on some items that we brought back. This is a real NYC Chinese fish market Then on to "Little Italy". Italian resturants on both sides of the street for about 3 blocks. These were real Italian eateries. Linen table cloths, the works. Then up to Spring street where we could get a real Italian pizza. They were right. Lombardy's was a quite the...

Our day started with sleeping late. We headed out to the NBC studios to do the tour only to find out they were sold out until 6:00pm. On the way we ran into our grandson Cayden's favorite characters. We headed down to 42nd and 7th avenue to catch the buss tour to Brooklyn. The line was so long we opted to walk the 5 blocks down to pier 83 to take the 3 hour tour. I know, I thought of the theme song for Gilligan's Island. It was relaxing trip around the entire island. Our tour guide was great! He later told us that he was once a professor of speech and acting at one of the universities there. While working the ship for a summer job, the company learned what he did and hired him as a tour guide.  After the tour we made it back up to Hotel (10 blocks) on foot. While crossing broad way we ran into a street vendors festival. Then we made it to our tour of the NBC studios and saw the sets of Jimmy Fallon, which is the same set as Johnny Carson when he was in NY. We also saw th...

Day two started with a thunderstorm about 5:00am so we slept in. When we  finally ventured out we started with a good breakfast in a very busy café. But they were hustling and kept the turnover going. They weren’t rushing folks but as folks left they had the table cleared in seconds and the next one sat down. Once again our waitress was from Poland. Go figure that we would eat at two different cafés and our waitresses would be from Poland. Of course no sweet tea!! Iced tea but not sweet! There was a lady sitting behind Shirley and she heard her ask for sweet tea and when leaving she told us she had committed the same offense. She was from Alabama. We left there and walked another two blocks to Central Park, an oasis in the midst of chaos. We too found it very peaceful. We took the horse and buggy ride and learned a lot about the park. There were rock outcroppings throughout and we learned that Manhattan is on bedrock. The tall buildings here can be built because they dig down un...

We ran all over town today. We started the day by going to see the Today Show. The whole crew came out for a cooking segment on was outside on the plaza. I took pictures of Matt, Ann, and the rest.  Shirley got to shake hands with Ann Currie, twice. Ann even called her “sweetie”.  That is the top of Shirley's Head We walked down to “Time Square” where we found a little out of the way café for breakfast. Our waitress is from Poland and has been in the US for about 4 ½ years. She had a great personality and was very good at her job. It was a really nice way to start off the day. By the way, you can get iced tea in New York just not sweet.   What an awesome view from atop the Empire State Building.  I was real nervous about the elevator ride but it was a non-event, except for the fact it took less than a minute to go 80 floors. I mean really fast but you didn’t get that feel of loosing your stomach. Our ears popped, but more going down than up. It was worth it....