Sitting in the airport to go home. I’ve been so busy, making the most of every day, that I haven’t been able to blog. Now that I’ve made it through security at JFK, I can finally sit and put thought to “paper”

Friday:

We had a big day planned and we did it all, mostly. The weather and my feet kept us from strolling down High Line Park. But we did everything else and more.

Grand Central Terminal

Woke up to rain on Friday which was little disapointing. But it gave me a excuse to wear my cute new jean jacket. I can’t tell you how happy I am they are back in fashion. Right? Either way. We sloshed up to Rockefeller Center. Which is really just a giant shopping mall. But fun to see all the iconic buildings of media. Plus, Lego store and Nintendo World.

Lobby of Chrysler Building

Then we made our way down to Grand Central Terminal to take a tour. Awesome. Architecture, history, great photo shots. Crazy tour guide. We learned some interesting things. And I finally got to see the inside of the Chrysler Building, my favorite building in NYC. There are lots of iconic buildings to choose from in NYC, but the Chrysler Building has always stood out to me as special. The Art Deco style. Looming statues overlooking the city. In my opinion, its far more interesting than the Emipire State Building. For those of you keeping score, this also complete another mission – Take a tour.

Since we were in the neighborhood, I took Roger to the lobby of the Grand Hyatt on 42nd St. This may seem like an odd thing to do. But if anyone has ever been to my house, they’ve probably seen a somewhat odd photo of this hotel lobby. I fell in love with it 15+ years ago. With its reflective surfaces and sprial staircase. It was my favorite photo I took while I was taking the photography class at Parson’s School. While everyone else was taking photos of people, I was looking up taking photos of buildings and hotel lobbies. Tragically, they opted to “renovate” and now its just plain ugly. So no photo to share here.

Then a subway ride and hearty jaunt over to the Whitney Museum. Sadly, by this point, I was in a ton of pain. My feet were hurting so bad it was hard to enjoy the museum. But I got a second wind after a little sit down on one of the outdoor patio exhibits and made it through the rest. It ended up being a really nice thing to do. There were some pieces I loved. One that inspired me to try and do something similar at home. There were also some pieces that were simply disturbing. Haunting. The exhibit theme was “America is Hard to See”, so many of the pieces made statements about dark sides of America. But a worthy experience. And, another mission complete.

It’s hard to believe that by this point, our day wasn’t nearly over. From there we scampered (ok, trudged) over to downtown/wall street and wandered around. We wandered here and there, looked at the new Freedom Tower but decided we didn’t yet need to see the memorial, and sat in a little park to recouperate for a bit.

Eventually made our way over to one of the most beautiful subway stations in NYC. This was my favorite thing of the day. Strange to most. But I was captivated by the architectural design of this station. I just kept wandering around saying “isn’t this just awesome”.  Well, decide for yourself I guess.

Not done yet. From there, we traveled down to the tip of Manhattan and hopped about the Staten Island Ferry. A free ferry ride between Manhattan and Staten Island. It provides lovely scenes of the Statue of Liberty and Manhattan skyline. Once on Staten Island, I hobbled over to local resteraunt for the best meal of the trip. Tapas at Besu. Delicious. Roasted corn crab cakes, chicken stuffed plantain (the whole plantain), and the sinful topper – fried goat cheese balls with honey lemon sauce. Damn. It was delicious. So with heavy tummies, we wobbled back to the ferry for the return ride to Manhattan. By this point I was in excrutiating pain and couldn’t find much joy in the ride. I could’t even bring myself to take photos of the beautiful scenes in front of me. But was happy that Roger still had some spunk left. He managed to capture some of the images of the Statue of Liberty and Skyline all lit up.

Back to the hotel. Gooped up my legs and feet with peppermint rub. So kindly reccommended by my friend Autumn. And proceeded to elevate, elevate, elevate. I slept with my feet up on a stack of pillows. My swollen feet, ankles, and calves were a sight to see. A scary sight. So our day didn’t turn out to be as great as I thought it might be. But there were plently of great moments, inbetween the excrutiating pain 🙂

I don’t want to sugar coat the pain I had. But I also didn’t want to let it ruin my experience. We just had to adjust a little.