severine
New member
Headed into the city again, this time to celebrate my birthday. The original plan was to check out the NY Burlesque Festival at B.B. King's on 42nd Street but my attempt to circumvent Ticketmaster's exorbitant fees only resulted in me not being able to score tickets at all: it sold out. With no real backup plan, I started wandering. Headed down 8th toward the Village, hoping to see a little more of it this time since I had a bodyguard with me. 
Accidentally found Magnolia Bakery, which was on my list last time (and I mean the real one, not the one in Grand Central Terminal). Had the most delicious white chocolate cheesecake ever from there--rich cheesecake, huge chunks of white chocolate, macadamia nuts, and bits of toffee--wonderful! More wandering and B was really hungry so we decided upon Jekyll & Hyde. I had been to the midtown location; this one was lousy. I forgot about the $4.50/person entertainment surcharge, the food was terrible, and they only took cash, so just about all my walking around money was eaten up in one lousy meal. The shots delivered in a plastic syringe were cute, but did not make up for the rest of the experience. I should have known better.
As we continued wandering after that in search of the World Trade Center site (B hadn't seen it before), we came upon a Maserati dealership. I've only ever seen Maseratis in NY. By the time we got to the World Trade Center site, we both had to pee very badly. A poor choice in maneuvering the area resulted in a walk down to Battery Park with no options for public toilets. Getting desperate, we worked our way back up Broadway til we luckily found a McD's that was open. Ahhh... Relieved of that stress, I remembered that the Brooklyn Bridge was nearby and that there was a walkway, so we checked that out. I'm terrified of heights and didn't really think this through--was not expecting that the walkway was *above* the cars. We made it barely over the water before turning around to head back. Neat experience that I would like to do again on fresher legs. But at that point, I was just too tired.
Again recalling vaguely the area from my last trip, I realized we weren't far from Chinatown. By the time we got there, pretty much everything was closed. We walked to where Canal and Mulberry Streets meet and headed over Mulberry, which brought us through Little Italy. Little Italy had a lot more life but the plentiful restaurants were mostly closing up shop for the night and we had already eaten anyway. We did try dropping into a bar where there was karaoke but the bartender pretty much ignored us and the crowd started to annoy me, so we left.
At this point, my feet were killing me. I wasn't intending to do a hike through NY on this trip and hadn't planned well with my footwear. But I didn't want to waste any more money than necessary after the huge dinner bill so we trudged on. Hit East Village, which was familiar from my last trip but I was just too tired to do any more investigating. Continued up 3rd Avenue until I finally couldn't take it any longer and B hailed a taxi at 3rd and 30th. (According to mapmyrun.com, the total was about 10.43 miles on foot when we gave up.) Back at Grand Central, where we just missed one train out and had to wait another 40 minutes for the next, we secured some water and a broccoli focaccia from Zaro's and waited.
The train left late and there was all kind of confusion due to different cars opening at different stops. Lots of college kids all riled up. There was this dude near us that was high or something. Fell asleep with an open can of beer in hand and the conductor had a hard time waking him to check his ticket. Inevitably, the beer can eventually crashed to the floor, spilling its contents as its owner slept on blissfully. The conductor had to practically throw him off at his stop; he slept right through it.
With delays on the train in addition to the delay in leaving, we didn't get into Katonah until about 3:45AM. Tired. Getting too old for this stuff, even though I originally had a grand plan to stay out all night and come back on the 5:40AM train. Yeah, glad we didn't do that. With a stop on the side of the road to rest, we didn't get into bed until 6:30AM. Still beat...
Definitely not a day as planned and I feel like I've been hit by a Mack truck, but it beats a boring night at home. Pictures on the way... I'm having some issues with uploading about 700MB of photos to flickr.
Edited - Here are some pictures... And the rest of the album can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/carrievibert/sets/72157625089298468
Magnolia Bakery in Grand Central Terminal
Grand Central Terminal Central Market
Petit Fours
Chrysler Building
Accidentally found Magnolia Bakery, which was on my list last time (and I mean the real one, not the one in Grand Central Terminal). Had the most delicious white chocolate cheesecake ever from there--rich cheesecake, huge chunks of white chocolate, macadamia nuts, and bits of toffee--wonderful! More wandering and B was really hungry so we decided upon Jekyll & Hyde. I had been to the midtown location; this one was lousy. I forgot about the $4.50/person entertainment surcharge, the food was terrible, and they only took cash, so just about all my walking around money was eaten up in one lousy meal. The shots delivered in a plastic syringe were cute, but did not make up for the rest of the experience. I should have known better.As we continued wandering after that in search of the World Trade Center site (B hadn't seen it before), we came upon a Maserati dealership. I've only ever seen Maseratis in NY. By the time we got to the World Trade Center site, we both had to pee very badly. A poor choice in maneuvering the area resulted in a walk down to Battery Park with no options for public toilets. Getting desperate, we worked our way back up Broadway til we luckily found a McD's that was open. Ahhh... Relieved of that stress, I remembered that the Brooklyn Bridge was nearby and that there was a walkway, so we checked that out. I'm terrified of heights and didn't really think this through--was not expecting that the walkway was *above* the cars. We made it barely over the water before turning around to head back. Neat experience that I would like to do again on fresher legs. But at that point, I was just too tired.
Again recalling vaguely the area from my last trip, I realized we weren't far from Chinatown. By the time we got there, pretty much everything was closed. We walked to where Canal and Mulberry Streets meet and headed over Mulberry, which brought us through Little Italy. Little Italy had a lot more life but the plentiful restaurants were mostly closing up shop for the night and we had already eaten anyway. We did try dropping into a bar where there was karaoke but the bartender pretty much ignored us and the crowd started to annoy me, so we left.
At this point, my feet were killing me. I wasn't intending to do a hike through NY on this trip and hadn't planned well with my footwear. But I didn't want to waste any more money than necessary after the huge dinner bill so we trudged on. Hit East Village, which was familiar from my last trip but I was just too tired to do any more investigating. Continued up 3rd Avenue until I finally couldn't take it any longer and B hailed a taxi at 3rd and 30th. (According to mapmyrun.com, the total was about 10.43 miles on foot when we gave up.) Back at Grand Central, where we just missed one train out and had to wait another 40 minutes for the next, we secured some water and a broccoli focaccia from Zaro's and waited.
The train left late and there was all kind of confusion due to different cars opening at different stops. Lots of college kids all riled up. There was this dude near us that was high or something. Fell asleep with an open can of beer in hand and the conductor had a hard time waking him to check his ticket. Inevitably, the beer can eventually crashed to the floor, spilling its contents as its owner slept on blissfully. The conductor had to practically throw him off at his stop; he slept right through it.
With delays on the train in addition to the delay in leaving, we didn't get into Katonah until about 3:45AM. Tired. Getting too old for this stuff, even though I originally had a grand plan to stay out all night and come back on the 5:40AM train. Yeah, glad we didn't do that. With a stop on the side of the road to rest, we didn't get into bed until 6:30AM. Still beat...
Definitely not a day as planned and I feel like I've been hit by a Mack truck, but it beats a boring night at home. Pictures on the way... I'm having some issues with uploading about 700MB of photos to flickr.
Edited - Here are some pictures... And the rest of the album can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/carrievibert/sets/72157625089298468
Magnolia Bakery in Grand Central Terminal
Grand Central Terminal Central Market
Petit Fours
Chrysler Building
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