Well...where do I begin? As Dee mentioned, I have been gone for 5 days. I was lucky enough to recieve an invitation from a good friend, Barb, to go with her and another friend, Sue, to New York City to attend the Westminster Dog show. I have been twice before, but it's one of those things that are just too fun to pass up. Barb and Sue both raise Belgian Malinois, a herding breed. Barb also has a Mini Bull Terrier. We flew out of Sacramento on Friday the 11th and arrived in NYC at JFK late that evening. A taxi in NYC is an experience all in itself. There was an accident on 6th Avenue, fire trucks, an ambulance and as we sat there blocked from moving, a guy got out of his car and started yelling at another guy. We thought it would come to fisticuffs. All we knew about the hotel we stayed at was that it was in mid-town Manhatten, used to be a Red Roof Inn and had been completely remodeled 6 months ago. At least it would be clean and hopefully handy to our needs.
Our plan was to spend Sat and Sun sightseeing and then spend all day Mon and Tues at the dog show. Saturday we headed out by taxi to pick up our show tickets to see "Wicked" on Broadway at the 2:00 matinee that day. The tickets were at an Italian restaurant near Times Square. Don't ask me why they were there - couldn't tell you. What we decided, however, was it was a place we wanted to eat. Smelled great and was REALLY nice inside.
We mosied on over to the theater as it was already about 1:00. Probably about a 3-4 block walk (lots of walking in NYC). I expected the show to be good, but it was more like completely fantastic. We all enjoyed it very much. We walked back through Time Square to see if we could get a table at the Italian Restaurant, but there were no reservations available until around 9:30 that night and that was MUCH too late for us. Back outside on the street we started to look around for a place to eat. There are HUNDREDS in that city. A few doors down was a place called the Heartland Brewery. Two couples had just stepped outside, so I just walked up and asked how it was. They liked it so we decided to go inside. Ended up having a truly wonderful meal - for about $180. Yep, that's what it costs to eat in NYC. Thank goodness it was great food.
Barb wanted to see Ground Zero and Sue wanted to see Greenwich Village, so we decided those were out goals for Sunday. It turns out that by walking out the hotel's front door and turning left, then walking for about 10 minutes, we ran straight into Penn Station (and Madison Square Garden). Penn Station is down below the Garden. At the Station we looked totally tourist as we studied a subway map and discussed how to get to the WTC (World Trade Center). We decided the "E" train would get us there. Turns out the "E" train was not running - it was under repair - naturally. So we were re-analyzing our choices when a nice lady with a Jamican accent stepped forward to help us sort it out. Turns out we needed the "A" train which is an express train, but then would have to get off at Fulton street and walk a few blocks to the WTC. As the train approached lower Manhatten, there was an announcement that that train would not stop at Fulton, but would continue on to Brooklyn. We had no desire to go to Brooklyn. We were just pulling into Chambers St and I decided we'd best hop off and regroup. We did and since we were too far to walk (Sue has bad knees) that far, we grabbed a taxi and took that down to Ground Zero. It was an interesting but somber visit to the site and Memorial/Museum. Next we took a taxi to Greenwich Village. A little walking around then a stop for cappuchinos (pepsi for me). A little more walking then a taxi back to the hotel as we had plans to meet friends of Barbs (other Malinois people) to go for Sushi for dinner. Not my choice, but I was trying to be adventurous - after all I did promise to practice that.
Dinner was in a little hole in the wall in..... Greenwich Village. About 1 block from where we were earlier in the day. Who knew? One lady in the group (4 of them) had been an exchange student to Japan while in college and knew Japanese and loved sushi. She did all the ordering and was nice enough to order me Vegetable sushi and vegetable tempura. Yes! I did try some tuna sushi and it was (sorry) disgusting. I did also try hot Saki and it was actually not bad, but nothing I'd go out of my way for. Dinner for the 7 of us was right around $750 dollars. Yes, I said $750.00. OMG!! Amazingly, Sue chose to pick up our part of the tab. Maybe she saw the stricken look on Barb's and my faces?? More later.
Becky
+0/-0 (can you believe it after 5 days of eating EVERYTHING!)
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