post NYC

Where to start. Dylan didn't like Manhattan. I have always loved it. Maybe because it is so big and busy and when I manage to go anywhere and do anything I feel a sense of accomplishment. :) After all of Dylan's complaining, Brad & I did realize we have always come in the November - December time frame where the weather is cold and the air is crisp, everyone is in the holiday spirit, the stores are all decorated.... The air is quite different when it is 99 degrees outside and it seems like all the tourists in the entire universe are walking the streets in Times Square. It was crowded and STIIIINKY! And not just us visitors - the streets and the subways stink too. And we had to go to 4 or 5 subways before anyone had a subway map. Ugh. It even wore some of the shine off my NYC memories :)

We arrived around 4pm, checked into a dinky hotel w/ a dinky elevator, and a dinky room. We had one double and a twin. There was barely room to walk on one side of the beds and no room on the other. I personally could not turn around in the bathroom unless I got into the shower. Dylan was NOT impressed right from the start. We left the room and walked down to Columbus Circle where we stopped at the Time Warner building to cool off. Dylan loved the Bose store and the Samsung store. (They display Samsung laptops in the store but won't sell them in the US but they say that Dell and HP laptops contain a lot of Samsung parts.) They had the largest LCD and Plasma TVs I have ever seen - quite fun. And Dylan had Bose demo their entertainments system for us (it ONLY runs around $5000 - of course, that doesn't include the TV).

We figured out enough of the subway to ride it near Times Square without a map and finally found the TKTS booth. (They moved it Mom - while they build a brand new booth there in the middle of Times Square.) We were able to get 3 tickets to SPAMALOT - the play based on Montey Python's Holy Grail movie. We got these 3 hours before the play starts and less than a block from Times Square and Dylan says... "What are we going to DO for THREE HOURS?" We managed to kill time at Planet Hollywood AND the largest toy store in the nation (Toys-R-Us in Times Square) and get to the play in time for Dylan to buy a button that says "I fart in your general direction." (A line from the movie and play.) The play was hilarious and we managed the trip from the theater area to our hotel just off Central Park West.

The second day we went to the Natural History museum. Brad & Dylan could easily spend a week in that place. It is pretty amazing and had a planetarium show about collisions in space between stars, galaxies, etc. An IMAX show about the latest dinosaur finds in the Gobi desert and in the badlands in the Southwest US (New Mexico or Arizona??? we have already forgotten) and a display about where the ideas for mythical creatures such as Unicorns and Big Foot and the like probably get started. Astronomy stuff, biology stuff, zoology stuff. Not really my kind of stuff ... until we got to the GEM HALL :). I thought of my sister Pam when I saw this HUGE star saphire. It was gorgeous. I bought a postcard of it but it doesn't do it justice because you can't tell how big it is and it doesn't show the color well. It is bigger than a golf ball but smaller than a baseball, I think. Not as colorful - more white but still beautiful. We finally got so exhausted we left. Not because we saw everything.

We took a break in our tiny room then headed back downtown on the subway to the TKTS booth. I convinced Dylan & Brad to go see CHICAGO :) We had fun watching it. For those of us who are older: Harry Hamlin and his wife (from dancing w/ the stars and Days of our Lives) were starring. The other actors were actually better in the play -- but it was great fun and the audience stayed to hear the orchestra play "All that Jazz" one more time after the play. Just to annoy Dylan I did "Jazz Hands" all the way back to the room on the subway and walk.

This morning we got up and out by 7:30 in order to get to Rockefeller to see the NBC tour. Finally we had come up with something that Dylan was excited about. He wanted to see the SNL studio. We found some T-shirts Dylan wanted (I think these are the first soveniers he has purchased aside from the minature bats we get at the baseball fields.) They are pretty funny and the tour was fun. Then we went to FAO Scwartz, the Apple Store (yes - we went to the apple store the same day that the IPhone is coming out. There were tons of 'true geeks' waiting in line in their lawn chairs with their mac laptops. They go on sale @ 6p.m. The news channels were on hand.) We walked back through Central Park trying to find Strawberry Fields. Dylan doesn't remember any of his previous trips to Central Park. Brad kept saying "We took you to play there. We went to a fountain over that way." No Memories. :(

Finally found strawberry fields and then left our tiny room and picked up our van at the La Guardia parking garage and headed to the Philadelphia area. We cannot believe that ANYONE would live in New Jersey and drive in that traffic. It would come to a complete stop off and on almost the whole way here. Dylan actually took a nap on the way here. Our room in the Philadelphia suburbs is about 3 x the size of our manhattan one. Location, location, location. Must be true. Miss you all. Please wish Janice & Gary a Happy Anniversary. Happy Birthday Andy (our card will be late but it will be postmarked from NYC).

The boys say I have written a BOOK! Love you all! -- Michelle