Why is she writing some random post about a Sunday morning in October? Read parts 1 and 2 of this series to catch up, then rejoin us here.
Sometime in the six o’clock hour, I woke up. I can’t help it. Or maybe it was closer to 7, I don’t know. One reason I don’t stay up late often is because my body is used to waking up before 6 a.m. and does not always adjust according to how late I was up the night before. Phil and I talked about our plan for the day while we let the kids sleep. He decided to wander down to find breakfast. Just after he left, our daughter woke up. Everyone was awake by the time my husband came back with beverages and some breakfast goodies. I made a cup of decaf coffee in the room, and we dressed so we could go back down for breakfast for all of us.
This, too, was a happening place. Sometimes, the hotel breakfast area looks like a dead zone in the morning, but ours was full of families and groups, many of whom were not speaking English. We took our time gaining sustenance for the day ahead. I was ready to get on with it. We needed to pack up our stuff and check out and drive to our first destination. Our time was limited and I wanted to ensure we could see as much as possible, so I was not as patient about how long breakfast was taking as I could have been.
We gathered our things and checked out of the hotel, found the car and paid for parking, then made our way toward Staten Island, where we planned to take the ferry across to Manhattan. It was a 30-minute drive, uneventful, and by the time we parked we had a short wait for the next ferry. We filled our water bottles and used the bathrooms and watched the people–again, so many people! When it was finally time to board the ferry, we followed the crush of people, aiming for an upper level view.
After we settled for a bit, we decided to go to the first level where we could slide open the windows and see the skyline and the Statue of Liberty as we approached. This ferry didn’t have an accessible deck. We hoped the return trip would give us that experience.
It’s been years since we visited the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. The kids were too young to remember, but I remembered much as we passed both places on the water. We are making plans to go back. It’s an unwritten tradition that our vacations have some kind of boat involved at least once. This year, we failed at that during the summer so being on the ferry before the year’s end fulfilled that “requirement” in my mind.
As we disembarked, I was unprepared for the onslaught of cruise vendors for the Statue of Liberty. At least half a dozen asked us if we were checking in for the statue tour or if we had cruise tickets. Our standard answer was “not today” because that was true, and it worked for a while until one vendor broke from script and said, “But if not today, when? I can get you a deal.” Maybe we should have clarified that we’re talking months from now, not days.
Approaching Manhattan from Battery Park was an entirely different experience than emerging from the subway closer to midtown. More tourists, for sure. Our plan was to wander toward the Wall Street area before heading further north toward Central Park for a midmorning brunch of bagels. We passed the raging bull statue and I was flabbergasted by the line of people waiting to get a picture.
We kept walking and found Trinity Church, where I insisted we spend some time because it was the closest I was going to get to satisfying my Hamilton obsession on this trip. (Sing it with me now: “You will never be satisfied!”)
Visiting cemeteries, especially old ones, is one of my favorite things to do in a city I’ve never been to. This one also held surprises. Not only was Alexander Hamilton buried there but so was Robert Fulton, who is kind of a big deal in our home city of Lancaster. I don’t know why seeing a grave is significant to me. It’s a connection in some ways. (I can still remember how moved I was to be standing in the church where William Shakespeare was buried in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. That was more than 20 years ago.) We wandered both sides of the church graveyard before exploring more of lower Manhattan.
We passed Federal Hall (closed on Sundays) and found the Fearless Girl statue and the New York Stock Exchange. We accidentally walked past the Trump building on Wall Street.
Then it was back to the subway and north to the vicinity of Central Park. We stood in a ridiculously long line for bagels–worth it!–and took our midmorning fare to Central Park where we sat on a bench listening to a man play and sing guitar while fending off small birds who were interested in our food. It was raining lightly, but I was mesmerized by the entire Central Park vibe.
We sort of had a plan as we walked, after finishing our bagels, and I finally felt my soul breathe and my shoulders relax. There were still people in the park, but the pace was not as frenetic. More strolling. Much less honking and sirens.
There was the famous stuff from movies and TV like the Bow Bridge and lesser known (to me) areas of the park like The Ramble. Huge rocks! In a park! In the middle of the city! The rain was picking up, but we could not be deterred. We made it to Belvedere Castle, taking the steps all the way to the top for more breathtaking city views. I needed this balance of being right in the middle of the city yet separate from the bustle.
Our plans for the day were flexible and we could have skipped Central Park. Even with the rain, I’m so glad we didn’t. Our final stop in the park was the visitor center and gift shop, and on the way there, as it poured, we found the Literary Walk and statues of writers. Even when they’re not alive, I’m at home among writers because it’s our words that outlive us and keep the connections strong. I mentioned Shakespeare earlier and bought myself an appropriate souvenir. (To find out more about that, you’ll have to subscribe to my monthly reading newsletter. I share about it there in next month’s issue, which posts on November 1.)
And then it poured. Like drenching rain. We brought no umbrellas with us to New York. Maybe we would have been less wet but I don’t think we would have been as efficient in our walking. I personally was almost stabbed in the eye several times just from trying to walk near people with umbrellas. So, we hung out under the covered portico in front of the gift shop for a little while, and it was here that I caught sight of the literal tail end of a New York City rat. (I reported to my brother that we saw two rats on our trip and he assured me that number was low for a visit to the city.)
Checking radar, we saw a small break in the rain and decided we had to keep moving, no matter what. Dinner awaited. Back on the train, this time to Chinatown in search of noodles to warm us.
The moment we emerged from the subway station in Chinatown was magical. Immediately, I knew we were somewhere different, and I loved it. Where we had been bombarded with offers to take a cruise to the Statue of Liberty in lower Manhattan, here I was offered purses, wallets and watches at least a dozen times. I don’t know what changed for me when we stepped into Chinatown but suddenly I got it. I understood why people were enamored of New York. Why they went back again and again and missed it if they hadn’t been in months or years. I’m still not exactly sure what clicked except that maybe I was more comfortable now that we were experiencing a part of the city that was less touristy than the other places we’d been.
X’ian Famous Foods was our home for hand-pulled noodles, and it was the exact thing we needed to refresh our soggy selves. We learned here that “regular” spicy is not “not spicy” as it might be if we were eating Americanized Chinese. We went back to the counter for a “not spicy” bowl for our daughter and ended up with extra noodles to take home. (Not a fail.) We were tired and ready to head home after dinner, but we wanted to explore a little more. In his research, Phil had found mention of a local market that had tanks of live sea animals. We wandered that market, marveling at the unfamiliar fruits and vegetables, mouths agape at the tanks of live eels and a crab bigger than any I’ve ever seen anywhere.
Leaving there, we realized we were close enough to Little Italy to pass through on our way back to the train. We stopped in an Italian market and passed a restaurant with cannolis in a case outside. We paused long enough–because cannolis were on our food list for the trip–that a server approached us. We mentioned that we wanted cannolis to go and were ushered inside where we were surrounded by the feel of Italy. According to my husband’s research, Little Italy is not as authentically Italian as it once was, but I would not have believed that standing inside this restaurant. Every person we encountered spoke with a heavy Italian accent. We ordered our cannolis and paid, then this happened:
As I was waiting for them to hand over the cannolis, I felt the urge to speak Italian. I know maybe two words of Italian but one of them was totally appropriate for the situation so as I took our cannolis, I said, “Grazie.” Every male head in the place turned and belted out a “thank you!” as we left, and I still can’t tell you why I did it except that it felt like a way to connect. As we walked out the door, my son said, “What does that mean?”
“‘Thank you’ in Italian,” I said.
“How do you know that?”
I sighed. “Because I visited Italy once.”
“Oh,” he said, and I remembered that I don’t always tell my kids about the life I had before we were a family.
On our way back to the Staten Island Ferry, we walked through yet another neighborhood. Leaving Little Italy, suddenly there were interesting window displays and fashion focused ads.
“Is this Soho?” I wondered aloud. We had to confirm it later because neither of us knew, but I was kind of excited to have guessed that without knowing it.
We made it to the ferry in time to take a different boat, one that had outside decks. But it was raining and chilly and we were already soaked. I remember being tired and having a little tension about where we were going to stand or sit. We climbed the stairs to the top level and then my daughter decided she had to go to the bathroom. So, we went back to the level with bathrooms but they were closed for cleaning. So, we went down one more level and used the bathrooms. The back deck of the ferry was on our way back to the stairs, so we took a moment to step out and watch the city fade away.
This may be my most enduring memory of the entire trip because it felt so iconic and stereotypical but I experienced it at just the right time. It was the perfect ending to our trip. We found the boys on the outer deck on the level we had left them and watched the city and the statue from there for a moment, too.
And then we were back on Staten Island, crawling into the car and starting the long drive back to Lancaster, tired, wet, chilled and full of too many memories to count.
—
New York, we’ll definitely be back, and that is maybe the biggest surprise of all. I worried at the start that I wouldn’t like New York, or that I’d like it too much. (Chicago, you’re still no. 1 in my heart). I’m eager to explore it more, and my husband and I have created a shared map of places to see the next time. And the time after that.
It may take us years, but we’ll keep going back until we’re sure we’ve seen all we want to see.
So, what should we add to our list?
