New York City Trip 2007

Friday, August 31

We were due to fly out of Wichita at 2:10pm but our flight was oversold by four. We offered to get bumped when we heard we would only be delayed an hour AND receive five round trip tickets to anywhere in the continental U.S. We ended up arriving in NYC two hours later rather than one, but still all in all a very good deal! Since our luggage went on ahead it was ready and waiting when we arrived so we grabbed it and a taxi and arrived at our Embassy Suites Hotel by 11:00pm ET.

Saturday, September 1

One of the highlights of our stay was the amazing breakfast buffet at our hotel. Every morning they served made to order omelets or scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, pancakes, rolls, muffins, bagels, fresh fruit, yogurt, cereal, oatmeal, coffees, teas, hot chocolate, pretty much everything you could think of for breakfast. We stuffed ourselves and grabbed an apple or pear and some yogurt to go and usually we weren’t hungry again until after 1:00pm or 2:00pm.

This was our “day pass” day at the US Open so we could get in the gates at 10:00am. By the time we navigated the subway (after a few wrong turns) I think we were there by 10:45am. It’s an amazing environment. It kind of reminds me of an Olympic Village. We watched some doubles on the outer courts then ended up finishing the day in Louis Armstrong stadium. We really like the flexibility of the day passes and if we ever go again, we definitely want to do that again.

We left around 6:30pm and stopped at Grand Central Station for supper and looked around. We caught a $7.00 cab back to the hotel that ended up being $15. (I think Mark’s tennis friend did not realize how far south our hotel was!) Every time the five of us step on a subway, it’s $10 so we thought the cab would be a better deal and it still was since we didn't have to figure out which way to turn when we exited the subway!

Sunday, Sept. 2

We didn’t get a real early start this morning and we didn’t have a real plan for the day. We started by meandering down along Battery Park along the harbor and enjoying the beautiful morning. We thought we would eventually come to the ferry to the Statue of Liberty or a tour bus company. We decided we should take the tour bus because it included the ferry ticket and would take us all around town for 48 hours. We were looking for the Gray Line but found City Sights instead. After purchasing those tickets we headed back to Battery Park and the ferry only to see the line so long we didn’t think we’d have time to do it justice and still make our Open ticket time. So back to the tour bus only this time we got on the wrong bus! We ended up on 1 ½ hour tour of Brooklyn guided by a former communist turned socialist turned democrat (see, evolution is true) Jew who grew up in Brooklyn and thought of himself as part tour guide, part stand up comedian, part singer and part world peace negotiator. As we drove through the neighborhood he told stories from his childhood and basically tried to convince us that Brooklyn was heaven on earth. As he drove through the Muslim-occupied neighborhoods he pointed out the Chinese restaurant and offered it as proof that all nationalities like Chinese food and if he could just sit down with world leaders over wantons and Szetchuan Beef, he was sure he could negotiate world peace.

We began to understand why he wasn’t working broadway, comedy clubs or at the UN and why his audience was held captive on a tour bus and made up at least partly of people who spoke little English.

A frustrating 1 ½ hours later we found a bathroom (no small feat in NYC) and the right bus and headed uptown. This time our guide had laryngitis and we strained to hear her descriptions of the passing skyscape. We got off in Times Square and immediately were incorporated into the human stream. We made our way to ESPN Zone and Toys R Us and were overwhelmed by the mass of crowds and noise. I asked the Toys R Us attendant if it was extra busy for Labor Day and she said, no, this was typical. They actually had traffic attendants with bull horns in Toys R Us. We decided we’d had enough and made our way to the relative peace and quiet of the subway for our trip out to Flushing.

This night we had reserved seats in Arthur Ashe stadium. We decided watching the meet from the blimp would be similar to our seat location. Both the matches were blow outs so the crowd was pretty tame and the atmosphere subdued. We connected with Beth a couple times and she and Mark took a picture holding the Lindsborg News Record for Ron. They were supposed to take it with another couple Lindsborg State Tennis winners but they had front row at the Grandstand in a tough five setter and they weren’t vacating their seats for the big news release.

We left before the matches were over, around 10:00pm and entered our busiest subway yet. A few stops down a very tipsy late 50’s/early 60ish woman entered who asked the guy beside her (who was beside Drew) if she could hold onto him. He agreed and she proceeded to make suggestive comments and repeated at least three times how a stranger can be your best friend. Our next stop brought two girlfriends who began fighting, cussing and throwing punches. Someone "helped" them off the train at the next stop. (If they hadn’t gone, we would have.) When we finally disembarked, Drew said, “I just saw a rated R movie on the subway! Welcome to New York.

When we got off the subway, we didn’t realize how close we were to the hotel and walked 3 blocks in the opposite direction before we figured out how to flag a cab (just stand on the corner and hold up your hand) to take us back to our hotel around 11:30pm.

Monday, Sept. 3

I told the boys at the end of this day, “we should write a travel brochure called “How to See NYC in 12 Hours!” We finally started to get the hang of this city and realized having a plan at the start of the day is way more efficient than just figuring it out as you go along.

We left our hotel about 9:15am (after another very satisfying breakfast) and walked past Ground Zero which is only a couple blocks from our hotel. We couldn’t see a lot as they are starting construction work on the Twin Tower’s replacement. Then we hailed a cab (we’re getting better!) and went to the Statue of Liberty Ferry. The line was very short and passed quickly with the help of a street musician who made fun of us, Kansas, the Jayhawks and Wildcats and the fact that we probably had no black people in our town! He really was funny and very learned. He knew a lot about most of the places people revealed were their homes.

We arrived at the island, took our touristy pictures, purchased our traditional Christmas ornament souvenir to commemorate the trip and headed for the ferry to begin our journey to Ellis Island. We were just congratulating ourselves on being at the front of the line as the ferry we were to board was unloading when we were asked to get off the dock and those left on the ferry hurredly disboarded. There was some confusion but no panic as the crowd was pushed back, back and still further back until we were 500’ from the boat. The police came by boat and helicopter and an hour later pronounced all is well and everyone boarded the ferry as though this happened every day and we shouldn’t worry our little heads about it. All in a days work in NYC I guess. We never heard for sure, but I’m guessing it was a bomb threat. I’m glad it wasn’t September 11th.

We arrived at Ellis and looked around some. I could have spent much more time there. They had a live 30 minute play, several documentaries as well as the research room, all of which we did not do. We did have time to use their computer to do a quick search and turned up a positive on Henry Holste, immigrating in 1913 so that was cool! We didn’t find any Dahlsten’s, Habigers, Johnstons and Lynn’s in the set of records where we found Henry. But you can also submit recent photos to the database if your family immigrated through Ellis and we found plenty of those names under that database, more than we had time to look through.

We ate lunch at the Ellis Island café then caught the ferry back to Manhattan and our bus took us uptown to the American Museum of Natural History. It was an excellent museum as far as the exhibits, I liked it even better than the Smithsonium. But I have never been to a museum more steeped in evolutionary promotion than this one. It was in nearly every exhibit. It would be interesting to go back in 10 years after evolution is completely disproven to see how they cover the fact that they promoted the equivalent of “the earth is flat” to so many millions of people. We only had two hours before the museum closed but thank goodness the ticket is “by donation” so we felt like we got our $20 worth.

From there, a walk across the street brought us to Central Park where we began our stroll across from the northwest to the southeast corner. Grant was in heaven climbing the large bolders/mini mountains. In spite of the fact that we had been walking all day, it was like his energy was renewed by the green space with boy adventures awaiting around every turn. Drew and Dean couldn’t resist either. Grant proclaimed “I’ve been waiting the whole trip for this!” It made me think of all the other 9 year old boys who don’t know what they are missing in the Midwest! We enjoyed the sights and sounds and the ice cream (even though it nearly broke our teeth.) After reentering the city, we found a large Sabarro recommended by the tour guide. It was excellent and reasonable!!! It had an amazing salad bar as well as pastas. We then headed to the Top of the Rock (Rockefeller Center) for a view of the city to end our day. This time we turned the correct direction getting off our subway and had no trouble finding our hotel. Finally, on our last night!

As we were watching the news, their teaser headline was “Will the cab drivers really strike?” which put fear in our hearts since that was our way to the airport the next morning. Upon watching the full story, they are due to strike on Wednesday, not Tuesday so we are leaving in the nick of time!

It was a great and memorable trip but we were all ready to go home. Our trips always make us appreciate home a little more. New Yorkers were much friendlier than I remembered, the city much cleaner and I really felt safe most of the time. The city has changed a great deal in 20 years but it is still New York. Still crowded and noisy and expensive. Great place to visit but I sure wouldn’t want to live there. I think the boys would go back someday. There are things we didn’t get to do that they have already said they would like to someday. But for now, they’ve had enough of NYC to last awhile.