Peter’s Place

It’s been a little more than two weeks since Kelly and I went to New York City to visit some family and do some sightseeing.  I posted pictures here right after, but being lazy, decided to let Kelly do the writing.  She just finally got around to it… then I did some editing so it flows with the pictures. 

Day 1 (May 31)

We started with a 3-hour drive to the Metro-North Railroad station in Beacon.  The fare is cheaper than getting on in Poughkeepsie, it’s quicker to get to, and the parking may have been cheaper too.  After the hour-long train ride, we got to the city early in the afternoon.  From the Marble Hill station at 225th Street, we walked down Broadway to meet Peter’s mother and grandfather at his favorite diner for lunch, near the corner of Broadway and 207th.  (We could have taken the bus, but getting a MetroCard there is a pain in the neck, and weekend bus service can be sporadic.)

After we finished we got settled in the apartment and took off for Erin’s work, which happens to be a real estate agent that’s selling multi-million dollar apartments. They actually have the apartments set up right at the office so we got to see what $5 million apartments look like. 

Next, we headed to the Nintendo World Store at Rockefeller Center.  The store is really cool, two floors of Nintendo fun! We got to try out the new Wii Fit as there were about 18 of them set up between the two floors.  There were also about two dozen Nintendo DS’s set up, each with a different game to sample.  Upstairs there was a mini-Nintendo museum which was really cool.  Pictured at left, a Nintendo computer that was the predecessor to the one-and-only NES we all had in the 80s.  They also had a real NES and all the other systems leading up to the present-day Wii.  There were also some kitschy knick knacks you could buy and of course about every Nintendo game you could come up, even complete Wiis!

Anyway, after that we headed for Ground Zero. I hadn’t seen it since 9/11 and I wanted to. While waiting for the train Peter was snapping pictures of a rat that was running around when my camera died.  Man, I was so upset!  Thankfully we came up with a solution on the way to Ground Zero.  The whole experience was very moving down there. All we did was walk around the perimeter for a little ways and took a bunch of pictures but it was touching.

After that we headed for the Staten Island Ferry. However, as we got closer the sun was setting and it seemed like rain so we stopped short, took some pics and headed towards dinner. We ended up at Stout, a restaurant where Erin used to work. Things were a little shaky on the way, some words were exchanged, but we were all just hungry and tired. 

After some food and some booze everyone was feeling better, so we decided to make the day a little longer and headed for M&Ms World.  Unfortunately the visit got cut a little short but I enjoyed myself while we were there.  Again things got testy and words were exchanged. I don’t want to get into it but it was quite dramatic. 

As we ended up waiting for the subway, things were resolved. Actually they were working on the track down there and I jokingly made the comment, “hey Peter, you want a roll of ‘caution’ tape?” Next thing I knew Erin had slyly made her way over and stuck it in her bag!  Mary Ellen then started saying there were cameras down there and she was going to get in trouble. So Erin tried to put it back, only for it to fall of and go rolling down the platform! Luckily it didn’t go far so Mary Ellen picked it up and rolled it back up. It was just thing kind of thing that could only happen to us and needed to happen to get us back in a good mood.

We finally made it home and immediately went to bed. Unfortunately somewhere along the line I started to feel sick. By the time bed rolled around I was very nauseous and very cold. I had been taking tylenol and pepto bismol all day but that only seemed to make the feeling go away.

Day 2 (June 1)

By the next morning I still wasn’t feeling well so Peter, Mary Ellen and Pete (grandpa) all went to breakfast while I relocated to the bedroom (we were on an air mattress in the living room) and slept.  When they got back I showered and we (Mary Ellen, Peter & I) headed to Mary Ellen’s aunt & uncle’s house. I still wasn’t feeling well but I put on a brave face and smiled. A bunch of Mary Ellen’s relatives (aunt, uncle, cousins, cousin’s children, etc.) were there from all over, including all the way from Ireland.

After that we went our separate ways, Mary Ellen headed back to Grandpa’s and then home to Rome while we went to Grand Central Terminal to meet up with Shaun, one of Peter’s friends that moved down there just a few months ago. While waiting for him we tried to hit up the transit museum/store but they closed up shop 5 minutes early. That was okay though because really, how much can you do in 5 minutes? Anyway, we met Shaun and headed towards Times Square. We ended up eating at a great place called Virgil’s Steakhouse.  Well, I think it was great. (Added by Peter: great, but a bit overpriced.)  I only had chicken noodle soup and I wasn’t too crazy about it. But Peter and Shaun liked their entrees.

By the time we started heading back the sun was setting again and I still wasn’t feeling great so we headed back to Grandpa’s. We called it an early night, only to wake up around 2 in the morning.  When we went to bed I was again freezing so I was all cuddled up.  My fever must have broken during the night, because I woke up terribly sweaty.   Peter was awake at that time too for some random reason (Peter: I remember feeling as if I had already slept the entire night, even though I was only asleep for an hour!) so we lay awake for a little bit and then tried to go back to sleep. After all we had a big day ahead of us!

Day 3 (June 2)

Finally Monday morning started out a little late, as Peter’s alarm didn’t go off, but fortunately Erin was getting up around the same time for work.  We made it to the train on time and headed for Yankee Stadium. Actually we got there pretty early.  The new stadium is looking cool. They have the framework done and a bunch of stuff inside, from what we could see from the train. So, we were supposed to be on a 9 AM tour of the old Yankee Stadium. But while waiting in line I noticed I had bought tickets for the previous Monday.  So Peter quick went inside to see what to do and the guy told us to go to the ticket window and exchange them. We did that, but the 9 AM was sold out so we had to take the 2 PM tickets.  Ok, no problem, we can kill 5 hours.

We headed back downtown and ate a nice sidewalk diner for breakfast. It was right down the road from Letterman so we stopped into the CBS store after breakfast so I could get some Lucy stuff. After that we actually went back to the Nintendo store so Peter could ask them a question and buy something he didn’t get when we were there before.  After that we walked more and ended up at Grand Central so Peter could hit the transit museum store.  I walked around for a little bit in there but ended up sitting outside the store for most of it, as I was getting tired. By that time we realized we should probably eat lunch since it would be hours before we had another chance. So we just went downstairs and ate at their “food court.”

We headed back to Yankee Stadium for our tour and it wasn’t too long before we lined up to go inside. Well, almost went inside. When we got up to the guy taking tickets he stopped us and asked us to step aside. Apparently there had been a mix-up that morning and they really shouldn’t have allowed us to exchange our tickets. They have a big “no refund/no exchanges” policy and they thought it was a computer error that caused us to get the wrong tickets. When in reality it was my mistake.  So they told us we couldn’t go inside. It was so frustrating to be right there, with valid tickets for that tour and not be able to go inside. I was so pissed at myself. I guess in the end it was a good thing because it was 2:00 and we wanted to get home kinda early.  If we went on the tour, it would’ve been another hour before we left. 

So we went to Grandpa’s, packed up and left. Grandpa escorted us to the train via taxi and even went down to the platform with us. We were pretty early but luckily an earlier train came by that we could grab.  Finally, after getting back to the car in Beacon we hit up the I-84 Diner for dinner and headed home.

All in all it was a good weekend. Sure there were hiccups (issues with Erin, attitudes, Yankee Stadium), but we enjoyed ourselves. I tried really hard all weekend to smile through the nausea but even I’ll admit by the end there I was gettin’ grouchy.  I can’t wait to go back. This time we’re going on the tour for real, with valid tickets

Thanks, Kelly for doing the writing!  I love you!