I mentionned our weekend trip was busy, right? Over thirty activities, guided tours and meals at the restaurant in four days – and not enough free time to miss and worry about our spawn (good thing!).
Our guide helped us discover the library’s architecture, the rejuvenated Grand Central, the paths of Central Park, the antique charm of Harlem, the financial and fashion districts. Our trip also included the ascension of the Empire State Building (yeah, yeah, I know what that reminds you and I’ll come back to it later on) and a “WaterTaxi” cruise at sunset. Between these visits, we used our time to shop a little (alright, a lot) from Chinatown to Tiffany’s (OMG shiny!), get lost in the subway and resort to taxi afterwards, slip into museums, hang out in Times Square and relax at the hotel by following up a swim in the pool with a drink at the bar. All of this scattered with yummy food in a series of nice restaurants, of course (we’ll come back to this in the next post).
The museums we chose to visit were the Natural History Museum and the Metropolitan. I had already visited the NHM when I was still in high school, but had not appreciated the incredible oldness of the dinosaur bones that fill the top floor. I thought the life experience I gained through all those years would allow me a better comprehension of them. Nah. These fossils are so ancient (millions of years), that it’s impossible to wrap one’s head around their age. (At least, I learned that birds descended from dinosaurs – don’t laugh please – and a little about how animal evolution works.)
I had better luck with the “younger” artifacts of ancient Egypt over at the Metropolitan Museum. The meticulous work of that people transcended the ages through the hieroglyphs, jewelery and parts of temples imported at the museum. Frank and I have stopped in rooms displaying statues of ancient Rome and Greece as well, and have admired antique Asian marvels, but we would have needed entire days to go through the impressive collection assembled there.
Of course, some details did not go as planned. Nothing major, but let’s say I would have done without finding out some subway lines did not run on weekends, that The Phantom of the Opera does not play on Sunday night and that my boots aren’t as comfortable as I initially thought – but oh well, two of these minor bugs led to the discovery that taxis in Manhattan offer payment by credit card and Interac, as well as interactive content tv and a type of positioning system “live” via Google Maps at the back.
Am I forgetting something? Oh yeah, my sister Karine will remind me if I forget to mention how was the visit to the Empire State Building. It was… windy. Far more windy than I remember from previous visits. But I don’t think that’s what she wanted to know… When we got to NewYork, our guide made a quick check and evaluated the wait for the ascension would take quite a while. With the group’s ok, he moved the visit to Sunday morning. We could have taken the tickets and gone that evening anyway, but at the cost of two wasted hours, which didn’t interest us much. Still, I had myself a dilemna: I still wanted Frank to be the first to read my little letter (which online publication was set for later that evening) and I didn’t feel like waiting for Sunday to give it to him either. We decided, then, to have dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe that night, and Frank had to pretend we were at over a thousand feet in the air, instead of in the Hard Rock’s underground dining room.
No matter, he was quite happy – and confused, which had me grinning… In ten years, you get to see most emotions pass on a partner’s face, but seeing them moved gets rarer. Frank accepted to wear my little token of love – a little stainless ring – and, when we got back, he offered me one as well. It’s our engagement, without ceremony, without institution or official papers, but personalized to us.
Oh, and Tal was asking about my favourite part of the trip… That’s a tough one. Besides that romantic dinner, I quite enjoyed the cruise at sunset (the view was superb, despite the cold wind and the overpopulated boat). I also savoured every second of the 3 minutes passed inside the financial district’s Tiffany’s, hehe, and the little drink shared with Frank at the hotel bar after the long Friday.
Alright, off to bed; another busy day tomorrow, even if it’s at home (and that the creatures with whom I’ll spend it are quite alive, and recent enough).
PS. AAASHH! The news reports a foot of snow in New Jersey today. We were quite lucky weather-wise, it seems.
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Xavier qui pédale, François qui roule... et Orly.
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Orléane is now... 
Xavier is now...