Roam With Me -- NYC from the Today Show to St. Patrick's Cathedral to the Brooklyn Bridge and the Strand Bookstore -- June 12-13, 2017

Now for the last two full days we spent in New York City. The final day was the 14th, and only the early part was spent in Manhattan at my favorite clothing store, New York and Company, where I scored 4 items for the price of 1! After that, we were at LaGuardia awaiting our flight home (which got cancelled, so they sent us to Des Moines instead of Omaha, and my dad had to drive five hours to come get us!), and that time was not enjoyable in the least, so that's all I'm saying about that last day.

As to the two leading up to it, they were great ones full of more adventures and sightseeing.

On the 12th, Kim and I got up early and let my kids sleep in while he and I headed over a few blocks to Rockefeller Center where they film the Today Show. Now, I seldom watch it, but he's been a longtime fan of the show, so we decided to go see if we could actually become part of the crowd of waving people you always see outside of the show on TV. Turns out it was a really simple thing to do.

We were walking along West 50th Street, keeping our eyes peeled for any sign of the show, and about the time I was saying something like, "It should be around here somewhere," we suddenly came upon an opening with a cop standing by a movable barricade, and when I said something like, "Well, I'll be, here it is," she asked, "You guys coming in?" I told her we wanted to, and she pointed us to the next building and told us to go through it, come out the other side and enter from the other street side, so we did.

We had to pass through a quick security check, but it was very quick, and then we were inside the blocked off area. Since we had arrived after 7:00 a.m., we didn't get into the main group of people -- we probably could have, but I didn't feel the need to push our way in there -- but we had a front seat sort of view of a grilling area they were going to be using later in the show. We also were in the shade of the building there which was really nice because it was already a hot morning. 

Turns out the grilling segment was in honor of Father's Day, which was coming up, and there were about 12 fathers from the area who had been chosen to come grill with a famous chef  -- I had to look it up on the Today Show archives to find out, but it was Tim Love for anyone of you who know who that is. So, we got to stand there and watch the crew get a bunch of grilling stations ready, and we also were able to see Al, Savannah and Hoda and some other people who are on the Today Show come outside for part of the show. Again, I don't watch the show, so I'm not totally up on who all those people are, but their guest was Seth Meyers.

I've watched a few of the videos in the Today's archive of that day, and I saw myself a couple of times. Since there was a delay of an hour to when it was airing back home, I was able to text my mom and let her know where to look for us and when. She said she saw us quite a few times, including once when the cameraman came by quickly for all of us to wave. It was a fun experience overall, but we definitely got to see how the crew takes forever to set up a segment that then runs about five minutes -- and those men never did get their steaks grilled, but they all did get a brand new grill out of the experience!

After we left the show, we walked over to St. Patrick's Cathedral, which was another place high on Kim's list of sites he wanted to see. He's Catholic; I'm not religious, but I do enjoy visiting beautiful cathedrals around the world, and that is definitely a pretty church.

He took a moment to light some candles for special people, and he paused to kneel at the main altar. I quietly looked around and respectfully took a few photos -- no flash -- of some of the most beautiful aspects of the church. It is truly a lovely place. 

Then we went to my kind of place -- a Harley-Davidson dealer. Woohoo. I bought a black t-shirt that depicts the NYC skyline, and I got another poker chip for my slowly growing collection.

However, while we were there I had perhaps one of the funniest bathroom experiences of my life. Most stores won't let you use the restrooms or claim they don't have one at all (yeah, right), but by this time I needed a restroom, so I asked the clerk if I could please use their restroom before I started looking. He looked me up and down, saw I was already wearing a H-D t-shirt and then said in what I thought was a deep Russian accent, "For you, make exception." He then pointed to a narrow door and told me where the light switch was located. I opened the door to find a long and very narrow room with a toilet whose bowl faced sideways and almost touched the opposite wall. I literally had to climb over it to get to the sink at the back of the long room. It was weird. I later asked the clerk where he and the other clerk were from when I overheard them speaking to each other in a language that sounded Russian to me. Turns out he was from Azerbaijan, and the other guy was from the country of Georgia. Anyway, I'll never forget my visit to that Harley store!

One of the main places I wanted to visit was the Strand Bookstore, and it was on our list for the next day, but I knew there was a kiosk on the corner by Central Park, so we walked over there to check it out. I got a couple books there, but I saved my main browsing for tomorrow at the actual store.

Then it was time to go get my kids. Look how much we'd accomplished while they'd slept in!

Our first stop all together after lunch was Nike Town for my son, the sports' nut. This is a five story building full of everything Nike. He was in heaven. He got the new LeBron shoes and a pair of red shorts, the color of the school where he'll be teaching. The store has a special shoe elevator that sends up the size of shoes you need to try on after the sales clerk calls down to let somebody in the basement know. 

We stepped into Trump tower, but we didn't see a lot there. It was just to say we had more than for any other reason. 

Then we went to the main branch of the New York City library -- the famous one with the lions out front and with the beautiful Rose Reading Room. So cool. It is high on my list of places to revisit someday when I'm alone, so I can just go in there and sit for a few hours and read. 

Bryant Park is behind it, and it has special reading areas with books available as well. That's a place I'd be spending many a free day sitting and reading if I lived in NYC.

We walked around a bit more and wandered back through Times Square, stopping at a few stores. One was the M & M giant store where another funny thing happened. My daughter and I were paying for our purchases, and two of the clerks were wrapping our mugs in lots and lots of paper. They asked us where we were from, and I told them. They seemed really surprised when I said, "Nebraska," so I thought I'd surprise them even more. I told them that my town has about 1500 people in it, and they couldn't believe it. Then I told them there was a town nearby with only one person in it. The one lady's eyes got really big, and then she exclaimed, "Naw, you all are shittin' me!" I assured her I wasn't, but from then on, anytime we've been surprised by something, we look at each other and say in our best Southern drawl, which she had, "Naw, you all are shittin' me!" 

Supper that night was at an Irish Pub near the hotel where I ordered Bangers and Mash. Turns out that's just sausages and mashed potatoes, but I didn't know that until after I'd ordered it. Oh well.

The last full day in NYC started with a long subway ride across to Brooklyn -- meaning we passed under the East River, which was weird to realize, but otherwise uneventful. We met up with Jakub again for the day in Cadman Park, and from there we headed up to the pedestrian walkway across the iconic bridge. 

It's only one mile across, so it's not a big deal to walk it. The biggest thing is making sure to not accidentally step in the path of the numerous bicyclists crossing the bridge on the same walkway -- walkers and bikers each have their own sides, but some of the bikers really come whizzing by, so you still have to be careful.

I loved the views from the bridge and looking up at the structure of the bridge. 

Once across, we were in the heart of the heart of NYC. City Hall was right in front of us, and numerous other important government buildings were all around the area. 

We found a nearby pizzeria and had our cheapest meal of our stay in NYC. It was a large pizza that easily fed all five of us -- with drinks, it came to about 35 dollars!

Then we walked through Chinatown and Little Italy, which seems to have been overtaken by Chinatown making it perhaps Even Littler Italy? The day was really hot by then, so we cooled off a little in Washington Square Park before we headed to the store I'd long been anxious to see -- the Strand!

It's a three story bookstore which sells both new and used books along with some quite rare ones. It boasts 18 miles of books, and I believe it. I spent a couple hours there, and I would have stayed longer, but I hated to keep the rest waiting much more. 

I bought five books there, a Strand tote bag, some postcards and a New Yorker magnet for my refrigerator collection. Here are my book purchases for those interested: "The Underground Railroad" by Colson Whitehead to add to my full Pulitzer Prize winners of fiction collection; "Thirty Stories" by Kay Boyle, an out-of-print 1946 edition; "Mildred Pierce" by James M. Cain; "The Patron Saint of Lost Dogs" by Nick Trout, which I started reading on the plane ride home and quickly finished later; "New York Stories: Everyman Pocket Classics," which I bought because I just had to, and then the two I'd bought at the Strand kiosk by Central Park were "The Revenant" by Michael Punke, and "Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage" by Alice Munro.

After we left the store, we walked and walked all the way back to the hotel, passing the Flatiron Building and Madison Square Garden.
The giant blister on my foot was testament to the amount of walking we'd done over the past few days, but it was well worth it. 





New York, thanks for the memories.