Mom arrived in NYC after a long storm delay at the airport, in the midst of a torrential downpour. When she finally arrived at my condo, at around 9pm, we headed next door to El Parador, the oldest Mexican restaurant in NYC, for some dinner. It was beautiful inside the unassuming restaurant – all dark wood with shimmering lanterns and candlelight. The next morning we woke up early and headed to the Empire State Building. Even though it was freezing cold, windy, and overcast, we thought we might as well take the trip up to the top. The one good thing about the weather was that it prevented massive hoards of other tourists from joining us at the Empire State Building. We breezed through queue after queue, and when we made it to the top, were greeted with beautiful sweeping views of The Big Apple.
Although the views were pretty, after about 10 minutes at the top, we quickly came back down. It was good to see, but it’s not something we would do ever do again. We headed along East 34th street, and came across the first Macy’s department store (where “Miracle on 34th Street” was based). There was a lot of construction going on inside, so we didn’t get to see the store in all its glory…but we did get to see one of the original wooden escalators, which was pretty cool.
From Macy’s we walked up Broadway, through the garment district, past all the little shops selling buttons and zippers. We arrived in Bryant Park and had a tasty little lunch at the Bryant Park Grille. My cobb salad was wonderful. After lunch we headed over to Times Square to get tickets to a Broadway show. We waited in line, in the pouring rain, for 2 hours (!!!) at the TKTS booth to get discounted tickets. When we got to the wicket, Mom picked “Cinderella” as the show to see. Later that evening, we took a cab over to Broadway to see the show. Our seats were in the third row, off to the side, which weren’t ideal – we could only see half the stage, and being soooo close up made the show lose some of its lustre. After the show we found a little diner off Broadway for some NY cheesecake and french fries, which we enjoyed as we watched our 80-year-old sassy waitress talk back to all her customers. Ha!
The next morning we decided to head South down First Ave, to see what we could find. We ended up doing a ton of walking, and eventually found a small hole-in-the-wall restaurant called “Little Poland”, where we warmed up with some steaming cabbage roles and white soup. We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering through Soho, Noho, the East Village, Stuyvesant, and Nolita. We perused vintage shops, visited a gluten-free bakery called “Babycakes”, and ran some errands. By around 4:00pm we were exhausted, but decided to go back to TKTS to get tickets to another Broadway show! We’re obsessed. This time there was no line, and we chose “The Trip to Bountiful”, starring Cuba Gooding Jr. and Vanessa Williams. It was phenomenal. It was a play, not a musical, and was about a cute old lady (Cicily Tyson) who is trying to get her over-bearing daughter-in-law and doting son to take her back to the little town of Bountiful. We really enjoyed it, and it made up for the less-than stellar Cinderella performance the night before!
I’m so glad Mom could make it to NY and help me get settled in – it was great being able to explore the city with her and get comfortable with my new condo and neighbourhood!
