New York in the Rain

On Friday, we slept late, then had a late breakfast at Au Bon Pain at the bus terminal before Ubering to the Neue Galerie.  It didn't open until 11:00, so there was no hurry.  It was also raining, but fortunately, we both had umbrellas.  If we hadn't, we could have picked one up on any corner in the Times Square area. :) They only let a few people in at a time, so we ended up waiting in line for just about an hour.  We had a couple of entertaining gay guys in front of us, though, so the eavesdropping was good.  The Neue Galerie was incredible!  It is a former mansion, and even without the art, the rooms were beautiful, with dark wood and lots of marble.  The special exhibit, Klimt and the Golden Age of Vienna, was stunning.  Both of the Adele Bloch-Bauer portraits, the famous Woman in Gold, and another in red, and several other full length Klimt paintings, furniture and jewelry from the 1920's - it was so great.  And because they didn't let a ton of people in at once, it was not crowded so you could sit and contemplate and study as long as you wanted.

We had lunch at the Viennese cafe in the basement of the mansion, which was pricey but fun.  Then we got an Uber back to the hotel to get ready for our separate evening activities - Cathy was going to a supper club with Megan for a concert, and I was going to the Metropolitan Opera.  The Uber ride, though, took over an HOUR to get back to the hotel.  Traffic was just insane - it was Friday afternoon, and we just inched along.  The driver was nice, though, and it wasn't unpleasant, just frustratingly slow.  In spite of the traffic problem, Cathy took an Uber to her supper club, but I opted for the subway to Lincoln Center.

The subway stop at Lincoln Center was only four stops away from the hotel, I think, and it was directly under Lincoln Center.  I didn't know if it would be a block away or what, but I didn't have to go outside.  I followed a bunch of other people heading in the direction of the opera house, and eventually found myself in the lobby, staring up at the gorgeous crystal chandeliers.  A friendly usher told me which level to go to to get a good picture of the lobby.  My seat was in a side box in the balcony, but it was not the uppermost level (which I would have expected for $35).  I could not see the far right side of the stage, but I didn't miss much.  My seat had a small box that sat at waist level which gave me English translations of the French libretto.  The show itself, Guillaume Tell, was interesting but odd.  The music was good, but the staging was sort of modern, I guess.  One group of people wore offwhite, the other wore grey, There were a few other people in black, and one woman in a red hat, but the costumes were sort of drapey, robe affairs, not period costume like I expected.  And it was five hours long.  Five. hours.  It started at 6:30 and got out just before 11:30, with a 30 minute intermission.  By the end, I was tired of sitting, and tired of listening.  Afterward, I took the elevator back down to the concourse level, and asked a couple who seemed to know where they were going if I could walk with them back to the subway.  There were so many turns on the way in that I wasn't sure how to get back there.  They turned out to be from Brooklyn, but, as the wife told me, her husband was raised in the city and knows everything.  In fact, he told me that if I got on the first two cars, when we got to the 42nd St stop, those cars would actually be under 40th St, where I was going - and he was right.

As I emerged from the subway, it started to rain again, but I didn't have my umbrella.  I just chugged along in the drizzle, What else could I do?  Fortunately, most of the block before the hotel was under cover, since there was construction going on above, but I probably looked like a drowned rat when I slopped into the hotel lobby.

New Trip to New York

The world has changed since I last blogged here.  The unimaginable has happened, and DJT has been elected president.  Heartbreaking and terrifying, it gets worse every day.  But before that happened, I went back to NYC with Cathy.

I flew through Chicago this time, instead of Atlanta, so I had a chance to grab some caramel corn and Chicago Mix from Garrett's as a surprise for Cathy in between flights.  I took a cab from La Guardia, but due to mid-afternoon traffic, it took nearly an hour to get to the hotel, which turned out to be right across the street from the Port Authority bus terminal (which is right across the cross street from the New York Times).  The Empire State Building was visible from our window (ok, so you had to get close to the window and look sharp left to see it, but still...).  I went out to explore, walked through Times Square, and ended up at Bryant Park, home of NY Fashion Week, where they were setting up a Christmas Village and ice skating rink.  I know I didn't see it at its best, due to the construction zone atmosphere, but Bryant Park is really cute.  I got a great picture of the Chrysler Building from there, too.  When I got back to the hotel, I happened on a free "happy hour" buffet with several yummy. hot snacky things - little cheeseburger sliders, fried green beans with chipotle dip, etc. (When I tried to take Cathy the next night, though, it turned out that it was only on Wednesdays. Bummer.)

The next morning, we had breakfast at Carlo's Bakery, home of the Cake Boss from TLC.  It isn't the home bakery, of course, which is in NJ, but it was still fun to have one of their famous "lobster tail" pastries.  We then headed for the World Trade Center area to see the Oculus (our "big white thing" from the Feb trip, which wasn't yet open then). The Oculus is a Calatrava-designed building next to Ground Zero which is both a subway hub (still being developed) and a high-end shopping mall.  It is absolutely stunning, but we didn't spend any time going into stores - we weren't dressed well enough.  :)

From there, we walked to St Paul's Chapel, the home church of George Washington.  Though it is only a couple of blocks from Ground Zero, it sustained no damage at all during 9/11, and was used as a rest station for rescue workers during that time.  They were supposed to have a small 9/11 museum, but it apparently has been moved to a location across the street.  The chapel is undergoing some restoration, and the Washington pew had been removed, but there were still interesting things to see there.  St Paul's Chapel was built as a satellite church of Trinity Church, to serve the outlying "country" people.  The funny thing is that Trinity Church is only a few blocks away.  I can't imagine how the chapel could be in the country and Trinity in the city.  You can practically see one from the other, they are so close together.

We then walked down to Trinity Church to see Alexander Hamilton's grave and attend a free concert in the church.  The concert was somewhat disappointing.  The schedule said it was supposed to be Irish fiddle music, but it was something involving subway and city sounds (which we had been hearing all day on the street).  Still, it was nice to see the church.  There was a geocache in the churchyard, but grabbing it would have involved climbing up onto a big statue/fountain thing (and probably needing a boost to get up onto the first level).  Yeah....no.

In the evening, we met up with Megan to have dinner at Carnegie Deli, which was scheduled to close forever at the end of the year.  This time we only waited in line for maybe 45 minutes.  Megan and Cathy split one of their signature ENORMOUS pastrami sandwiches, and I had the absolute best grilled cheese on marble rye with tomatoes and bacon.  When Cathy told Megan about the Garrett's popcorn, Megan said, "That's the advantage of arriving in Penn Station".  Turns out that Penn Station, where Cathy's train arrived, has a Garrett's!  Still, mine came from the Chicago motherland, so it's still better. :P

Making Up for Lost Time

OK, yeah, I know it's been awhile.  But the summer has been busy.

First was my trip to Spain on Apr 28 (in my blog AngloTres.blogspot.com).
Then the day after I got back, Caleigh graduated from Eureka College.  Then in July, she and Kody moved into a house by Mackinaw River that Lynda and David actually bought and are renting to them until such time as they can afford to buy it from them.

In the middle of July, a robin built a nest on a shelf in the garden center, and we had twelve days of fun watching the babies grow day by day.  We kept them hidden so that customers might not come across them, but they were pretty visible.  I was off for two days during the twelve, and when I came back, it seemed like they had almost doubled in size!  It was really incredible how fast they went from tiny bug-eyed hatchlings to three babies that could no longer fit into the same nest and were ready to fly.

On July 18, we started my bathroom project.  I had been saving up gift cards and waiting for David to be available to work on my redoing my bathtub surround.  I actually had nearly enough in gift cards (some were actual gifts, others were from online places where you can earn points and cash them in for gift cards) to pay for the bulk of the material.  But every day it seemed like there was something else we needed to go get, and in the end, I think I added up that the whole project came to about $600 of materials.  Fortunately, we had done the floor and new vanity in 2010, because just the tub enclosure, painting, new light fixture, and fittings took just over a week.  During that time I had to shower at the gym or at Mom and Dad's, since ours was out of order.  But - it is BEAUTIFUL!  And it's exactly what I envisioned.  But even now in October, there are still a couple of small projects to finish in there that had to wait because of other projects that took priority (more about that later).  Just waiting on the vertical grab bar to be replaced, and the towel bar to be installed, then I can add the wall art (once I know how high the towel bar will hang).  I love the addition of a horizontal grab bar, which comes in handy all the time, too.

In August, Norma passed away in Arizona, and Mom and I flew out to help (Sunday Aug 14).  Just before reaching Tucson, Mom, who had been sleeping with her head on her arms on her tray table, sat up, coughed, spit out her teeth, and passed out.  I could not get any response from her at first, and other passengers called the flight attendants, who found a doctor.  She finally came around, was checked out by the doctor onboard, met by paramedics who took her off the plane, and thoroughly checked out before they took us to the hotel shuttle stop.  We went back to the airport the next day to get our rental car (it was nearly midnight and the airport was closed, anyway).  There was no funeral, only an open house kind of gathering on Monday afternoon, for which we mostly just kept the food trays filled, since we didn't know any of her friends.  On Tuesday, Mom and I visited the San Xavier Mission (between Tucson and Green Valley, where Norma lived), and had a nice conversation with a Native American guy who ran one of the little shops across the way.  When we got to the house, they had decided not to do anything at all. I can understand that, after the stress of the days leading up to Monday, and Monday itself, but we were only there that day if they wanted our help.  So we ended up cleaning out Norma's closet and packing things up for donation.  Mom brought home five pairs of shoes, and I brought home three.

On Aug 30, Lynda and David were getting a new roof from the same company I contracted.  The company helps you push through an insurance claim, and all you pay is the deductible.  In my case, that was $1000, in David's it was $5000 (so they had both houses and the small garage done for the same deductible).  Unfortunately, though, during the day, while the roof was completely off, there was a pop-up storm cell that dumped 1.5 inches of rain on the unprotected house.  Most of the interior walls had to be removed in order to try to dry the insulation, the family room ceiling and walls had to come down, all of the flooring has to go, lots of stuff had to be pitched from the basement store room.  In short, the rain hit the roof and flowed down into every exterior wall, to the basement.  It is a massive mess, and if they are lucky, it all might be put back together by Christmas.  My roof, begun on Sept 1 and finished on Sept 2, only resulted in a broken rain gauge (which they paid for).

The next day, we all moved Braden to his new apartment in Chicago, where he is living with Eric from his band, Red Scarves.  He is working at a tea place called Argo Tea, which they tell me is like a Starbucks for tea.

Then I got new gutters in mid-September, Chad moved out (FINALLY), and Kym and I volunteered for the Insane Inflatables 5K Run to benefit Relay for Life.

Courtney's wedding is on Saturday, at the farm, outside.  We have been told to come dressed for a cookout.  I suspect that Brandon's family will come dressed nicer than that and his extended family will wonder what the hell is wrong with us.  Jenny made a flower arrangement to go on top of an arbor that they will be married under, and she and I will assemble the whole thing on Saturday morning.  Friday night we are doing boutonnieres, etc. after the rehearsal and dinner at Fiesta Ranchera.  Mom and I have spent hours making little bags of candy corn as favors.  The food will be pulled pork and chicken, a mashed potato bar, baked beans, cole slaw, green beans, a corn dish, cornbread, and various desserts.  Courtney has said that she didn't want anything fancy, so it's going to basically be a cookout with a wedding thrown in.  But it should be nice, and the weather will cooperate (probably).  If not, there will be a scramble because they are planning to park cars in the empty field.  If it's muddy.....we will see.

And then next week (Wed) I am off on another little trip to NYC!
Cathy is going late this week up to Syracuse, where Michael lives, then she is taking the train to NYC on Wed.  I will be there mid-afternoon myself.  We tried to find an AirB&B, but were unsuccessful, so I asked Lynda if she could spare us some points, and she put us up at the Four Points by Sheraton Midtown Times Square!  I'll get there three hours or so before Cathy, but I'm sure I can find something to occupy my time!  For three hours.  In Times Square.  On Friday, Cathy and Megan are going to a concert that they had tickets for, while I go to the Metropolitan Opera (win-win).  Other plans include seeing Wall St and Trinity Church, Neue Galerie (for sure, this time), maybe a bus tour, a ferry past the Brooklyn Bridge, visiting Megan's school, and who knows what else.  On Saturday morning we will move to Megans's for one night.  Then on Sunday, we will go together to the airport, where she will leave and I will catch the shuttle to my airport hotel (couldn't work it out to leave until very early Monday morning).

The garden center season is almost over, but I am still outside and likely will remain there until I get back from NYC.  I work three days this week, and two next week before I go.  The tax place has officially "hired" me again, and all of the documentation is finished.  I renew my EA certification in November.

And once we get past the wedding and NYC trip, I can start planning in earnest for the Spain trip I booked a few days ago.  Someone tipped me off to an unbelieveable fare from Chicago to Paris - $472!  (For comparison, this past May, using SkyMiles for a $300 discount, my fare was $1000.)  Even with the shuttle to O'Hare ($54), a round trip from Paris to Madrid on EasyJet ($115), an airport hotel in Paris on the way back ($53), and an extra day in Madrid at my expense ($55), I'm still miles ahead on price.  And the way the flights work out,  I will have nearly 12 hours on the ground in Paris, where I have never been, to maybe be able to take a quick bus tour ($32) and get a look around!  Still working out logistics like what to do with my bag, but I have months to figure it out.  When I last asked him, it was too early to know if Jorge will be available to get together between the end of my Vaughantown week (May 19) and when I fly back to Paris on the 24th.  We'll see.  Again, plenty of time to figure it out.

So we are all caught up!  I'm off now to set up my newest Anglo blog.

Headed Home

In the morning, Megan was up and off to work before either of us got up.  We got cleaned up and organized, and set out for the airport at about 8:30.  It was a half-hour drive, and my flight was at 11:05.  Cathy's wasn't until 2:00 or so, but she said she could either wait in Megan's apartment or at the airport, and the people-watching was better at the airport.  That's how we could share an Uber.  I called it, then we figured out how to share the fare as we drove.  My $10 credit made my fare $5.00, and hers was $15.  We dropped her at her terminal, then had to actually leave the airport and circle back around to get to my terminal.  I don't know how they do it, I really don't.  The traffic would kill me.

Once I was at my terminal, I bought some cereal and orange juice for breakfast and headed for my gate.  When I reached it, I wasn't at all sure I was in the right place.  It was full of little single-person booths with an internet-connected tablet attached.  There was also a high counter with stations all along it.  No regular chairs attached to each other with nowhere to set your stuff. It looked like some kind of higher-level business lounge or something. Each booth and station had a power hookup, too, so I charged my phone while I ate, surfed the net, and waited.

The flights home were uneventful.  In Atlanta, I bought a bottle of diet Coke, then found a place to buy a sandwich for lunch.  They saw the pop in my hand and tried to charge me for it, since they sold the same bottles (note to self: put any recently purchased drinks, etc., away before attempting to buy anything else, particularly since most places sell bottle of diet Coke even if they also sell fountain drinks).

It was such a great trip!  I came home feeling like it had been a week or more instead of just four days (really, just 2 1/2 days plus Monday morning, which was spent traveling to the airport).  I can hardly wait to go back!  There is already some talk about a possible return in October, so we will see.  All in all, I didn't find it as overwhelming a place as I had imagined.  The streets are numbered south to north, and the metro and buses are easy to understand. We all got along well, and we did a mix of what everyone wanted to do - and I already have a list of things I want to do next time, whenever that may be.

Third Piece of the Apple

Our day began with absolutely beautiful weather!  I was so glad that I had thrown my windbreaker into my bag, because the winter coat would have been way too much.  It was sunny, and near 60 degrees.  Our plan for the day was brunch at a little Cuban bistro near Megan's, then visiting Central Park.

Brunch was incredible!  The place was tiny (only about six tables), and it appeared to be staffed by a family.  I ordered what were billed as banana pancakes with dulce de leche.  Instead of being flat, like every other pancake I have ever encountered, I received three pancakes that were actually cooked in little fluted pans.  These were then turned upside down and covered in diagonally sliced bananas.  The dulce de leche was served in a small dish so that I could add what I wanted, like you would use syrup.  Absolutely delicious!  It was all I could do to force down the last couple of bites, but I wasn't going to waste it.

We then Ubered down to Strawberry Fields in Central Park.  Strawberry Fields is a memorial to John Lennon, who lived and died at the Dakota, just across the street from where the memorial sits.  The central mosaic, with the word "Imagine" in the center, was a gift to New York by the city of Naples, Italy.  Every day there are flowers placed there, and on this day, it was a peace sign made of white tulips.  There was a musician playing guitar and singing, and he happened to be singing "Imagine" as we approached.  The area is very quiet and beautiful.  In the warmer months, they say it is filled with flowers.  After listening to the singer for a bit, we walked down to the Bethesda fountain.  The lake and the fountain, with its surrounding terrace, was originally meant by the park's designers, to be the centerpiece of the park.  The statue on the fountain is the only one in the park that was commissioned by the park designers, in fact.  We went across to the area they call The Mall. There was something going on nearby, so Megan and I went to investigate while Cathy decided to sit and wait for us to wander back.  The attraction was a group of young guys doing what I would call acrobatics and dance.  What they mostly did, though, was talk.  They were entertaining and engaging - and also very interested in gathering as much money as possible from the crowd.  We kind of walked up on the end of it, so it wasn't long before we went back to where Cathy was.  It was such a pleasant day that we just sat in the sun for a bit.  Then we saw another group of guys setting up for a show right by where we were sitting.  Turned out, it was different guys with a different name, but the same act and patter (obviously part of the same group).  During the show, some Guardian Angels came by!  I didn't know they still existed.  They are a volunteer group of "guardians" who roam around public areas in case of trouble.  We watched the whole show, then made our way out of the other side of the park, going back to Megan's to get ready for dinner before our show.  We had a really nice time just sitting in the sun, people-watching, but ultimately we had to go back to Megan's to get ready for going to the theatre.

After getting back and changing clothes, we headed out into the neighborhood to have dinner at a BBQ place that they had been to before.  It was absolutely delicious!  It was kind of a Route 66-themed place with a bar in the front and restaurant part in the back.  Then we scooted on downtown.  We had kind of planned to go past the UN and then to Grand Central Station just to see it, but we were too tight on time, so we walked through Times Square and ducked into Grand Central just for a quick look around (which is all I really had in mind, anyway).  Then we went to the theatre to see "Beautiful: The Carole King Musical".  Some while back I had ordered the cast album, so I knew the songs.  What I really like best about seeing shows on stage, though, is the set design.  I love to see how they change one thing into another.  Before it started, I took a picture of the piano that was onstage, whereupon I was admonished by an usher that there was no photography allowed.  I deleted the picture, but really?  It was a piano.  (Funnily enough, though, I discovered later that Google+ uploaded it the instant I took it, so I still have it.) The show was really, really good!  Afterward, we ordered an Uber and stood around waiting, and having pedi-cab guys offer us rides.  They weren't as keen when they discovered we were going to Harlem, some 50+ blocks away.  :)  It looked like our car was stuck somewhere, but when he called us, we discovered that we had misread the map and were waiting at the wrong corner.  Instead of going around again, though, he canceled us - and then charged me $10!!  I immediately protested it and Uber gave me a $10 credit (which I used the next day for my share of the trip to the airport).  Megan then flagged down a cab and we went back that way, instead.  So I have learned a lot about how to do city stuff - buying a Metro card, taking all sorts of public transport, paying a cab with a credit card, splitting an Uber fare with someone.

Big Apple Part Two

In the morning, we walked down to a little neighborhood bakery for breakfast.  I had a roll that had some sort of sweet crust on top, and asked if it had a name (because I would like to find it again).  The girl said, yes, it was called sweet bread.  Uh, ok, that's helpful.  :)  We then went to the subway and bought Metro cards for the weekend, and took the subway to near our first museum, the Museum of the City of New York.  As we walked along the street, someone was playing Latin music (Megan's neighborhood is largely Hispanic), and I said that it totally fit my image of NYC - the ethnic neighborhood, a soundtrack like in a movie.  The weather was sunny but brisk, so we were glad we had winter coats.  The night before it was absolutely freezing by the 9/11 museum.

The Museum of the City of New York was great.  It is fairly small.  Megan got in free because she lives in the same zip code, but Cathy and I got our tickets 2-for-1 on Groupon for $15.  The best part of the museum was a video presentation about the history of New York City.  It was narrated by Stanley Tucci and used old photographs and film to trace the roots of the city from its earliest days.  Did you know that the Bronx is named after a family named Bronck, who originally owned the land?  It was.... the Broncks'.   Get it?  :)   There was also a room about the NYC Marathon, a room displaying some of the fancy belongings (jewelry, dishes, paintings) from NYC society's Gilded Age, and artwork depicting important people in New York's history, including - tadaa! - Alexander Hamilton.  It was a really nice stop on our little tour.

Next, we took a bus to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Before going in, we got lunch from a food truck in front of the museum. A little known fact about the Met is that the admission charge is actually optional.  The sign says that $25 is "suggested", but when you get to the desk, they ask how much you want to pay.  Cathy paid $5 for Megan and her, I paid $10 (ok, I felt guilty), so it averaged out to $5 each.  We didn't intend to see a lot, so we went to the area with prints and photographs, then made our way down to the American Wing, seeing what we could along the way.  The Met is massive, and you could spend days there and not see it all, so we had to be selective.  My favorite thing there was a house (an actual building that appeared to have been joined to the museum by an atrium) where the rooms had all been purchased and reconstructed from various other places.  Some were from famous people's homes, others were representative of different styles.  By that time, we needed fresh air, so we left.  We had intended to go to the Neue Gallerie to see the Woman in Gold, but there was a line outside.  We sat and watched for awhile to see if the line moved quickly or not, and finally decided to skip it, since, even after waiting, it would undoubted be crowded.  And it was too expensive for a bad experience.  So we proceeded on to Rockefeller Center.

When we got to Rockefeller Center, there was no one on the ice rink because the Zamboni was making its rounds.  We hung around for awhile, walking around to see it from both sides, watching people skate.  The NBC building where they film the Today Show is right there, too.  Then we caught an Uber to the Carnegie Deli for dinner.  There was a long line outside when we got there, but we decided to get in it and watch for awhile to see if it moved quickly.  After waiting about 45 minutes (I think), we decided it was a lost cause.  Megan found out that her friend Leigh was at a restaurant in the theatre district, Junior's, which also had a long wait time, but she put our names in while we made our way downtown (I think).  One thing that I had previously believed about New York was that Broadway was a street with theatre-theatre-theatre-theatre all along it.  In truth, the theatres are scattered around the whole area.  There aren't many theatres actually on Broadway itself.  Before we went into the restaurant to wait, Megan took me a block over to see the theatre where "Hamilton" is.  If I couldn't see it, I could at least see where it is housed!  Even though we had spent part of our waiting time just getting down there, we still faced a lengthy wait.  The pre-theatre crowd was out in full force - and it was Saturday, so.....  Leigh waited with us.  We finally scored a corner table on one of the theatre alleys, so we got to watch workers arriving to get ready for that night's show.  I just loved it!  I don't usually order dessert, but the coconut and lemon cake was calling my name.

After dinner, we walked down through Times Square (which is not, as one might expect, an actual square or even a plaza).  The New Year's Eve ball sits high atop its building, waiting for next year.  The signs and lights were incredible, and lights were coming on on buildings all around.  There is just so much to see!  (That's probably the understatement of the year.)  Then we made our way back to Megan's.  It was only 8:30, but it had been a busy day, and we had planning to do for the next day.

Little Trip to the Big Apple

So, here is how this happened.  A couple of months ago, Cathy messaged me on Facebook and asked if I would be interested in going with her (actually, meeting her there) to visit Megan in New York City.  I didn't even think about it, I said I was in!  I debated a bit about whether to get a cheap flight out of Chicago, which would be direct but require an overnight in Chicago, or to use Delta miles and leave from here.  That required a change in ATL, and would take longer, but I could leave from home.  Even though I was planning to save my miles for my next trip to Spain, I decided to use the miles, which made my flights cost a grand total of $11.08.

I was so excited, that it almost seemed like I was going out of the country.  Cathy has been several times, so she had some ideas and I had some ideas, and we worked out an itinerary that was a little taste of everything.  We were to arrive on Friday, Feb 26, and leave Feb 29.  She actually flew up on Thursday night, but her flight was so delayed that she arrived around midnight.  My first flight was a little delayed, and I was a little panicked when I got to ATL and discovered that my next gate, instead of being in the same concourse (C), it was in the main terminal.  I had to go down to the trains and get over there, and I arrived just in time for an announcement that the ongoing flight was also delayed by an hour.  Whew!  I got to NYC right around noon, and took a cab to Megan's apartment.

I changed into jeans, then we set out for my first taste of the city.  (Megan was still at work.)  First we went to a crazy-busy burger place that Megan likes, then had our first experience with hijacking Uber cars.  We had requested a car, and the app said it would be a black Toyota Corolla.  One arrived and we hopped in the back.  The driver said, "Dahlia?" and Cathy said, "No, Cathy".  The driver repeated, "Dahlia?" and we suddenly realized we were in the wrong car!  So we hopped back out, and got in the other black Toyota.  Funny...but it wouldn't be the last time.

We then went to the Staten Island Ferry to sail past the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.  The ferry actually comes fairly close to the statue, which seemed smaller than I thought it would.  I mean, I realize we were still seeing it at a distance, but it still seemed smaller.  I looked down into the nasty dark water and thought about my friend who swam around Manhattan a few years ago, and I couldn't imagine being in that water myself.  The best part - the ferry is free.  When it got to Staten Island, we just stayed on while everyone got off, thinking that a new load would come on and we would go back.  We were just sitting there talking when a boat policeman yelled at us to hurry up and get off!  So we trotted off, went around to the ferry dock lobby and got into the crowd to get right back on a few minutes later.  I'm not really sure why we needed to get off - it certainly wasn't because they were cleaning the boat between trips.  We also discovered that some ferries have outsides where you can go up on deck, and some do not.  Ours did not.  Bummer.

The view of Manhattan coming back was stunning in the afternoon sunlight, and I spotted the place in Battery Park where my friend set out on his swim.  We then took a cab to the 9/11 Museum, which only opened about a year ago.  The whole museum is underground.  The footprints of the two towers are fountains, with the names of the victims cut into metal plates around the sides.  The water flows from the walls of the holes, toward the center, and down into a smaller center square.  There are lots of trees planted around the plaza, but there is one tree there that survived the whole disaster and is still alive.  Seeing the plaza, it was hard to imagine how they ever could have cleaned up and cleared away all of the debris.  The area is huge.

The museum was just breathtaking.  There is an "In Memorium" section, with photos and stories of the people who died that day.  You can look up any individual person and read about them, and also sit in a center room and hear family members and friends talking about the various people.  Throughout this area, you could hear the "reading of the names" that they do on anniversaries.  How long does it take to read out almost 3000 names?  All around, you could see twisted girders and footings from the original buildings, some grafitti'd with the names of workers and departments who helped clear the wreckage.

The other section of the museum, the larger part, is called "On the Day".  No pictures are allowed inside.  It is basically a timeline of 9/11/2001, from the first reports of something going on in NYC, to the news of the Pentagon, and the plane crash in PA.  There are TV screens showing the special reports that were airing, whole destroyed fire trucks and melted police car doors, huge hunks of window glass, all kinds of things found on the streets, photos of all that was going on that day, the "missing" posters that were everywhere, the little shrines that popped up all over, stories of unsung heroes. There are several little darkened side rooms where you can sit and listen to people telling their stories of that day - how they heard about it, where they were, what they did, their panicked attempts to reach family and friends,   The one room that I had to leave was one where they were playing the voicemails and phone messages from people on the planes, or trapped in the high floors of the buildings, people who would be dead within minutes.  The one thing I was worried about seeing, which I did not see anywhere, were images of people jumping from the towers.  To me, that was the most horrific thing of all.

We were there almost four hours.  Then, after some confusion about where they could pick us up (no stopping along the blocks containing the museum and the new Freedom Tower), we got in another Uber and went to meet Megan and a couple of friends at a little neighborhood pizza place called Patsy's.  It has been there since 1933 (I didn't even know pizza was a thing in 1933).  New York pizza is interesting, though not my favorite thing.  But, of course, any pizza is good pizza.  It was a fun evening, and Megan's friends are great.  When we got ready to leave, we ordered another Uber.  It was supposed to be a Ford Explorer or something larger (they tell you what the vehicle is, color, and license plate number), and we went outside to wait.  A minivan pulled up, and Cathy walked out to meet it.  When she opened the door, there were little kids inside.  Then the driver hopped out, saying she was just there to pick up a pizza.  LOL  - attempted hijacking number two!