Last Day in New York City

Mikey’s flight left early in the morning on Saturday, but mine didn’t leave until the evening, so I had a few hours on my own to try and cross off more items on my list. Here’s a tip: It always takes longer to do anything than you think it will and in New York City, there will always be things on your list. I knew I probably wouldn’t get to all of them, but I thought I’d do my best. First up… the Roosevelt Island Tram.

My friend, Sara, went to New York just a few months before I did, and her photos really inspired a lot of the things that I wanted to see. (Actually, I was just looking at her blog post, and I’m a little embarrassed to discover that we also took a lot of the same photographs… I’m going to say “great minds think alike,” but it might be more a case of my subconscious trying to take photos as amazing as hers are.) When you’re walking around in New York City, it’s easy to lose scale. I think that’s why so many people like to ride to the top of skyscrapers or walk the High Line or ride the Roosevelt Island Tram. They allow you to take in the city as a whole.

Plus, it’s a little exhilarating to realize that you’re suspended from cables. And there was an episode of White Collar where Neal Caffrey has to escape from a tram, and it’s nice to imagine that maybe your tram will be the one that Matthew Bomer is on.

I didn’t spend a lot of time on Roosevelt Island. The point was just to ride the tram, so I walked along the waterfront, where I found a man watching over four fishing poles.

I enjoyed the view while I finished off my breakfast (a pain au chocolat) and then returned to the tram for the ride back.

One of the places I had never been in my few visits to New York was the UN. Since I was on that side of town already, I decided to walk down to it. You know, maybe if I had arranged a tour or something, it would have been worth it. But just seeing the building with all the flags that look like they should probably be dusted or run through the washer wasn’t really worth the almost 20 blocks I walked to get there.

But it’s okay because it was close to another landmark that I wanted to admire more closely – Grand Central Station. On my way there, I couldn’t help but see the Chrysler Building peeking through the skyline. The difficulty with skyscrapers, though, is that it’s really hard to get a good view of them up close.

It has a really pretty entry.

Imagine working in the Chrysler Building. It’s so iconic, but it probably has lots of banal offices renting out the space. I think I’d rather have an office with a view of the Chrysler rather than working in it.

Grand Central is just impressive. The shuttle we took when we first arrived in New York dropped us off there, and seriously, you can’t help but stop and just gawk at its beauty.

I like this little cafe nestled under the bridge.

Once inside Grand Central, it’s hard to take everything in at once. There’s so much going on, not to mention all the tourists (like me) standing around with cameras and other serious photographers with tripods and even wedding photographers taking some photos there. Standing on the balcony, looking down at the crowd, though, I couldn’t help but think that at any moment they were going to break into a flash mob.

They didn’t. I had big ideas about where to go next. I felt like I hadn’t spent any time in lower Manhattan, and I really was hoping to wander around those neighborhoods and do some shopping. I also wanted to walk across Brooklyn Bridge, but the fact of the matter is that I was pretty tired already from walking so much over the past few days. And regardless of where I went, I had to return uptown to pick up my carry-on from the hotel lobby. And then get to JFK. I had never used JFK when flying in and out of NYC, so I wasn’t sure how long it would take. I decided to shove all of the things left on my list onto the list for my next visit (whenever that is… hopefully soon) and just take a nice, relaxing route back to the hotel through Central Park.

This time, I ended up on the Upper East Side and planned to walk through the park to get to the west side. It was fun to see more buildings. I really love how detailed, beautiful, and elegant they are.

Central Park was full of people. It was a gorgeous day (a little hot, but not too bad) and everyone was outside enjoying it.

I also kept seeing a trend of shirtless boys relaxing in rowboats while women rowed them around.

I totally approve of shirtless men in rowboats, and I’m also totally happy that women can step out of their traditional roles and row the boats, but if it were me, I’d want the shirtless man to row the boat (because lazy).

Seriously, there were so many people enjoying the park. I loved watching them.

As much as I loved spending time in Central Park during this trip, I do have to say I got frustrated with it a lot because I kept taking paths that led nowhere or that circled back to where I was before. Some day, I will know all of the ins and outs of Central Park. I couldn’t stay mad at it, though. It gave me such beautiful views.

So that’s it for New York City. It was a great trip, and I already can’t wait to go back (someday).