Walking Tour, Steak, and First Look

Yesterday was Day 2 of an NYC adventure that I am not even on, but am writing to tell you about.  This is Anthony's first trip to the city, and he naturally wanted to make the best of his time there, which meant scheduling a couple of tours.  He scheduled these through Marriott, with the first being a boat cruise of the skyline and Lady Liberty on Tuesday afternoon.  I mentioned yesterday that he had to reschedule that tour due to unexpected time constraints, and the person he spoke to assured him it would be no problem to move it from Tuesday to yesterday.  The plan was for them to take their scheduled morning walking tour of Manhattan and then head to Battery Park to board the boat and take that cruise that had, of course, already been paid for.  The walking tour was very informative, and I will share more on that in a bit, but that is all they were able to do because Anthony received an email from Marriott Maeve who told him that since he did not cancel 24 hours in advance, they could not reschedule and he would just lose that money.  He forwarded this to me, with an angry face emoji, and I almost instantly felt sorry for Maeve.  She had no idea what was coming for her.

Those of you who know my husband well, understand that he is a very nice man.  He smiles and greets people and treats them as if they are the most important person in the room.  People like him, and he is the perfect compliment to me, because I have been told on more than one occasion that I am unapproachable.  I'm really not that bad, but I get what they are saying.  I am more prone to biting back hard, but he takes a more nuanced approach and when he has to bite back, you bleed a little.  He promptly emailed Marriott Maeve his disappointment in their practices, and within a few hours, his money had been returned.  No boat tour yet, but at least he is not out any money.

Anthony and Kira learned a lot on the walking tour, and Kira also learned that those casual Timberland shoes we gave her for graduation are better left for short strolls.  When you have most of your belongings packed away to move to your new apartment, your feet just have to suffer.  At least this trip, she has someone who can walk beside her, rather than having to constantly turn around to make sure her poor mom had not been hit by a bus because she was shuffling through the crosswalks.  Every time I think of my first trip to NYC, my feet start crying.  So much pain!! 

Here are some of the sites they visited on the tour, and I am thrilled they were able to visit the 9/11 Memorial because that is the one place we did not get to when I went with Kira on Spring Break.  

Photo creds go to both Anthony and Kira, and I enjoyed looking at the different angles with which they shot their photos.  One World Trade Center is beautiful, and since they were on the south side of the memorial, they were able to see Major Dwayne William's name.  He was from Jacksonville and was in the Pentagon on that day.

This is the Survivors Tree, and you can read about its significance below the photo of the tree itself.  

Trinity Church is in the middle of the financial district, and was the church where many of the survivors sought refuge, in more ways than one I am sure, from the falling debris of the buildings. The churches in NYC are absolutely beautiful, especially their juxtaposition with the modern buildings and skyscrapers around them.

On the church grounds is Trinity Cemetery, which is one of three associated with the church.  The other two are in different areas in Manhattan, because they ran out of room.  This is the first one, and is the burial site of Alexander Hamilton and his widow.  According to the tour guide, Hamilton never intended to shoot Burr during their duel, but intended to fire his gun in the air above.  Burr apparently did not get that message, and from what I read, he shot Hamilton and then went home to eat a big breakfast.  Apparently shooting your political foe makes you hungry.

 

Close to the 9/11 memorial is a transit/mall area called The Oculus.  It is a beautiful structure, and even though neither of them photographed it in its entirety, Kira took this cool photo with a portion of the structure in the foreground.

They also visited Federal Hall, and the New York Stock Exchange.  Anthony even saw a fossil.

After they finished the tour and grabbed a bite to eat and a little bit of rest at the hotel, they headed up to get their first look at Kira's new digs.  I will not post photos of where she is living until tomorrow, because it was a mess today with people packing up to move out, and Kira did not have an opportunity to do anything except look around and talk to the tenant moving out of her room.  I will say that the room is a lot smaller than it looks in the online photos, but still not as small as some in the city.  I have been reading through listings for months now, and words like cozy and intimate, mean you are basically living in a closet.  My favorite is when they list a room as a flex.  This means that it is really part of the living room, or the foyer, or what should be a master closet, and they have made it into a bedroom for someone who is willing to pay $1500+ per month just to say they live in the Upper East Side, or SoHo, or The Village.  By making it into a bedroom, they have pretty much thrown up a curtain, with the disclaimer that they will have to walk through your room whenever they need to go to the bathroom.  Lovely.  Kira will not be living in any of these areas, so she actually gets an actual bedroom with walls that reach the ceiling, and a door that locks.  More about her space tomorrow.

After they finished at the apartment, and got wet from a pop up thunderstorm, they headed back to the hotel for naps and homework for Kira.  Her new employer sent her online pre-training to do, and she has been working hard to finish it so she can concentrate on the move.  

Later that evening, they went to eat steak.  If you travel with Anthony, you are definitely going to eat two things.  Wings and steak.  He loves his steak, which is good for Kira and me because we love our steak as well.  I did not get jealous of their trip until I saw this.

Those are amazing looking cuts of meat, and they bring it to your table first to show you which cut you are getting.  I won't mention how much this meal cost, and the sides have to be ordered separately, but it was an experience I am completely jealous of, and one that probably will not be repeated.  I missed out.  Street cart food may be on the menu for the remainder of this trip.

They walked off their dinner, and took a couple of photos of iconic places and my favorite Broadway Show.

Anthony wanted to ride the subway at night to where Kira will be living to see how long it will take, and to make sure it was safe enough.  It was an uneventful ride and everyone pretty much minded their own business as New Yorkers pretty much do.  I have always heard that people in New York are rude and mean and not willing to help anyone, and while that may be the case in small instances, I find it to be largely untrue.  Just because they don't smile and wave at you doesn't mean they are rude.  It means they are my kind of people.  I try to be nice enough, but when we lived in Jacksonville, there was a neighbor that was always out working in her yard and every time I would drive by, she would wave.  I would wave back.....once.  I just felt that if I saw you several times during the day, I was only required to wave back once.  Not every single time I drive by.  New Yorkers get that, and I respect them for it.

Their ride back to the hotel did not go as smoothly as the ride up, because apparently the transit authorities shut down lines at night occasionally to work on the tracks or the trains, and last night was one of those nights, so they had to take an Uber back.  Learning the ins and outs of the transportation system will be Kira's biggest challenge, but like most everything, there is an app for that.  She downloaded it quickly.

Moving day is today, August 1st, and I will tell you all about it........tomorrow.