New York Spamalot Trip

Trip Start Apr 28, 2008

Trip End Apr 30, 2008

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Where I stayed

Milford Plaza

(New York City hotels)

Flag of United States New York City, New York
Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Day 1: This was my second trip to New York City, and the first where I actually had some time to be a tourist. We had great fun. We flew into Long Island and took the train into Manhattan. After we checked into our hotel (which was just steps away from the Shubert Theatre) we wandered around just to try to find our bearings. Wound up at Grand Central station and ate at Junior's. I guess all the tourists go there to eat, but it was good. We were going to head over to the U.N. to take the tour but it was getting kind of late in the day so we headed to the other side of Manhattan to take a boat cruise. We got on the boat but it was raining and they cancelled our cruise! I think there just weren't enough people on the boat to make it worthwhile for them. They gave us a refund, and free tickets for the evening cruise if we wanted to come back. We went back to the hotel for a bit, then returned for the evening cruise. It was nice, although the weather was cold and blustery. We started out sitting on the outside seating area, but we moved inside when it got too cold

Evening cruise

. It was just a short cruise that went all over the harbor. By the end of it the weather cleared up and we could see the city well, and the statue of liberty and other sites. It was very pretty at night. We returned to the hotel and ordered pizza from John's Pizza (a New York classic, I hear; a lot of our friends had been raving about it) and it was really excellent pizza.

Day 2: Up early, then we walked to the U.N. to take the tour. It was rainy in the morning. It took a while for our tour to start but we really enjoyed it. The tour guides are from all over the world and are dressed in their native costumes. The tour guide told us a lot about the history of the U.N. and about various projects it is involved in, and we got to see the Assembly room since they were not in session. Afterwards we walked around NY more. We visited the lobby of the Chrysler building and it was impressive. We found the SYMS store on Park Avenue (our co-worker told us to be sure to go there) and shopped quite a bit. We wanted to try to find Canal Street but we didn't have much luck--it seemed to not be near the other things we wanted to see. We ate at an Italian Restaurant quite close to SYMS and it was quite good. We were way underdressed for it (we looked like the tourists from Ohio we were!) but they treated us fine. Next we headed over to Rockefeller Center to the Top of The Rock Observation Deck

Mural from ceiling of Chrysler building

. We were smart to wait until the weather cleared because we had a great view and could see everything. We returned to the hotel to get ready for Spamalot. The play was fun - I am not a great fan of Monty Python but I still enjoyed it very much. We wanted to see the play before Clay Aiken's run in it was over; he was very funny in it. The theatre was full, and everyone seemed to have a great time. Afterwards tons of people stood outside waiting for Clay to come out and sign autographs. There were so many people out there it seemed hopeless but I scooted over to the far side and managed to get his autograph on my program. Awesome! That was over quick, and Shelley and I went to eat (luckily there was a Junior's right next to the theatre, and we ate there since we knew it was close, good and within our budget).

Day 3: We got up way early to walk over to stand outside the Today Show. There were some BMX stars there for the show, and a big mound of dirt set up for them to ride on. Actually the people standing around us were entertaining enough! Shel got some hot chocolate at Starbucks and we wandered around Times Square for a bit, then returned to the hotel. I got a quick cheap breakfast at a deli across from the Shubert. Our Sayanara to New York was a cab ride to Penn Station that resembled the chase scene in "Foul Play." Shelley was terrified but I guessed that the driver probably drove that way all the time

Spamalot - Shubert Theatre

. The train into Long Island was very pleasant, and we got a nice ride to the airport from the train station and had no problems at all!

Perhaps we were just lucky but we really didn't have any problems at all in New York. We had a bit of sticker shock over the prices of things, but we kind of expected that. In general everyone was very nice to us and we had a great time - wish we had a lot more time to spend there! Also we got quite a bit of exercise since we walked most everywhere. We estimate we walked about 10 miles in New York, including the entire width of Manhattan! We could have taken cabs - they are everywhere - but we wanted to get a better feel for everything by walking. New York has tremendous energy and it was great fun!

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