From Midtown To Uptown To Downtown To Midtown

Eddie loves me. I know this because I get an idea in my head about something we should do, and he does it without question. I then hint about the drawbacks of doing it, and he gets even more enthusiastic about doing it.

This is how we wound up on a grand tour of the city, ending with near-starvation and very close to the inability to walk.

Last year, we went on a whirlwind Christmas extravaganza of windows and pretty glittery things. This year, I wanted to see some of the things we'd skipped. These things were The Met Museum's tree, the tree at the South Street Seaport, and the shops at Bryant Park. The Met is way uptown. The Seaport is at the most southern part of the city. These are not close to each other at all. Yet, they were included in the same excursion. Because I'm a nutjob.

The Met:
The Neopolitan Tree is so pretty. I've seen it only once before, so I wanted to see it again. I've never been to the museum at night, so that was another factor for going. The third reason was the Stieglitz exhibit that I was uber excited about seeing because I recently watched the film Georgia O'Keefe and couldn't get over how good it was (or how much of an asshole Stieglitz was, or was portrayed to be). So we spent 15 bucks for the both of us to get into the museum using the rationale to ourselves that we would not be partaking in all of the museum. Though, when we went the first time around, we paid about the same and did take in the musueum in its entirety. Ah, the spirit of giving.

I hadn't realized how huge the Steiglitz exhibit was going to be, so when we were halfway through, Eddie was not interested at all. I sped up my viewing process by skimming some of the artists I'd never heard of. I also got him more involved by pointing at naked things and whispering, Boobies!!! Because we're both really twelve.

Once we found the tree, Eddie found a new activity. Two large signs and a guard stood at the front of the tree: No photos allowed. That was dumb. There's no reason to not be able to take a picture. Plus, on the other sides of the tree, no such signs or guards existed. So we had a mission: Take a picture. Not of the tree, mind you. Of the sign that said no photos. This was the last exhibit we were seeing, so if we got kicked out of the museum, it would be fine, but I really did not want to be kicked out of anywhere.

Mission Accomplished.

Without being kicked out.

The Seaport:
Down down down we went and when we emerged from the subway, we realized, hey! This is where we spent our honeymoon! We were in the vicinity of our hotel. We made our way through the construction on the streets and hit the seaport. It was desolate for the most part, but the tree was lit up and bright and huge and pretty. We walked to the end of the pier and then decided to leave rather quickly because the shops at the park were going to close soon.

Bryant Park:
I wanted to see the shops. Oooh, they were so cute. We walked through like we were walking through a mini village. Eddie spotted a booth selling cider and saw that I couldn't control my excitement at the thought of warm cider so he got me a cup with cinnamon sticks. Some people were drinking it without the cinnamon, which should be outlawed. Cider needs cinnamon sticks. Otherwise, what's the point? Exactly.

We then found the tree. I didn't realize there would be a tree there. I'd forgotten there was ice skating. So we watched some skaters for a while and gawked at the tree. The ice was packed and people were falling and the line was around the park. Crazy. That's not worth it. Instead, we window shopped and then decided, hey we should eat before we pass out.




We hiked back towards Penn. At this point, I could not feel my toes. The weather was actually warmer than I'd expected. The problem with my feet was that we'd walked more than I'd thought we would. We took the subway between stops, but we'd spent more time in the places we'd gotten to than I thought, and then the walk back to Penn was the beginning of the end. We settled on the TicToc Diner because it was close.

This whole time, we'd had no unusual encounters, which was odd since we always have a little big of weird creep into our treks. Then came the double punch. First, when we were waiting at the sign that said to wait to be seated, some woman came into the diner behind us and started telling us where to sit. She did not work there. She told us three times. Then when someone came over to seat us, she instructed him to tell us where to sit.

After we ate, we walked to Penn and saw Santa get into a fight with a drunk man, who we think was homeless. We're pretty sure that Santa was defending the honor of a drunk or stoned blonde girl whose boyfriend was yelling, Santa! It's okay, Santa! It's fine! Santa, stop, Santa! Meanwhile, Santa was grabbing the drunk man by the shirt and yelling at him and the man was half-yelling half-slurring back. Eddie was slowing down and I was like, let's go inside quick! He was like, I want to see the outcome of this. Because he's a boy.

I'm happy to report that we had no problem on the train. We used our tickets we received from the MTA/LIRR after the great incorrect ticket punching debacle. Take that, Ticket Puncher Man.