Memorial day trip to the city.

Which city? 

Well, THE city, of course.  New York City. 

Last Monday was a day off, and instead of spending it holed up in the gloriously luxurious 1-Star Inn, I decided to do a leader's recon of NYC.  This way it's not such a surprise when we try to take all 9 of us in.

Instead of driving, though, I took the train from Garrison, which sits on the opposite bank of the Hudson from West Point.  I had been a little worried, because Friday, Saturday and Sunday were all rainy and pretty dismal. But lucky me, Monday was a gorgeous day.

 Looking across the Hudson at West Point

After a very long train ride (it was a good hour from Garrison to Grand Central), I arrived.  Apparently this year is Grand Central's 100th anniversary.

From there, I had to try and figure out which of the gazillion subway trains I needed to take to get to... Oh, wait.  I didn't really plan out what I was going to do.  Well, it was Memorial Day, so why not go see the 9/11 memorial, right?  Shouldn't be too difficult, and hey I've been on plenty of other subways before, so I figured it wouldn't be all that different.

Whatever.  I let myself get disoriented, ended up getting off and running to the other side of the street to go the other direction, till I realized I'd been going the right direction, and ran back across...  Eventually, I made it to the general vicinity.  Fortunately the WTC is marked by a very, very big landmark.

That's the new WTC Freedom Tower to guide me

A closer view

I got there and realized there was a huge line to get into the 9/11 memorial, and even more, I needed a reservation that apparently you can only get online.  Thank goodness for smartphones.  Too bad it was Memorial Day, and everyone else had the same idea.  They were booked up.

But it was lunch time, so I headed over to a restaurant in East Village, recommended by a former missionary companion, Brad.  Here I got to have some borsch and potato vareniki, and of course, I ordered everything по русски.  It was good food, although the borsch was a little sweeter than I expected.  The vareniki were excellent, and big, with sauteed onions on top.  The black bread was good, too.  Not too heavy or rye-y.  The service was, well... Russian.  But hey, they only looked slightly put out when I asked for more sour cream for my vareniki.

Mmmm, borsch!

Afterwards I decided I'd recon the Empire State Building, and man am I glad I did.  I ended up waiting nearly an hour and a half to get up on that roof, and I'm glad I didn't have kids with me for it.  When we go in with the kids, it'll be the first thing we do.  I must say, it was certainly weird seeing the elevator go from 20 to 30, to 40, 50... all the way to 80, and then 86.  It was pretty cool up there, and the weather was excellent.

 ESB lobby.  Only 85 stories to go...

 At the top.

The tallest building visible here is the same Freedom Tower

I then went on a recon of the Museum of Natural History.  That was pretty cool, although I quickly learned the difference between the express and local subways.  Fortunately I learned before it became a problem and darted across the platform from one train to another.  The museum was huge, and honestly, it's a multi-day project.  I saw a whopping two exhibits in the two hours I was there - ancient South American cultures and, naturally, dinosaurs.  

 My favorite dinosaur ever, the Allosaurus.

 Those silly Jaredites... I mean, Olmecs.  Don't they know they're supposed to be primitive?

An obsidian sword, as used by many ancient American peoples.

From there I decided to go to Times Square.  Wow, what an underwhelming location.  Seriously, all the electronics on the buildings nearly send you into epileptic seizures, it was the dirtiest location I'd seen, it smelled, and was full of weirdos.  Fortunately it was time to head back to Grand Central, get a bite to eat, and wait for the train.  I found a 99 cent pizza hole-in-the-wall outside the station, and then waited.

The ride back was only supposed to take an hour, and I was tired, so I relaxed a bit, figuring I'd just pay attention to what stop we were at.  About 20 min into the ride I looked around and realized that there were a whole lot of people missing...  I looked at my watch, and it wasn't 20 min later.  I'd slept almost an hour!  I waited anxiously to find out if I'd missed Garrison or not.  Fortunately, I woke up at the stop before Garrison. How's that for cutting it close?