New York

I've been to NY several times - once to Niagra Falls via Buffalo, which I'll talk about in a later post, and my first time on a band tour when I was in college - also will describe later. But probably the best trip I had where I was able to be a tourist was in 2005, when I went for a conference and stayed a couple of extra days so I was able to see some of the sights in New York City.

The sister of a close friend of mine lives in Manhattan, so my friend M and I overlapped some of the trip so we were able to spend some time together with her sister MT. I was there over the 4th of July so we viewed the fireworks over the East River as a part of the trip. But the first couple of days, I was there alone. I had dinner with some professional colleagues the first night, then during the free time I had the next day, I visited Julliard to see where one of my characters went to school. I wanted to see it, and the area around it where he would live.

On the 4th, besides the evening fireworks, M and MT and I walked through Rockefeller Center, where the Today show films. We visited the NBC store nearby, then saw St. Patrick's Cathedral. That was very interesting - large and beautiful. We also saw the Chrysler Building, the Empire State Building, and the United Nations.

Next day, I was at the conference but in the evening, there was a perk for some of us - a trip to a Broadway show. We saw "The Producers" - that was fun. Although I had no idea that Broadway theatres are so small. Compared to Midwestern venues, it was tiny.

The conference wrapped up the next morning, so in the afternoon after lunch, the three of us went to Coney Island in Brooklyn. It took almost an hour on the subway. We wandered the boardwalk, had dinner, then went to a minor league baseball game - the Brooklyn Cyclones. I bought two T-shirts there that are still among my favorites.

The following day, MT had to work, so M & I visited the Museum of Modern Art. The three of us had dinner at a cozy neighborhood Italian restaurant near MT's apartment called Nochellos. The food was good and M & MT had a lot of wine.

My final day in New York, the three of us braved a cold and rainy day to take the ferry to Liberty Island and Ellis Island. We didn't disembark on Liberty but spent quite a bit of time on Ellis Island. I knew my grandparents or great grandparents had immigrated in through Ellis Island but wasn't sure exactly when. I found a couple of men named Meyer, which I knew had been our family surname before we came to America. I wish I had known more about my ancestry before I went.

Great trip, all in all.