It was the earliest of my travels - back in college when I was 20 years old, my college concert band did a band trip from Michigan to New York city, with stops along the way. We stayed with families from town to town until we got to NYC, where we stayed in a hotel and played our final concert in Town Hall.
This was the first time I had ever been in Pennsylvania and heard Pennsylvania Dutch accents. It was the first time I had seen an urban, mostly black high school (in New Jersey). And of course it was the first time I had been in New York, seen a porn movie house, or dealt with panhandlers on the street as I and another 20 year old wandered around Times Square.
This was probably my first taste of travel, and even though the majority of it was hard work (rehearsing and performing, sitting on a bus for hours every day), it was enlightening. I wish I remembered more about the trip, but it was quite a while ago.
Showing posts with label New York. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New York. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Saturday, December 26, 2009
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.
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.
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