Hello and welcome to the newest edition of From The Vault! The series where I go back and dredge up old, lost, or unwritten stories of my travels. This story is from September when I went to NYC to do a joint birthday celebration with my Mom and brother Philip (plus his girlfriend Liz was there too). I wrote most of it as it happened, but I decided to not write anything on the train home and that’s what sealed the fate of this blog being posted so late. I’ll be using Philip’s Official Plan, my memories / pictures, and Google Maps Timeline to help piece together the stuff I didn’t finish. Hope you enjoy!
Day 1: Friday
On Friday we left the house at 7am in the Uber. Boston traffic was as slow as always, but since we could use the carpool lane we got to South Station rather fast. Mom had gotten the basic tickets to NYC on the North East Regional train so the expectation was that I’d be seated near a bunch of loud people….until that thought was altered by the arrival of Peter. Peter was an Amtrak employee (sort of like a butler I thought) that offered to seat us earlier on the train in the quiet car for the same ticket cost on the condition that we tip him.
The train ride was exceptionally boring since the Amtrak wifi was garbage and the cell service wasn’t much better. I was hoping to watch some Stargate SG-1, but after discovering that the wifi sucked I ended up just listening to Spotify and playing some mobile games the whole 4 hour train ride.
Once we reached Penn Station we went straight to the hotel. We had about 3.5 hours to ourselves to fool around in the city after checking in at the hotel since Phil was still at work. With my mask of indifference on I walked around with Mom. I wanted lunch so we went to the 7th Street Burger in West Village. The atmosphere inside was loud since they were blasting Mexican music inside. The burger was great! I’d definitely go back. Next up was a hat store that I discovered last time in NYC. I didn’t want to drag Phil in there (because he would be bored) so we didn’t go.
Upon arrival I discovered it was hats for women who want to go to church / a horse race. I’ve been constantly on the lookout for a new favorite hat after losing the polar bear hat. *Great sadness*
After leaving, we sat on a bench at the corner of the block for 10 minutes. See with one of my well structured plans we would’ve been moving all day, but we lacked any plan so we were like a compass with no needle. We ended up walking to what Mom thought was a park only to discover that it was actually baseball batting cages. We were both pretty tired from the night before so we went back to the hotel to take a nap before the night events.
At around 5:30pm Mom and I went to Bryant Park to chill with Phil and Liz at a cocktail bar. It was nice to catch up. The strawberry lemonade I got was great. After that we went to dinner at the L’Adresse American Bistro right around the corner. I had a gorgeous steak with tomatoes plus a Negroni. The drink was strong and tasted great. For dessert I got a creme brûlée. After having so many of Julia’s (baker at Philmont) I really like them now.
After dinner we went to Drunk Shakespeare for the first time ever. I almost went with Ethan in DC, but it didn’t make it into the final draft of the plan since it was sort of expensive and a bit far from the hotel. This one in NYC was very popular! Basically what happens is there is a cast of people that perform a Shakespeare play and one member has to drink shots at the same time.
Once we had gone inside and gotten our complementary ‘shot’ we had a brief introduction and auction of the King and Queen thrones. This was a real auction! They had 2 VIP seats set up that came along with a role in the show, a bottle of expensive champagne, and crowns. I wasn’t expecting big bucks spent on this and therefore I wasn’t surprised when it only went for about $85.
The performers came out soon after and it was then announced who the shot drinker would be. It turned out that she had been the drinker for the play before and had already drunk 6 shots (of tequila) so she was already slammed. Before the performance started she had another shot to kick things off and gave a shot to a random person in the audience to “test”. To show it was real tequila and not water!
I don’t really like Shakespeare and so I was lost for the first half of the play. (McBeth). I’m not really sure how to explain what happened, but essentially the girl actor who drank the shots was directing the play. Giving the other actors crazy orders such as one dude had to drink a glass of milk mixed with red bull and a whole hot dog in it. That was gross. The Queen (person who won the throne auction) could decide when the shots girl got another shot. Spoiler, she always was ordered to drink so by the end of the night she had 10 shots of tequila. I can’t imagine what the next morning would be like.
After Drunk Shakespeare Mom and I said goodbye to Phil and Liz and then we went back to the hotel. Tomorrow would be another full day!
Day 2: Saturday
Today I got up around 7am and left the hotel at 8am. Philip usually likes to sleep in on Saturdays, but when I’m on a trip I tend to wake up early in order to maximize the potential of the trip. Today the plan was to meet around 11am. It took me about 10 minutes of searching before I decided on a cafe in the Upper West Side of NYC. It took about 20 minutes to get to the Viand Cafe on the #1 express subway (I think that’s what it was).
Once there I got a three egg omelet with cheddar cheese, tomatoes, bacon, and a Sprite. They were serving alcohol, but I didn’t think that beer for breakfast was the correct choice for today. The food was really good! After breakfast I headed to lower Manhattan to walk around since I still had some free time. It was raining off and on at this point so I actually didn’t get very wet.
After walking around for a bit I headed back to the hotel to catch up writing the blog and watch the newest episode of Jujutsu Kaisen. Next I think we are going to a museum with Phil then I’m not sure after since I didn’t make the plan this time. Such a change from a normal trip! (It’s waaaay more laid back.)
The museum was called The Morgan Library and Museum. I still haven’t really leveled out after going to so many museums in Washington D.C. so I wasn’t sure what to think about this place. It didn’t take too long for Mom and I to get there from the hotel, but since Phil was so far away we ended up having to wait for him near the umbrella bag stand. I spent about 10 minutes standing there thinking about how to have fun at this place.
Eventually Phil arrived and after getting our entry stickers we were off! Mom immediately latched on to the idea of doing the library tour. It turned out that the tour guide was soft spoken and so we could hardly hear anything. We moved on through a few of the galleries on our own after that.
I’d say that while it used to be an epic library back in the day it’s now basically just a museum since you can’t actually read the books as a visitor. I will begrudgingly say that it was pretty cool to see some of the artifacts. I took a few pictures for the blog too.
After the museum the plan was to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge, but since it was raining we decided to wait until a nicer day to do it. That meant we no longer had a solid plan for the day. Luckily Phil had a Plan B! (I rarely have an actual plan b in my trips, but I can compensate with my quick thinking and intellect in most situations.)
First up was lunch. Phil found a great place in Brooklyn called Time Out Market. It’s a collection of mini food shops. Imagine taking a few cooks from your top 10 favorite restaurants and stuffing them into 10 small store fronts inside a big building. That description is a bit crass, but I think it does the Time Out Market justice. I got “The World’s Best Hotdog”, Phil got sliders, and Mom got a pancake thing.
After lunch we all went to get pictures at the Big Dumbo. It’s one of the most iconic picture spots in NYC and normally there would be a crowd of tourists / influencers there, but since it was wet and rainy we basically had the place to ourselves.
After getting some pictures we went to the flea market nearby. There was local art on display, some jewelry, and a bit of African artwork / sculptures. I didn’t get anything because nothing spoke to me.
That was about the end of the afternoon plan until I suggested we should try the Jacques Torres Chocolate shop so that’s where we went next. I got a hot chocolate, Mom got a hot chocolate mix, and all of us had one small milk chocolate bar each. It was all pretty good, however by the time we had finished eating the rain had really picked up. Since it was raining so hard we all decided to just lounge about inside and chill. After the chocolate shop we decided to spit up to change for dinner.
Phil had picked out a surprise place for dinner in Central Park called Tavern On The Green. It reminded me of a nice country club, but without the golf course. The lights were dim which gave off a quiet atmosphere filled with the underworld vibes of corruption and trickery. Just kidding lol. There was live music too! The food was awesome! We got calamari as an appetizer and I got a steak. Dessert was a slice of 7 layer chocolate cake. We were all full from the main course, but somehow there is always room for dessert.
After dinner Phil, Mom, and I went to the Ivory Peacock bar and managed to get a seat right in front of the live band. It was LOUD there. Almost as loud as the Big Night Live DJ sets in Boston so I was a bit worried about damaging my ears. In DC we went to mostly quiet bars compared to this one. The drinks were a bit meh in my opinion, but Phil and Mom really enjoyed theirs so that’s what counts! This was the last stop of the night and after we had our fill of drinks Mom and I headed back to the hotel for bed.
Day 3: Sunday
We woke up around 11:30am and left the hotel. Before leaving, we left our bags at the front desk since that was easier than carrying them around all morning. The way to Phil’s apartment was easy even though we ran into an annoying scenario on the subway.
Since they were doing work on an adjacent (1/2/3) line train, that meant that all 3 number trains were running on one track. We happened to get on an express train (which I thought would still work), but Mom freaked out and made us swap trains. We still ended up at Phil’s house with minimal effort so it wasn’t really a huge issue luckily.
Phil’s house was waaaay cleaner than when I stayed last time. I was very impressed. He had even tidied the kitchen, which I thought was a near impossible task. We didn’t stay in his apartment too long since his roommates were still sleeping. After Mom got a quick tour we headed out to see some of the apartment amenities. I might have mentioned them last time, but I’ll walk you through again. Near the top floor is an outdoor deck area with some BBQ grills. It was raining a lot that morning so we stayed inside. On that floor there is also a TV area and a pool table. Heading downstairs we saw the poker room, virtual reality golf games, speak easy (it was closed so we didn’t actually go inside), and a marvelous staircase. Overall a wonderful tour!
After Mom got a glimpse of the apartment we all went out for brunch. Phil had found a new place to try called the Oscar Wilde (bar). It was notoriously hard to get a seat apparently so we had our fingers crossed on the way there.
The bar was pretty cramped, but yet it also went back a fair bit. It was decorated with a crazy amount of halloween decorations at the time, which would’ve been spooky at night I bet. Our waitress said that they take them all down and put up new ones for Christmas and other holidays. She made Phil promise to come back when the Christmas ones are up because apparently that’s the most epic showing.
It was raining outside and cozy inside as I surveyed the menu. I’m not much of a breakfast person so when we go to a brunch place I usually focus on the “unch” part of brunch. I had a burger and I also got a finely crafted cocktail. The menu was impressive and I thought Ethan would find it interesting.
After bunch we went to the Harry Potter store (on 935 Broadway)! It is a unique experience because the store is part gift shop, museum, and cafe. The store part is easily explained with pretty much any Harry Potter product possible. I say museum because they have original props such as a Snitch, the Firebolt, and some costumes as well as some others. I explored the store for a while internally debating if I should get something for the souvenir drawer or not. Eventually I decided to leave empty handed, but not before we had one last stop.
Butter Beer! Mom was very excited for the Butter Beer on site so we had to see that before leaving. They had taps set up and you could get your own cup of it with some sort of whipped topping on it. I’m not really a fan of butterscotch (what I thought was in it) so I abstained from drinking any. That room was a little gross in my opinion. After she finished, we decided to part ways since Philip was feeling a bit tired. Mom and I went back to the hotel to get our things after stopping at a Lego store on the way. Can’t just ignore a Lego store when you have the chance to go inside!
We were scheduled for a late departure on Amtrak so when we got there at 3pm I was sort of mentally ready to sit on the floor for a few hours and chill. Mom wasn’t though and so we immediately went to the customer service desk to see if there were any earlier trains. It just so happened that there was! Unfortunately it would cost us extra money, which made Mom a bit annoyed. We decided to get it because we were a little worried that multiple Amtrak delays could keep us there waaaay past the departure time. When it was time to board the line was the longest line for a train that I’ve ever seen so the thought of us sitting together vanished instantly. The actual ride home was fine and we made it home soon after making it to South Station.
Overall this was super laid back trip to NYC compared to my other ones, but that didn’t make it any less fun. Philip did a masterful job of planning out the itinerary this time instead of me. I can’t wait to see what we get up to next time! There are still many more things that I have yet to experience.
See you next time!
Trip Stats
- Steps taken (by me) in NYC: 38,018 steps
- Distance traveled by subway: 27 miles (data from Google Timeline)
- Distance traveled by Amtrak: 441mi (data from Google Timeline)
- Amount of rain: A lot (couldn’t find decent data)
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