east coast big city tour, part two: nyc

Since neither of us had ever been to New York City, and Cousin-and-Girlfriend Galore live there, we decided to go visit them. Unfortunately, our timing was off -- they were both out of town on the days we were visiting. Fortunately, they let us stay in their place in Manhattan, just a few blocks east of Central Park.

Three days in NYC is obviously not enough time to see everything. Fortunately, we both hate to shop, which took away approximately half of the Things One Must Do in New York City. (Maybe if we had spent more time in uppity shopping areas we would have seen more celebrities -- by which I mean, any celebrities. Nary a TomKat sighted.) We did set foot in the Apple store because, duh. This is really a terrible picture, but hopefully you can see that the entrance is this glass box thing, and then you walk down the stairs into the underground Apple lair. Very fancy.

With home base at Cousin-and-Girlfriend Galore's insanely stylish apartment, we did a lot of walking and hit the Manhattan tourist attractions: Central Park, Rockefeller Square, the Empire State Building, Times Square, Chinatown, Little Italy, Brooklyn Bridge, World Trade Center site, some old churches and cemeteries, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and probably some other things that have already escaped from Mrs. Galore's porous memory.

We also had dinner with two of Mr. Galore's old friends. These three gents are also known as The Wonder Years Club. Sadly, Mr. Galore had to break the news that we recently rid ourselves of all of the 20 or so VHS tapes onto which Mr. Galore and his sister had meticulously taped every episode of "The Wonder Years." (We also recycled all of the Michael Jordan Wheaties boxes that Mr. Galore had saved in hopes of getting rich. Basically, we have thrown out Mr. Galore's childhood.)

One thing NYC does not have -- at least to our limited knowledge and snobby tastes -- is good coffee.



Here are the obligatory one-arm pictures of ourselves at tourist attractions. L to R: in Central Park, atop the Empire State Building, and on the Brooklyn Bridge.