I woke up early Thursday morning in New York and saw that it was supposed to rain that afternoon. So I spent an hour before anyone else was up, reworking our itinerary so we could be outside in the morning and inside in the afternoon, with all necessary transportation directions that required.
We started our day at the Central Park Zoo, a visit Lizzy was most excited about.
The sea lions were delightful, the penguins were charming, but the red panda won my award for absolute cutest animal at the zoo.
This little guy was SO FURRY. He paced and climbed and paced the whole time, showing off his beautiful red, thick fur. I just wanted to pick him up and cuddle him, which probably would have resulted in my getting torn to shreds by his adorable little face and paws.
So I told Jason, "I bet in the New Earth, when the curse is lifted, we'll be able to cuddle red pandas!" Jason may have rolled his eyes, but I was able to move on to the Tropic Zone in peace, looking forward to one day burying my hand in that soft red panda fur.
I loved this black swan's candy cane beak.
After a great time at the zoo, we made our way downtown toward Rockefeller Center again.
We had lunch at the delicious Melt Shop, which was totally worth hovering near the trash cans until a table opened up. Truffle Melt and Shop Tots, mmmmm, and a Nutella milkshake to go, ohhhh so good.
After that it was a short walk to Rockefeller Plaza to see the iconic tree. I had originally planned to see it at night, but didn't figure any of us would care to ooh and aah at it in the rain, and besides, maybe it's less crowded during the day?
Fat chance. This picture was only procured with the help of a clever camera angle; a lucky, though momentary, break in the passing crowd; and skillful cropping.
We tried to brave the crowd to walk the Channel Gardens to view the angels up close, but almost immediately someone needed to go potty, and we were all stressed by the crowd, so we headed straight to FAO Schwarz.
FAO the week before Christmas was probably not the best place to find respite from crowds.
It didn't take us long to discover that we really wanted to do our Christmas shopping at some out-of-the-way souvenir shop rather than the world's most iconic toy store.
We found one by walking toward, but not into Times Square. Our first question, again (thanks to deliciously slurpable Melt Shop milkshakes), was, Where is the restroom? The closest one was across the street at the M&M store--on the third floor.
We did decide that Jeddy, at least, needed a custom-colored bag of M&M's for Christmas, before returning to the relative calm and quiet of the souvenir shop.
By the time we found our dinner destination in Little Italy, after spending an hour in varying states of lostness, it was raining lightly, everyone was exhausted again, and there was barely any seating. We decided the path of least resistance was for me to place a big spaghetti order and then walk back to the hotel with the boys, leaving Jason and the girls to wait for the food and bring it along behind us.
As we walked, Caleb slipped into the familiar state of mind we call "Caleb World." He skipped along talking to himself, oblivious to all else. Jeddy and I joked that just as New York has a Chinatown and Little Italy, it also has a Calebtown, which appears anywhere Caleb goes. Caleb himself surfaced briefly to see what we were talking about, then returned to Caleb World, apparently enjoying the idea that New York City could have a borough just for him. When Jeddy and I commented that we were in Caleb Town again, Caleb jerked to consciousness: "Wait...there are two of them?!"
We spent our last, rainy evening in New York eating delicious take-out spaghetti and Dunkin' Donuts that Jason fetched for us, while watching Elf together on the laptop.
The next morning we had a soggy trek through steady rain to catch the Amtrak out of Penn Station and head back home--our blessedly rural country home.
No comments:
Post a Comment