Category: travel

Old Themes/New York

Two weekends back, I was in NYC for yet another concert, this time to see the fantastic Mayer Hawthorne, the fabulous Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, and legends Hall & Oates at Madison Square Garden. Such a fun show.  I had reserved a room at the Holiday Inn a couple blocks from the venue and a few minutes’ walk from the Vamoose bus stop.  Times Square is only about a 20 minute walk.  I’d stayed at the hotel before so I knew it was decent, and it just made sense to stay there in light of how convenient it was.  (Also, free breakfast!)

My Vamoose bus got in around 1:30 and I went to the hotel to drop my stuff before getting a late lunch/early dinner at Haymaker, a great restaurant just next door to the hotel.  The burger was great and the beer menu was excellent.  Cool space, great atmosphere. Didn’t expect to find a place like that in that part of town, but glad I did and that it was so convenient.  I think it had only been open a few months.  Definitely worth checking out if you’re in that part of NYC.  Before the concert, I walked to Ayza for hot chocolate and dessert.  The hot chocolate was delicious, but I thought the dessert was a bit overpriced for what it was.  Also, I practically had to stare down the staff to help me even though I was sitting at the bar.

Saturday morning I was up early.  I had actually booked a room for that night at the 70 Park Avenue, so I schlepped my way over there, dropped off my bag, and headed out again. I had made plans to see a matinee of Aladdin on Broadway and had a few hours to kill.  You may remember that I saw the Star Wars:  The Power of Costume exhibit in Seattle last May; well, I saw it again in NYC at Discovery Times Square.  I was excited to find that there were even more costumes this time, and not just additions from The Force Awakens.  There were some parts of the exhibit where the staging was fantastic (a mirrored room creating the illusion of a clone army, the background from Padme and Anakin’s wedding), but the lighting wasn’t always great and I’m pretty sure there were signs that did not sync up with the costumes on display.  But overall, I was still glad I went.

I sought sage words from Yoda.
Oh hi BB-8!
I loved this dress too. Wish the color had come out better; it’s a pretty blue color.

I still had time to kill after wandering through the exhibit (since I’d seen most of the costumes already, there were only a few where I lingered) and figured I should get lunch before the show.  I wanted a relatively authentic New York experience, but where are you going to find something like that in Times Square?  I walked a block over (the theatre wasn’t far from Discovery, so I didn’t see a point in going too far away) and found yet more chains and places with mediocre reviews.  But I stopped short when I saw reviews for a nearby pizza place called 2 Bros with fantastic reviews and cheap pizza.  A giant slice of tasty pizza and a bottle of water for $3.50?  Practically unheard of.

The theatre opened at 1, so I took my seat, glad to have a chance to sit after walking all morning.  Aladdin was great, with new songs and a few changes from the movie, although as expected, Genie is just as much of a show-stopper here.  The pop culture references have been updated to reflect current memes (Genie says “Ain’t nobody got time for that” and does the Whip and Nae Nae).  The show was lots of fun, but I still like the movie better, and not just because no one could ever beat Robin Williams.

On this trip, I had also pledged that I would attempt to find the memorial near the late David Bowie’s apartment in SoHo.  I’m not sure how close I was to where he had lived (the memorial was probably long gone anyway), but I found the studio called The Magic Shop where his final two albums The Next Day and ★ were recorded; it apparently wasn’t far from his apartment, so I can’t have been too far off.  I was sad to read that the studio will be closing this month; it made me wish I had been bold enough to buzz the door to see if someone would give me a tour.

I sauntered around SoHo a little more until I ended up across the street from the famous Apple store (another place I’d been before).  I was thinking about dinner and I figured SoHo would have far more options than the area around my hotel.  Just after recognizing the Apple store, I saw there was a food truck with empanadas outside.  (This was my train of thought:  “Oh there’s that Apple store I went to that one time OH S*&^ THERE ARE EMPANADAS.”)  I found yet another place to get dessert and hot chocolate, Jacques Torres, before getting back on the subway back toward the hotel.

The 70 Park Ave is a Kimpton property, and if you are a member of their Kimpton Karma rewards program, you get a credit to use at the bar or to raid the minibar.  This one was $15; I think outside of NYC, it’s $10.  Either way, free stuff just for being part of the program!  Who says no to that?  I treated myself to a drink and a snack at the bar (the credit only covered the drink).  The room itself was fabulous; I wish I had taken a picture. Even though the hotel was off the beaten path for me, a bit more expensive than the Holiday Inn room, and there wasn’t much of interest around it, I would consider staying there again just because I liked it so much.

It was yet another good, full-to-the-brim trip to New York (but still no Umami Burger). My overall impression of the city hasn’t improved:  It’s dirty; it’s full of tourists and ways to leach money from you; I tired of hearing car horns within a few hours of arriving.  But it still unfailingly provides you with new adventures even when retreading old ground.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BCCC1knyhHk/?taken-by=travellingwomanblog

London (at long last)

London (at long last)

Yes, this trip occurred nearly eight months ago (!!!).  Yes, I have been on a different vacation since this trip happened.  Don’t judge.  Finally…here you go.

***

This plan to go to London sprouted about a year ago when my friend Katrina over at Thrifty Gypsy’s Travels talked about this Groupon for a London trip.  I asked my friend Lance if he might want to go to London, Ireland or Iceland and he said he’d prefer to go to London.  So we bought our Groupons–$999 for airfare, hotel and some tours (that we unfortunately did not take).

Lance and I flew into Gatwick, as that is Norwegian Air’s entry point into London–unfortunately, the only place nearby that Norwegian flew out of was JFK, so we took the MegaBus up there since it was the cheapest way of going.  The flight was supposed to be less expensive and surprisingly, the planes were brand-new and super nice.  We had been upcharged for checked baggage and meals, but even then it didn’t seem so bad considering how cheap the Groupon was; the total was still under $1400.  We took the Gatwick Express into the city, switched to the Tube after lunch (where the sports bar staff took pity on us and gave us free shots), and went to our very cute hotel room in Earl’s Court (an adorable part of town, by the way), which admittedly had a pretty great view, even if it meant we would hear the trains all night long.  It also had a free breakfast every day, so that was also a plus.

We hadn’t been there long before I realized we would be late for our timed arrival at the London Eye, for which I had bought combined day/night passes.  We were still able to get in with no problem, and were treated with an amazing sunset view, which surprisingly was way cooler than the night time ride.  Of course, we were both pretty bushed by then since we’d been travelling for about 24 hours before we’d even gotten to the hotel, so it’s not like we could have truly enjoyed the view from the Eye at night anyway.

We spent nearly the entire day Monday at the British Museum, our mouths agape at just how much there was to see and how cool it all was.  We could have easily spent our three full days in London at the Museum and maybe still not seen everything.  We vowed we’d come back if we had any spare time.  We wandered around town for a little while until eventually and serendipitously coming across the place where ping pong was allegedly invented.  It’s now a bar called Bounce where you can get food and drinks and play ping pong.  We had a blast even though we started out poorly (we got better!) and spent a ton of money at this place.  Late that night, because Lance hadn’t eaten at Bounce, he was hungry, but we weren’t sure if there were any decent places around worth trying. Fortunately, there was a great local burger chain, Gourmet Burger Kitchen, just up the street and we got in just as they were taking their last orders for the night.

Even though it was winter, we decided that we would try and make it to a garden anyway. A local we’d met at the British Museum had advised us to try the Chelsea Physic Garden. It was pretty cold that day, but we braved it for a while before wandering around some more and eventually finding ourselves at the grand National Portrait Gallery.  Just the building itself is worth seeing, even if you’re like me and “not a big art person.”  There were plenty of pieces I recognized, and some I was glad to be introduced to.

On Wednesday, we spent much of our day at Westminster Abbey.  We had all intentions of taking the guided tour, but we were misled about what time it began and, disappointingly, we ended up missing it.  But just looking around the Abbey, you can’t help but marvel at it. We did the audio tour and learned some interesting facts here and there, but mostly you just end up trying to take in all the sights and still you miss things because there is just so much to see.  You also feel very weird stepping over people buried beneath the floor, but they’re everywhere, so you can’t avoid it.  Near the end of the tour is Poets’ Corner, and I was geeking out until I realized that most of the plaques are just in recognition of writers and most of the writers are actually buried elsewhere.  (I bought a book about it from the store anyway.)

We made our way over to the Tower of London, which we hadn’t realized was so expensive, but upon venturing around inside, we realized it was definitely worth it.  Not only are the Crown Jewels there (giant shiny things!!!), but there is SO much to see.  The armory was sort of interesting, but its upstairs was full of fun interactive games and exhibits.  We didn’t see all of the buildings there either, but we had no idea that there was so much going on there or else we might have tried to make more time there.

Our plane didn’t leave until Thursday evening, so Lance and I reasoned that we could still get some time in at the British Museum, except this time, I got caught up in a long bag check line, where we wasted about 15 or 20 minutes.  We spent most of our time in the South American and Indian/Asian galleries, the latter of which we both found especially fascinating.  Lance had just joined a tour of that gallery when we realized we needed to leave.  We had hoped to be at the airport by 3, but after a sit-down lunch of fish and chips, gathering our stuff, and taking the Gatwick Express back to the airport, it was 4:30 by the time we got there.  Fortunately, we didn’t have any serious lines or anything to bother with.

We got back to New York around 9 p.m. that night, glad that we’d have a night in a hotel as opposed to continuing back to DC.  We woke up Friday morning worrying that snow might delay our bus though, so we made a call to Vamoose and asked if we could move our reservation to an earlier time.  We’d still get to DC around rush hour, but it would beat getting there even later and during a potential snowstorm.  Vamoose didn’t charge us the difference in the ticket prices and instead just charged us a fee for the change–I was really pleased about that because our original booking had been significantly less expensive.

We were both tired from the trip, but had really enjoyed ourselves.  I had only gotten to two of the numerous places I’d wanted to visit, but realistically, there was only so much we could have done with just three full days.  Needless to say, I’d love to go back, but I think Lance and I both agreed that London is pretty full-on.  My impression of the people we encountered was much different than I’d expected it to be.  I was surprised that on sidewalks, I felt compelled to move out of others’ paths because it seemed that no one was going to accommodate me.  Compare this to DC or maybe even New York, where I think people generally make an effort not to run into each other.  Plus, waitstaff didn’t bother with niceties; they just asked us if we knew what we wanted.

That said…next time I’m seeing the Globe.