Friday, September 17, 2004
Our First Full Day In The City!
We ended up getting a much later start than either of us really wanted to but with the VERY long day before, we needed the sleep. I'll admit, I held us up a bit too getting ready. I think Steph was starting to climb the walls a bit needing her caffeine fix especially since she had to settle for a Coke as that was all the gift shop at the hotel had.
About 2pm we started out from our hotel and walked down toward Times Square this time along a street which was a block down from the one we took the night before. There were lots of little interesting boutique type shops and plenty of food places to make us hungry. We were going to stop at a pizza place but alas no Pepsi for Steph so we kept on walking until we ended up at - you guessed it, a Duane Reade! LOL We ended up getting something to drink and a snack (I wasn't overly hungry anyway especially after that big dinner the night before).
Once we finished up, we stopped at the Shops Of Columbus Circle. Basically it is a three story mini mall where you find some of the better designer shops that you won't find in Iowa. I ended up falling in love with a few items from Hugo Boss and Armani which I put on the shopping list in the back of my mind in case I didn't find something elsewhere that I wanted more. Unfortunately, I didn't have a lot of space in my suitcase to take items back with me. Now that I think about it, that may have been a good thing as I could have very easily melted some serious plastic in that city! LOL
From there we walked over to Rockefeller Center and visited the NBC store. I'm not a big tv watcher so there wasn't much there which I found appealing although I did give up $60 for a cool yellow windbreaker and an SNL hat which will come in handy for my running adventures. Steph was overjoyed to find a SNL shirt with the cheerleaders on including a couple of their cheers. I vaguely remember those skits but that was about the time I stopped watching the show so I have a feeling some of the humor was lost on me. LOL
We exited the building out into the courtyard area where the ice rink is in the winter (restaurant in the summer from the looks of it) and stopped for a bit to have a rest and get some pics of a sculpture of people walking toward the sky which was there. Julie H called while we were there to say she was only a couple blocks away and we could meet up. From what I understood, Julie had seen a pic of Steph but Steph had no idea what Julie looked like and neither did I. Hmmmm this could be interesting. LOL Not long after the phone call, I was standing against the wall up above where the rink is watching Steph take pictures when a red headed woman approaches me and says, "Anne?". I'm sure at that point I had a somewhat quizzical look on my face and said, "Yes." It was Julie. She said that she found us by Steph's purse which I happened to be keeping an eye on while she took pictures. Leopard print - gotta love it! LOL
For the next hour or so we wandered around and backtracked a couple of times attempting to find a Ticketmaster outlet (they like to hide in NYC) so that Steph could get the Alice Cooper tickets. I've never seen this woman so focused on a mission! She had missed him both times when he was in Iowa so she was hell bent on makinig the NJ show since we were so close. I didn't care one way or another as I wasn't that big of a fan, however, once I saw the guys in the band, I'm really glad we went! :) - more on that later. After we finally found a place to get the tickets (an f.y.e of all places), we decided to go see Battery Park and Ground Zero. Because it was quite a ways from where we were, we decided to take the subway. Steph was a little funny about going on it, but I thought, "Hey, what's a trip to NYC without riding the public mass transit system." LOL Although it was older looking, a bit more dirty and dark, it reminded me of the Tube in London - oh the memories. LOL If nothing else, I liked it for that aspect. When we got off, I think Steph was still a little unsure about it but I don't think she found it as terrible as she was thinking it might be.
When we came out of the subway, it was a short walk to the park. One of the first things we saw when we got there was a sculpture that used to sit outside the World Trade Center which was damaged but not destroyed on 09/11. It was placed in the park with a flame in front of it as a memorial. It was kind of strange, we all tried to take pictures of it and it took all of us more than once to get a decent shot. I'm not sure if it was just the time of day or what but it was a little strange regardless.
From there, we walked over to the shore and off in the far distance you could see the Statue Of Liberty. I tried to take a picture of it but unfortunately it was dark and a little foggy so it didn't really turn out. On our way to Ground Zero, we got rained on - Grrrrrrr! but at least it was only a short shower and it wasn't coming down too hard. It was kind of funny Julie had an umbrella with her and every time she would open it up, it seemed to stop raining. Isn't that just the way? LOL Oh yeah, we also ran into the Merrill Lynch bull. Steph and Julie took pictures of him but I just couldn't bring myself to do it after looking into his evil glare. LOL
Ground Zero was a VERY sobering experience. Even though everyone around the world felt the pain and horror of 09.11, standing there where it all happened brought about a whole new form of realism to that day. Living in Iowa and being so far away, I don't think the impact of what went on really hit until the moment I stood up to that fence and looked down into the hole where two high rise buildings which thousands of people would grace every day once stood. I can remember looking up to view some of the pictures with copy that were posted along the fence and seeing notices from the Port Authority pinned up every so many feet stating regulations to be abided by when on the grounds all the while thinking how sad it was that such things had to be done because of people's lack of respect. An example of this included the people standing along the walk selling pictures of the towers which, in itself wouldn't be so bad, however, the pictures of the towers they had were those in which the planes were crashing into the buildings and when they were burning. I was absolutely appalled! One of them approached me and I just ignored him. He then asked me what my problem was and again I ignored him. I was afraid that if I said anything, I would completely go off on him and possibly end up being the one who was hauled down to the station rather than him. Steph, however, was much more bold than I. A guy approached her with the pictures and when she told him he was sick, he laughed at her. That was it! She went off on him. I can't say that I blame her. When we were leaving, we happened to pass by a security guard who Steph talked to about the man with the pictures. The guard told us that they had already picked up five of them earlier in the evening and most likely the cops would be back later to pick this one up too. Good!
By the time we left Ground Zero, it was getting late so we decided to head on over to the Hard Rock to get something to eat. We had about a twenty minute wait so we went 'touring' through the place looking at all the memorabilia. Was really neat to see some of the things that were once used by some of the top musicians and their gold/platinum albums. We were all rocking out to Another One Bites The Dust which was playing when we were seated and then Steph just about went ape shit when she found the Fat Bottom Girls album in the hall leading down to the restrooms. Once we had a look around the shop and Steph bought her shot glass, we then took off for our hotel, and Julie for home.
Knocked Off By The Fashion Diva
|
