New York highlights

As previously mentioned, my husband and I spent the weekend eating our way through New York City – or through parts of Manhattan and Queens, at least. And while I savored every bite of every meal we ate, there were many other highlights from J’s first (my third) trip to the city.

While waiting to meet Allison on Saturday afternoon, J and I crowded into FAO Schwarz and exclaimed over Quidditch supplies, stacks of books, stuffed animals galore and a wall of board games. And then we watched two professional piano dancers perform four songs on the giant piano – just like in Big! (They ended with – I kid you not – Bach’s Toccata and Fugue. So. Impressive.)

I also met an old friend in the Lego section:

The Met is always a highlight – but I really loved watching J’s jaw drop in amazement at some of the things I’d seen before and wanted to show him. (I love playing tour guide.) He particularly enjoyed seeing the knights:

We hit some of the tourist hot spots I’d never seen before – the Plaza, Rockefeller Center (that skating rink is smaller than it looks in the movies!) and Macy’s on 34th. And, of course, the Lego store, complete with gigantic dragon:

He’s all made of Legos, and he’s “guarding” a Lego replica of Rockefeller Center (with a tiny replica of himself sticking out of one building). So cool.

On Monday before leaving, we went back to the Strand, where I managed to buy only three books, including a much-loved vintage edition of E.B. White’s wonderful essay Here is New York:

The other main highlight of the weekend was spending time with this girl:

Allison is a regular reader of this blog, and we’ve been corresponding by email for a while – and she did not bat an eyelash when I invited myself to her apartment for a long weekend in September, nor when I promised her I was coming back and bringing my husband. (What a brave soul!)

She gave us her room for the weekend, bought us real New York bagels for breakfast, traipsed around the city with us in below-freezing weather, and said all sorts of nice things about my wedding pictures (she’s newly engaged, so I brought my album along and we talked dresses and flowers for a while). I love it when online friendships transmute so perfectly into real-life friendships – and this one certainly has. It was such a treat to spend the weekend with her (and Allison, if you’re reading, please come up to Boston soon!).

Any suggestions for my next trip to NYC? You can bet we’ll be going back (when it warms up)!

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