CAIT AROUND THE WORLD

Easily one of my most anticipated days of the trip! (And if you’ve been keeping up with my other posts, that’s definitely saying something.)

We started the morning in our usual way: coffee in hand and a jaunt over to the subway. Destination? Times Square. It was quite a bit quieter there before nine a.m., which was very nice. Even so, there were a number of people out and about, including Nayak staff (who I originally thought were a tour group 😄) who were watching as their stock symbol was added to the NASDAQ that morning. We toured the Disney Store, Hershey Store, and M&M Store (and I got a sweet little bag of chocolate) before walking down to Bryant Park and the New York Public Library.

Bryant Park is a welcome little green space with several food vendors and a sweet stage setup. We sat and collected our bearings for a few minutes, enjoying the scenery and the space break. Then we headed off to the Library.

The New York Public Library was on my list for so many reasons: The Day After Tomorrow, the fact that I worked in a library for four years, and, really: books.

Though many of their reading rooms aren’t open to the public for sightseeing purposes, just getting to see the inside of this gorgeous building is quite satisfying. Its scale and grandeur are a wonder. Adding to its awesomeness, you can purchase tickets for free to see the Library’s Treasures collection, which contains numerous items including, but not limited to, handwritten copies of the Declaration of Independence (Thomas Jefferson and printings by John Dunlap), two copies of the Gutenberg Bible (the second is housed on a separate floor), the Bill of Rights, Shakespeare’s First Folio (which my English major heart really loved), and Winnie-the-Pooh and friends. Following a tour of the Treasures collection, we headed upstairs for a peek at the second and third floors; the Bill Blass Public Catalog Room was open for private study and research and therefore closed for tourism purposes. We could have waited for a tour, but decided to just take a quick look through the open doors instead.

From the Library, we made our way over to Grand Central Terminal. Millions of animated films and pictures have not lied – it’s such a cool building. We exited via the Met Life Building and visited the Lego Store next. The staircase there is adorned with a Lego-built Times Square! I cannot imagine the time and effort that goes into that and every other mural or sculpture they have in there. Stunning.

Our final stop in the Times Square area was the MoMA (yes, because of All I Want for Christmas). Per the film, I really only wanted to spend about fifteen minutes there but found I could have spent much longer. The exhibits on display are engrossing. Our major sight here was Van Gogh’s Starry Night, a classic piece of art.

Now, when we look at art, we get hungry. The fact that it was coming up on one o’clock in the afternoon might have helped with that, too. So we hopped on the subway and made our way to Greenwich Village for Joe’s Pizza. We found a bench in Washington Square Park and sat for awhile, watching the world go by. When we were ready to get going again, we walked around the Village for a little while, passing by buildings that make up NYU and the Friends apartment. Greenwich is such a beautiful area, with old brick buildings and a tight community vibe.

Heading back uptown, we hit a couple more of the stops on our list, one of which was Kleinfeld Bridal, because I used to watch Say Yes to the Dress all the time and loved it. The other was, of course, the Harry Potter store.

It is truly a Potterhead’s paradise in there. They have so many awesome things that you can do, with a broom shop and literally hundreds of wands on the wall to choose from. You can get your robes, chocolates and candies from Honeydukes’, ride in a Floo Powder elevator, buy books, and even treat yourself to a Butterbeer from their Butterbeer bar (complete with patio).

Me being me, we also walked over to see The Strand, the largest independent bookstore. Three floors of shelves lined with books from every genre, sorted into subgenres and by author. Completely incredible. And even though I told myself I wasn’t, I broke down and bought a book, A Show for Two, by Tashie Bhuiyan, a New Yorker herself, which is set in New York City.

We headed back to the hostel from there and took some time to relax after all the walking we did. A bit more rested, we got ready and headed out to Chelsea Market.

This place is so cool. I was expecting an open-air establishment with a sort of semi-permanence, but the place is actually indoors and looks like it goes for miles. There were so many cafeteria-style food spots, it was tough to pick just one. There is really something for everyone. We finally settled on Creamline, which had homemade tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches and sounded so good at that moment. It was fantastic – creamy and delicious, and just a lovely pre-theatre meal.

We arrived at Majestic Theatre on Broadway quite early, and took a bit of a walk up the street to check out other marquees. The Music Man is actually currently playing on Broadway featuring Hugh Jackman. We’d seen it the night before as we left Ellen’s and if we had more time in New York, it would have been so very cool to see as well! Aside from that, there were theatres playing The Lion King and some of our other options were Come From Away and Chicago.

After playing a few rounds of Twenty Questions while standing in line (seriously, it’s a great way to pass the time!) the doors finally opened and we were ushered into the lobby to wait just a few more minutes to be able to access our seats, which were at the very back of the theatre – serious nosebleed, but also not a bad view! There are no heads in front of you to obstruct your view, and the sound is amazing from anywhere in the theatre.

If you’ve never seen The Phantom of the Opera, I highly recommend fitting in a showing before it leaves Broadway. It is a beautifully rendered production of a classic musical, full of drama and sorrow and hopeless (and hopeful) love. If I were to liken it to a novel (hello, English major), it would have to be Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, which is one of my favourite classic novels. The music is incredible and the story is rich.

We took the subway back to our hostel that evening from Times Square, which shines just as brightly in the middle of the night as it does during the day. I couldn’t have picked a more perfect end to our three days in New York City as this night. Memories to last a lifetime.