You can follow along this post with this handy-dandy family circus style Google Map that I made: NYC 2007 Trip.
Dad and I had been planning since at least May to make it down to NYC for another Mets game, but for one reason or another kept putting it off. May and June flew by, and all of a sudden it was July. We looked at the schedule and realized this weekend was pretty much our only chance until September. So we bought our tickets on Friday night and were ready to go Saturday morning.
We got going a bit before 8 am and go into Tarrytown with a bit of time to spare for the 11:47 express into Grand Central. Once we got in we caught a bite to eat and headed up to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We had thought about going to The Cloisters, but we couldn't figure out a good way to get to the A train. (As it turns out, we later accidentally happened upon it.)
I figured that I was going to get bored quickly, but they had large galleries of Egyptian, Greek, and Roman art. It felt like this stuff should have been in a history museum. There were wall paintings and other items dating back to 2400 BC. That impressed me.
After about 2 hours of wandering around the older galleries, we headed upstairs to look at the European and American galleries. We got bored quickly and stopped in at the Asian gallery, but left in about 5 minutes. Our attention spans exhausted, we went into Central Park to sit in the shade and look at the Jacklyn Kennedy Onassis Reservoir.
Coincidentally, while we were planning this trip, Anil Dash had a series of posts on how to visit New York City. From what he said, I thought it would be neat to check out the Top of the Rock. So after we rested up in the park, we headed back to Grand Central. Dad wanted to check out Time Square as well so we took the 7 train to there and walked from there up to Rockefeller Center. I have to say that Time Square is just something you have to experience if you go to NYC. The sensory overload is just amazing.
In going to the top of Rockefeller Center (or the Empire State Building) you will definitely pay more than you'd expect to go to the top of a building, but it's worth it. Manhattan (and the rest of the city) is simply one of the most impressive sights you will ever see.They will tell you that there is no wait, but that's crap. What they really mean is that there's no wait to wait in line so that you can wait in line again. But it only took about 15 to 20 minutes for us to get to the top even with all the waiting which was much better than the hour or so to get to the top of the Empire State Building.
The Top of the Rock has three floors that you can visit, the 67, 69 and 70th floors. It's not nearly as high as the Empire State Building, but I don't think that really detracts from the experience. When we were up there yesterday it was a good bit less hazy than last year and that combined the fact that there were fewer people bustling around made the experience more enjoyable than when we went up the ESB.
After that we headed over to the game, thinking that we wouldn't have much time, but as it turns out it was Ralph Kiner night, so the game got delayed quite a bit. While we were waiting in line to be patted down by a big burly man*, I over heard someone talking about how much Shawn Green sucked. Finally, we got in and got our seats in the field level out by right field. We found out that Tom Glavine was pitching that night, which either was a really good thing, or a really bad thing. He did well in the first inning, but in the second inning he gave up a home run. After that there was no scoring until the 6th when Shawn Green hit a single to score David Wright. That tied up the game, but we didn't get any more runs that inning. It wasn't until the bottom of the eighth when Lastings Milledge singled to score Shawn Green that we took the lead. This meant that they could take Glavine out and he would still get the win if we stayed in the lead. For the ninth inning, they brought in Mets closer Billy Wagner to finish the game. There's some electric about watching a closer come in from the bullpen, run past you in right field and take the mound. With his 96+ mph fastball (compared to Glavine's 86 mph fastball), Billy made quick work of the Reds and Glavine got his 298th win. Good times.
After the game we headed back to Grand Central and from there to Tarrytown. Both Dad and I were quite hungry, having skipped dinner so that we wouldn't miss any of the game (and not really feeling like eating hot dogs), so we decided to hit the road and find something to eat. After eating, we tried to find a place to stay but even outside of the city, the hotels were full. So we ended up driving the whole way, getting home sometime after 4 in the morning. What a trip.
![[Joe]](images/emoticons/joe.png)
*Since he was a guy, he apparently couldn't/wouldn't pat down the women. It seems to defeat the purpose of checking people, which is why I think they should get some attractive women to work at the park. That way they can pat down the women, and the guys won't complain.
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