Spring Trip to New York City

We drove down to New York on Thursday morning, checked into our hotel, and decided to go for a little walkabout. As I’ve mentioned, we’ve taken the girls into the city before, and they (mostly) didn’t have strong opinions about what to do. so we thought that we’d poke around some places that were new to us (we moved to the Capital District from Brooklyn nine years ago). We visited Chelsea Market (see fabulous cakes below)and the cool new Highline Park that’s been built on the old elevated subway. Along the way we stumbled on the Good Stuff Diner, where we refueled with a little ice cream and nachos.

Then it was on to the big attraction for the girls: the American Girl Store. Oh, man. It was way too overwhelming. So overwhelming that at one point, J just sat in the corner trying to collect herself. So overwhelming that we didn’t even make it to the third floor. The girls had brought their entire savings, but in the end they each decided to spend only half, which seemed remarkably restrained. It helped that the really colossal items weren’t stocked in the store.

We  decided to check out restaurants for dinner as we walked home and ended up at Darbar, which was deeply yummy Indian food. Plus Cute W remembered that one of the perks of eating out in the city is that you can drink to excess without driving home. Of course, we were exhausted, and these days we’re lightweights, so we only managed three drinks between us.

On Friday we decided to try out the Queens Hall of Science. We’ve already done the Met and the Museum of Natural History, and when we ended up with an East Side hotel, we figured it was worth a try. Plus there’s a zoo right there, too. As it turns out, the train ride out was one of their favorite parts of the whole trip. We were in the almost-empty first car, and the subway is above ground once you’re in Queens. I always forget how much the kids enjoy the subway.

The Hall of Science was fun, but we’ve been to many science museums, so it seemed a bit dated, honestly. I’d choose the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City over this one. If you’re considering visiting either or any science museum, you should check into the Association of Science-Technology Centers passport program, which I’ve said before. Anyway, the girls had plenty of fun. Their favorite section was sports, where they could pretend to surf, arm wrestle someone over the internet, and race with regular vs. streamlined wheelchairs.

The huge building blocks were also a big hit. J’s in pink, building, and M’s peeking out through a window of their fort.

The zoo was a short walk away. It was a bit small for the money, but the aviary was beautiful

On the subway ride home, the girls spotted their first subway rat, my whole family defied death by leaning from the platform,

and the girls examined graffiti in search of new swear words!

We spent Saturday morning visiting family, then took a nostalgic drive through Park Slope and hit the Chip Shop for lunch on our way out of town.

We’ve already got our next city trip half planned: the Statue of Liberty (this was M’s top choice, but apparently you have to reserve way ahead of time these days), a meal in Chinatown (even though we’d suggested Chinese and no one seemed interested, J became interested when we drove through), and a visit to the Tenement Museum (interesting, close to Chinatown, and Cute W theorizes it will be a reminder of how good the girls have it). Good times had by all.