NYC, Part 3

Wednesday

We woke to the sound of marching band music this morning. Just outside the window, the kids were making the most of the last day before the parade. Two schools stayed at our hotel: ours and another one from someplace I can’t remember. This isn’t ours:

We had a slow start this morning, mostly because I wanted to make sure everything had settled down from yesterday. In spite of that, I got my usual hotel breakfast, taking full advantage of Omelet Man. I love fresh, made-to-order omelets, especially because they’re such a rare treat. Who can say “no” to a couple eggs cooked with bacon, sausage, chicken, onions, crushed red pepper, cheddar cheese, and Pepto Bismol.

There was also a slight delay as we looked into changing hotels. Here’s what Manhattan looked like from our hotel window:

It’s a nice view, but it didn’t take us very long to realize once you added up all the trip legs, you could easily spend one and a half to two hours to get from wherever you were in New York back to the hotel room. Being closer to downtown would have been nice. In the end, though, we decided to stay. After all, it was a lot cheaper than the alternatives. I can handle the bus time. It’s not like we were in a hurry to get anywhere.

Except that today we did have to be somewhere at a very specific time. We had to be here:

Now I’m not a big fan of musicals. And I’m also not a big fan of spending large sums of money on things I’m not a big fan of. But how often do you get a chance like this? (“Did I say that right, honey?”) Here are a few more shots, including one of the stage:

I may not like musicals, but I like music. And I like being entertained. And I must admit, this one was definitely entertaining. It had it all: brains, heart, and courage. Oh, and when Defying Gravity hit me at the end of the first act? Man, I thought I might wet myself. It was absolutely chilling. I don’t think a person out there would disagree with this assessment.

By now it was dinner time and I hadn’t eaten a thing since breakfast. (You’re now starting to see how life-on-the-go here was preventing me from gaining weight. Not only were the meals fewer and farther between than expected, but all that walking helped too.)

We were told of “a cool place” to eat which just happened to be on the same block as the Gershwin Theater. A place called Mars 2112:

It looked different, and I was ready for anything that wasn’t Manchu Wok.

Of course, if “different” was all I was after, I wasn’t going to be disappointed. First off, I’ve never been to a restaurant that charged admission. I assumed that was more or less built into the price of the food. Whatever. I’m in New York. Just inside the doors, we were bathed in blue neon:

There were two ways into the restaurant: 1) walking down a long, winding tunnel; and 2) waiting in line for a half hour to go on a fifteen minute motion/space ride. A quart of Pepto Bismol told me I wasn’t about to take the latter option. But Rachel just had to try the ride, so I headed downstairs, got a table, and waited. The wait looked like this:

I felt like I landed on the set of Total Recall. I expected mutants to pour out of every door within moments. But as my eyes adjusted to this cavern lit not unlike a darkroom, I noticed something. Kids. Lots of kids. At least two or three at every table. “What is this?” I asked myself. “A glorified Chuck-E-Cheese’s?” It was, more or less. Where “glorified” means “plenty of alcohol is also available to help you survive your visit.”

A week ago, when Laura asked me, “So what do you want to do in New York?” (This was, after all, primarily her trip.) I replied with two things: I want NY pizza and I don’t want it to be too cold. I’m rather easy to please and I figured we had a shot at making one of these happen.

Not tonight. Not on Mars. In the end we ordered some mozzarella sticks, a burger each, and (you guessed it) chicken fingers for Rachel. And fries for everybody. Now I like cheeseburgers. I’m somewhat of a connoisseur. I could live off them for weeks without flinching. I don’t like them rare, so I usually just go with “medium.”

I thought that’s what I asked for tonight. Instead I got a Kingsford Briquette on a bun. I ate half of it before I just had to stop. Laura offered me half of hers. So I ate that and nearly all of the french fries. The waiter, of course, apologized and said he’d bring a fresh one out right away, but to be honest, I’d eaten all I needed to eat. So he tried to make up for it with a $10 card for the game room. (Besides, we had a $25 coupon for the place so it seemed like we were probably going to get our money’s worth.)

Except we didn’t read the fine print on the coupon. “Not valid between Nov 11 and Jan 4.” What?! He felt bad about it (since we were out of town and certainly wouldn’t use this on January 5) and said he’d bring out another $25 for the game room. I told him we probably wouldn’t be staying that long and we’d just take care of the check now.

Okay, you know the part about how I’m stingy and I don’t like paying a lot of money for something so temporary as food? Well, guess how much two burgers, cheese sticks, chicken tenders, fries, and diet cokes cost? Go on. Guess.

With tip, it was about eighty-five bucks. I’m not kidding you. Eighty-five United States dollars for a handful of fried potatoes and charcoal. “Glorified” is an understatement.

Anyway, live and learn. We went to the game room to spend our ten “free” dollars. Well, Rachel did all the spending, including a game of hockey:

The highlight of the evening, though, was outsmarting the claw game. Rachel saw a little stuffed bear in there she just had to have. We lined up at perfect 90 degree angles to each other to make sure the claw was properly positioned along each axis. She pressed the button. The claw bore straight down on the bear. But then inches above the target, with victory in reach, the claw took an abrupt turn north and missed the bear by several inches. “Hey! Not fair!” That’s okay, though. We can compensate, now that we’ve learned its ways. Second try was dead on, but it failed to grab. We left to play other games but with a $1.50 left on the card we had the exact amount to try one more time. Sure enough, the strategy paid off, and Dinkleman, the back-pack bear from the movie Open Season came sliding out the chute.

Rachel was ecstatic. Yeah, maybe that was worth it.