New York City

In early November Nephi and I got to take a four day trip to New York City! Alone! Nephi's parents generously stayed with the boys, and we flew off into the sunset. I told Nephi that even if there were flight issues and we ended up spending the whole time in airports, it would still feel like a vacation! Which wasn't really true. But flying, and everything really, is a much smoother process without four children along. It's good to remember that every once in awhile.

We stayed in an apartment with my parents that had some great city views, both by day

 

and by night.

I'm pretty sure New York City feels intense no matter where you're from, but coming from our little sleepy town with no stop light, it's very intense. I like it! I don't know if I'd like to live there or not. I think it would be pretty challenging with children, or at least more than two children. It would be a lot more fun to live there if you were a gazzilionaire, for sure.But there is something so good about so many people living all mixed up together. You can't help but notice that not everyone is like you, in how they look or dress or live or believe or experience the world. So many stories being lived all mixed up together. In suburban or rural areas it's easier to ignore how truly diverse our very own communities are. Of course, diversity can be exciting but also a little unsettling and inconvenient; it's the nature of it. 

I'm always struck in cities by just how many delicious looking ethnic restaurants there are on every single block. I want to eat at them all! We managed Japanese, Indian, and Ethiopian and they were all very tasty. I did notice that food prices in New York, both at restaurants and in grocery stores, were about the same as at home in Colorado. Things like that are interesting to me. 

The first night in New York we saw the show War Horse at Lincoln Center on Broadway. It was incredible and beautiful and horrifying. I haven't read the book or seen the movie, so I cannot compare them. If you're not familiar with the story, it is the tale of a boy who enters WWI to find his horse, whom he loves, and who has been sent off to help the war effort. You know right at the mention of WWI, it is going to be rough. So much senseless slaughter of so many fine young men. The stylized battle scenes are terrible and effective. The truly amazing part of the play is that the horses are puppets. I know you aren't very impressed by the thought; I wasn't either even though I was forewarned that the puppetry was incredible. But the puppetry truly was incredible. The horses were so beautiful and lifelike it was easy to forget they were puppets. Truly incredible. I think Warhorse closes on Broadway this month, but if it comes to a city near you it is well worth it. 

The next morning we strolled through Central Park and went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I think it's safe to say you could spend a year in that museum and just be scratching the surface. It is enormous. We headed to the European paintings and wandered for a few hours until our untrained eyes couldn't soak in much more. I think I was missing my kids a bit; I kept finding myself drawn to portraits of mothers and their babies or children. Nephi sprained his ankle quite badly several days before our trip. He is not prone to complain, and he didn't complain even as we "strolled through Central Park" and walked through airports and around the whole city, but he did get himself a wheelchair at the Met. He showed off doing wheelies when security guards weren't looking, and I was a little scandalized because I'm too easily scandalized.    

 

We saw some Van Gogh, which was amazing. I had a little Van Gogh obsession back in high school, and I still think I had good taste. There is no way that pictures can capture how thickly he layed the paint on the canvass. It is like an extra dimension of his paintings that really adds to the wild, desperate, anguished, beautiful experience of them in person. 

 

 

That afternoon we headed down to Ground Zero. It looks pretty close to the Upper West Side on a map, but it's not. It was a bit of a fiasco because we didn't know that you needed to reserve tickets ahead of time to actually see the Ground Zero memorial which is now open, but it was still interesting. We went into a temporary visitors center for a little while and then into some nearby buildings and peeked out the windows and could see little slivers of the memorial. Three of the eventual seven skyscrapers that will surround the site are well on their way to completion, and the other four are just beginning, so it's one big construction site. One thing I knew in my mind but hadn't actually comprehended was that those two enormous towers collapsed in the middle of a very tightly packed city. There is barely room for the pedestrians and cars to snake between the buildings all around, much less the rubble from two skyscrapers.A block away we saw an inviting little park which turned out to be a memorial to the Irish potato famine. It was surprisingly beautiful and evocative of Ireland (I assume). 

 

The next day we went on a tour of the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, in the neighborhood of our apartment. We got to climb up into the buttresses and out on the roof of the cathedral and got a nice view of the city. The next day Nephi and I went to a choir concert in the cathedral, and it was lovely. 

 

That evening we went to the Main Event of our trip, the marriage of my cousin Amy and Sean at the Union Theological Seminary. There was a priest, a rabbi, a chuppah, really delicious dinner, catching up with family and old friends, neon sunglasses, and a swing band. I wish them all happiness in their lives together. 

On Sunday Nephi, my Mom and I went to church in Harlem. It was their ward's primary program, which means all the talks and music was done by the 12-years-old and under set. It was a very impressive group of kids, and the ward seemed terrific. They announced film competitions, an immigration fireside, and reflections on the Sandy cleanup effort they had assisted with in the Rockaways. After church we went to a brunch with the wedding crowd, then meandered home through Riverside Park along the Hudson. Along the way we saw Grant's Tomb, which mysteriously used to be one of the biggest tourist draws in New York City. The park was beautiful, and there were so many people out enjoying the day. New York has a surprising amount of nature tucked into pockets throughout the city, and we were lucky that the weather was so pleasant the whole weekend. 

Monday we flew out very bright and early. Unfortunately, not as bright and early as we were supposed to due to fog, so we missed our connection in Denver and ended up just renting a car to get home since they couldn't get us on another flight until the next day. Our kids had a great few days with their grandparents, and it was good to be home.