This past weekend, Rina and I went to New York City for her birthday and to visit relatives we have there. It was quite an action-packed weekend, despite being only three days long.
On Friday, we made the drive up to NYC. We left later than we had intended, but we made good time. Fortunately, we never hit any traffic until we were near the New York border, when traffic out of the toll lanes merged from three lanes to one. It only lasted a few minutes, and we were quickly on our way again.
Despite serious reservations in advance, I didn’t have any problems driving to our cousins Isaac and Bonnie’s place. A combination of good directions, map studying, only minorly heavy traffic, and not having to go to downtown Manhattan helped. Fortunately, we were able to skirt most of the city, as once we crossed the Hudson River from New Jersey, we took the first exit and shot off north into the Bronx. Then we took the first exit in the Bronx, and we were right there. We ditched the car in a parking garage right next to their building, and abandoned it for the next couple of days, which is just how I wanted it.
We were tired from the drive up, and though Bonnie suggested we head into Manhattan for a bit and look around via the subway, we declined and just hung out at their place. I did go swimming in the indoor pool in their building, so I even got some exercise in that day. Later, we drove to synagogue and walked back after services, about a thirty minute walk. We did a LOT of walking over the next couple of days.
On Shabbat itself, we walked back to synagogue, walked back to our cousins’ home, ate lunch, and napped for a little while. Then, we walked across the bridge pictured above back onto Manhattan Island and went to a park on the northern tip of the island. We walked around there for a while, admiring the several hundred year old trees and the other parkgoers having parties, then walked down to Broadway (a street which starts at the southern tip of Manhattan Island and runs 150 miles to Albany) to cross back into the Bronx and back home. After walking around for a couple of hours, we were fairly tired at this point.
After Shabbat ended, we retrieved the car and headed out for a tour of Manhattan. Isaac expertly drove us around for a couple of hours, pointing out many sights, including Times Square, of course (pictured below), Madison Square Garden, and Wall Street, just to name a few. At about 1:30am, we went back home to collapse.
On Sunday, we bid farewell to Isaac and Bonnie and headed from the Bronx into Queens to visit another cousin, Beatrice. We spent a few hours talking with her and eating birthday cake (it was her birthday that weekend, too), and obtaining a LOT of information on Rina’s family tree. We wrote down as much as we could, and took pictures of old photographs Beatrice had in an album, so we now have photos of photos (faster than using a scanner, which we didn’t have handy).
Finally, it was time to head home, so we did, again encountering no traffic. We stopped off for kosher hoagies in New Jersey halfway home, and got in around 11pm. Of course, after that we had to unpack, unwind, throw some laundry in the machine, et cetera, so we were still up late. Fortunately, the next day was Memorial Day, so we were able to sleep in and recover.
