New York City Archives - Somewhat Awry

5 Things You MUST Have in New York on Vacation

Published on July 17, 2017 by Tracie4 Comments

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These are the five things that I believe that you absolutely need to have with you no matter where you are on vacation. They are especially essential in New York. See if you agree with what made my top five list.

Number 1: A good camera strap.

To carry that heavy camera around. I love the one above. It’s beautiful and functional, both requirements in my book.

Funny story. I decided that I didn’t need to take my camera strap with me to New York. Apparently I had a brain lapse. Believe me, you need a camera strap. That camera will get very, very heavy after a few hours. I finally resorted to using my purse strap as a camera strap. It worked in a pinch, but I don’t recommend a narrow strap like that.

Do yourself a favor, and buy yourself a lovely strap that you will want to use.

I also love all of these.

You can find more here and here.

Number 2: A small wristlet purse.

To keep petty cash, metro cards, snacks – nuts, hard candies, a candy bar – your insurance card, identification, etc. All things you need to have on you. Like candy bars.

I started out carrying my cross body purse and that lasted exactly one day. Something that you don’t think twice about carting from the car to the store becomes extremely heavy after a few hours. I was so glad I had my wristlet with me.

One of the best tips I read about before we left was to never place your purse on the back of your chair. That’s an excellent way to easily be robbed. Carrying my wristlet solved this problem, because I just laid it beside my plate or in my lap whenever we stopped for a meal. It was always in plain sight. With the added benefit of being light and easy to carry.

You can find more here.

Number 3: Water, water, water

You will not believe how much water you will consume. Even Hayden, who used to avoid water like it had the plague in it, drank gallons. Being a tourist is thirsty work. Take a bottle with you everywhere.

Number 4: Good walking shoes.

You will walk and walk and walk and walk some more. And just when you think that you can’t go another foot, you will walk a few more miles. This has to be why people in New York are so fit. All they do is walk!

You can find more here.

Number 5: Sunscreen.

You are definitely going to need it. We were in New York the first week of June and we had perfect weather. Perfect in my opinion. High’s in the 60’s with lots of cloud cover. Hoodie weather. Not most people’s ideal, but mine for sure. We still needed sunscreen.

So what makes your top five list for vacation? How does it compare to mine?

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When things don’t go exactly as you planned. New York.

Published on June 13, 2017May 2, 2018 by Tracie11 Comments

We’re home!!

We spent the last 9 days in New York City (one of the days was spent in Philadelphia, PA) and we had a blast. We are already planning a return trip, because seriously, you could never see, do, taste, smell and just absorb everything there is in NYC in that short amount of time.

I took the photo above after we had walked the Brooklyn Bridge. In 83* weather, with thousands of other people. At one point, while we were trying to get a photo of us all, Hayden says, Mom, stop trying to make this into something fun. No one on this bridge is having fun. Hahaha, he was wrong, I saw plenty of people having fun on the bridge, but he was right too. It was hot, we were miserable and it had been a long, long, week at that point.

I am slowly posting about everything that we saw, ate, and did – I’m also putting New York in the title of those post’s in case you have no interest in what we saw and did and you can skip it.

What I wanted to ramble on about today is expectations. And what we get out of those expectations.

I freely admit that I had a lot of expectations going into this trip. I always do! I feel like if you don’t have a plan, any kind of a plan, you are already halfway into the weeds (Gordon Ramsey reference) and probably aren’t going to get anything accomplished. Denton knows this about me. He is not a planner, he loves to fly by the seat of his pants. That makes me cringe. We know this about one another.

To head off a lot of arguments, we had a conversation before we even started packing the car for the trip. He didn’t want me to plan out every single moment – of every single day of our trip. I didn’t want to get home from our Big New York Vacation and realize that we had just wandered around like chicken’s with our heads cut off and didn’t even remember what we had done.

So we compromised. I made a list of all the things that we definitely wanted to do and see on this first foray into the city with the understanding that it was just a guideline for us to follow when we felt like it.

I feel like this is the first time that we got it right. He wasn’t stressed out (too much) by my big list of things to check off, and I felt comfortable that we were actually going to see and do and eat at least some of the things on ~~our~~ my giant list.

One of the things that made this possible was the map I created on google maps that was personalized to us. I shared it with everyone, that way we could see in an instant what was around us that we definitely wanted to see and do. I used this tutorial to make ours and it worked perfectly!

The first thing that knocked us for a flip on this trip was Hayden getting sick. He wasn’t feeling well on Thursday. By Friday when we got to Philadelphia he was feeling very nauseous. By Saturday when we had to check out of our hotel (which was AMAZING!) he was feeling really, really bad.

We made the decision to go ahead to New York and assess things there. By Sunday morning we had already scoped out the nearest Urgent Care facility and were waiting on a doctor. They ran a lot of tests, did blood work, did more tests, then more blood work and finally advised us to take him back to our brownstone, keep him hydrated and if his symptoms worsened to take him immediately to the ER, where they could admit him and do a better workup.

He slowly improved each day and now he is feeling absolutely normal. In addition to this stressful situation Denton’s back decided it didn’t like being normal and tried to rearrange itself. His solution was to eat Ibuprofen like Smarties. That worked.

All of that to say that nothing went as planned. Like having to pay to use the restroom.

Unusual food that you really didn’t like. I hate wasting food and money.

We saw the beautiful memorial where the twin towers were, but had to skip the enormous lines for the museum.

We had great pizza, but missed so many more that we had planned for.

We went up into the One World Observatory, but were really disappointed and wished we had spent the time and money at the Rockefeller building or the Empire State building.

We didn’t have the time or energy to go and see St. Patrick’s Cathedral, but stumbled upon St. Paul’s Chapel completely by accident.

We also never made it to Dumbo or the Flea Market in that area. 😥

Sitting in traffic for over an hour to get out of the city.

The whole point of this post though is to show you this.

We passed by this rosebush every single time we trekked our way to the Subway every day. There are so many gorgeous gardens in Brooklyn, that I was amazed.

Life is a journey.

While you are ticking things off of your list, don’t forget to stop and smell the roses, and take pictures of them too! Those moments are the ones that are standing out in my mind already.

This was a truly amazing trip for all of us – we all actually agreed! I am so glad that I convinced Denton to step out of his comfort zone (he is very, very protective of all of us – hence being very uncomfortable in a city with millions of people to watch out for!) and now we can’t wait to go back.

Enjoy every moment! Even the hot, irritating ones while you are trudging along the Brooklyn Bridge with thousands of other people!

This post is linked up on……

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The Price of a Restroom. $2.17. New York.

Published on June 12, 2017June 27, 2017 by Tracie1 Comment

Sorry for the blurriness of the photo. It was done very quickly, because of a time constraint.

$2.17. That is the going rate to use a restroom in New York City.

We were in Chinatown and realized that we had no idea where a bathroom was and asked a New York City Patrolman who was standing nearby, who directed us to the local McDonald’s.

As we entered the three story building a guard – uhmm – employee was shouting “Paying customers only!” and directing everyone into the line to order. So I quickly ordered the first cheap item that popped into my head. A small ice cream cone.

Only then, after showing our receipt were we allowed to go upstairs to the restrooms.

After Hayden and I came out of the bathrooms, we found Denton and Olivia sitting at a table, where Denton informed me that we had a time limit of 7 minutes to consume said ice cream cone. Seven minutes!!! He said the same ~~dragon guard~~ lady told them as they ascended the stairs that the time limit started from the time of the receipt. Wow!

I suppose that it is a small price to pay for the privilege of using indoor plumbing, but REALLY?!?

A friend of mine laughed and told me about an app that you can get – it’s free – that will tell you where free bathrooms are in your vicinity. I immediately downloaded it, but didn’t need it for the rest of our trip.

You live and you learn something new every day!

Also, this! How crazy, strange, weird and freaky! Our customer number was the same as our total. Yep, I am a strange person for finding this amazing.

Has this ever happened to any of you? Inquiring minds want to know.

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enoteca OTTO pizzeria. New York.

Published on June 7, 2017June 7, 2017 by TracieLeave a comment

Todays lunch/supper – lupper? – was a huge success. We ate at enoteca OTTO pizzeria, one of Mario Batali’s restaurants on 5th Avenue. It. Was. Awesome.

Denton ordered one of the days specials. Orecchiette with pancetta and spigarello. Heaven. Absolute heaven on a plate.

Hayden chose Quattro Formaggio. It’s a pizza with four separate cheeses. Mozerella, tallagio, cacio, and ricotta.

Liv ordered the Cacio e Pepe. It’s a pizza with Mozerella, pecorino, cacio, Parmesano and black pepper.

I chose the Quattro Stagioni. It has peppers, mushrooms, Swiss chard, Mozerella and Cotto. It was delicious. My favorite of all the choices on my pizza was the mushrooms. Divine.

After we ate everyone wanted to get a gelato. I was completely stuffed, and I knew that Liv and Hayden would never finish theirs so I didn’t choose one.

Denton got Lime/Basil. Let me tell you, I couldn’t have eaten that one. It was so tart I thought my jaws would lock up. But it was good, just too much for my taste buds.

Hayden got Mango/Coffee. If you like mangoes this is your choice. It was mango heaven for Hayden. The coffee was my favorite, it was lovely.

Liv chose Dark Chocolate/Cherry. They were both excellent. She loved her choice and our waiter laughed and said that she was the only one who made a logical pairing.

I would highly recommend this restaurant to anyone. It was one of my favorites!

Tonight’s supper was a bust.

Published on June 7, 2017 by TracieLeave a comment

Every single night (and day too,) we have tried something new to us for lunch and supper. New York is a wonderful place to do this. I mean think of the possibilities!

All four of us got something different so that we could mix and match our meals to be able to try the most dishes.

Tonight was a complete failure. We tried Haitian food.

Liv ordered the Mixed Vegetable sandwich with kale, sweet plantains, avacado, tomatoes and chickpea spread with fries. It was sooooo sweet!

Hayden chose the cod fish sandwich which had tomatoes and avacado on brioche. Uhmmmm, the best thing we all had to say about that was, nope. It was so, so fishy.

I ordered the burger with red onion chutney, roasted peppers and spiced herbed mayonnaise. One of the main reasons that I didn’t enjoy my meal was the excess mayo that was on it and they also MADE you choose between cheddar and swiss cheese. I don’t like cheese on my burger thanks. I also chose for my side, Akra. They are shredded vegetables fried into fritters. These were just okay, but had was too much batter instead of veggies.

Denton ordered the Griot pan fried pork shoulder with piklis and sos, fried plantains and a side of rice and beans. I think that this was the best dish we got. I loved the roasted red peppers and onions that came with the pork, but the pork was very, very dry.

So, all and all, we just didn’t enjoy our Haitian dinner. The next time we try it will be with one of Denton’s cousins who lived in Haiti for two years. I think this was just too different for us to go it alone on. Maybe next time will be better!

We won’t stop trying new things. Nothing ventured, nothing gained!