Manhattan, NY (January 7, 2105)

One of the reasons I love Holiday Inn Express is that they have a free continental breakfast every morning. I’m not a huge breakfast lover, but I am always starving when I wake up, so breakfast is important to me. This hotel had the usual fair of eggs, bacon or sausage, varieties of breads, waffles and cereal, beverages and of course, their famous cinnamon rolls. It was simple, quick and easy and filled us up, and the staff is always so nice. Their dining room was an add-on to the building, and wasn’t heated at night. It was a bit chilly in the morning, so we would eat breakfast with our coats on. Not perfect, but it kept us from having to go out and scrounge up breakfast in the bitter cold. 

The icy view out our window of the hotel in the morning.  It's COLD!

Wednesday was “see the city” day. So early in the morning, we set out on foot toward Central Park. The city was a little bit quieter this time of day, but there were still lots of people getting coffees and heading to work. We made our way through the city slowly, enjoying all of the sights along the way, and ducking in, to warm up whenever we needed to. There weren’t as many stores open this time of the morning, so we couldn’t be as selective as we were the night before. 

The set of Good Morning America

We finally reached Central Park. It was a lot different than we expected. I don’t know why, but we thought it would have a lot of grass. It was natural landscape with lots of trees and concrete paths running through it. It was beautiful! As we left the buildings behind and entered Central Park, it was so relaxing. There was a little snow on the ground, so we tried to stick mostly to the paths so our feet wouldn’t be wet and be frozen all day. 

As we got into the park, we noticed an ice skating rink off to our right. There were probably about two dozen people skating, so we stopped and watched them for a while. 

As we continued on through the park, we saw a few horse drawn carriages taking tourists through the park. We probably could have seen more of the park that way, but we preferred the exercise. As we stood in the park and looked around, it was crazy to be in such a serene place, with sky scrapers visible above the tree tops on three sides around us. I’m sure that other parts of the park are much different than what we were able to see, but we truly enjoyed our short visit.

Our plan was to have lunch at Carnegie Deli for one of their huge, famous sandwiches. Steve has always talked about eating there when he visited NY.  But as we approached the deli, a storm was moving in, and we were chilled to the bone. 

You can see the yellow sign for Carnegie Deli behind the girls.

We decided to stop and get a sandwich to go, and just eat it when we got back to the hotel. It was quite a walk back, so by then we would be hungry, and we could warm up while we ate. Well, that was a big mistake. If you go to Carnegie Deli, go in and enjoy your humongous sandwich while it’s still hot, and let them keep bringing you bread as you eat. You won’t regret it. Although our sandwich was cold and a little soggy by the time we got back to the hotel, it was still delicious! Our one sandwich was $20.00, and was plenty for the three of us to share for lunch. And we were really glad we got back to the hotel before the cold wind came up too badly. We needed a little time to de-ice.

We had a reservation at Tony’s Di Napoli for dinner, a restaurant that the girls collectively chose, and tickets for the Lion King on Broadway for that evening. Tony’s was right on our way to the theater, and was a charming Italian restaurant. Since we didn’t have a refrigerator in our tiny room for leftovers, we tried to order small, although that was difficult because the menu had so many amazing options for numerous courses. We ended up ordering Sangria, salad and bread to start, and then finished with a wonderful mushroom pasta dish. We were hoping for dessert, but were stuffed and had to pass. I would love to go back to Tony’s when I could order everything I wanted and take the leftover’s home for later. A nice meal at Tony’s gave us plenty of time to warm up before venturing out again to find the Meincoff Theatre. 

We got to the theatre, and I was surprised at how few people were dressed up for the evening. I think it was probably because of the extremely cold weather, but that was a bit disappointing to us. The play was mind blowing! The costumes and props were unbelievable. If in New York, definitely make time to go to a Broadway play. 

Waiting for the Lion King to start

If you are going to be in New York for a week or so, you can even get discount tickets in Times Square. Any of the performances that are not sold out for that night will go on sale in the morning. You will have to wait in line to get them, but if you have enough time in NYC, I think it would be worth it. 

It had snowed pretty hard while we were in the theatre, and the walk back was quite brisk. We saw a city worker shoveling the sidewalks, and putting the snow into large trash cans on wheels. We thought that was odd, but then realized that we couldn't find any sewers for ti to melt into, so that made sense.  I assume they must take the snow somewhere and melt it down to get rid of it. Back at the hotel hot coffee and cocoa were waiting for us in the lobby to warm us up before bed.