First Days in New York City

     On Sunday, June 24 we left from Reagan Airport in DC to fly to Kennedy Airport in New York City. We have taken the train from DC to NYC several times in the past and decided to try the plane for a change. Even though it takes less than an hour on the plane and closer to 4 hours on the train, I still think the train is better. We seemed to have a lot of walking in the airport and then, when we landed, it took a couple of hours to wend our way via the air train and subway to our hotel on 48^th and Lexington.

     We have a large room with king size bed and kitchenette on the 9^th floor of the Marriott Residence Inn. This is the same area called Turtle Bay where we stayed when we first started to come to New York in the 1990’s. By the time we got to the hotel on Sunday we were exhausted and didn’t do much besides settle in and look for a place for dinner.

     So, on our first full day we were ready to look around and see what was available for fun things to do. Don studied the bus routes and planned our itinerary for the day. After carrying the map all day yesterday he decided that putting the app on his phone with all the maps was a wonderful idea and we have suddenly entered the smart phone age!

A floating flower on Fifth Avenue

     We have breakfast included with our hotel, so we started with that. Then we headed off  to Lincoln Center to see what was new. We thought we might try the American Ballet and check out the Asian film Festival later in the week. Across the street is the David Rubenstein Atrium which has air conditioned public seating, rest rooms, and a TKS box office to buy discount tickets. They also have free concerts on Thursday evening. We will be back.

     From there it was a short walk to Columbus Circle to stop in the Shops at Columbus Circle where you can find most of the high end stores. We looked around in Amazon Books – Amazon’s first endeavor into brick and mortar shopping. Whole Foods also has a presence, so we bought some cookies and ate our lunch there.

     After an abortive trip to TKS in Times Square which didn’t open until 3, we decided to head back to the hotel and call it a day.We had dinner around the corner at the Comfort Diner. It turns out we had eaten there in 1997 when we were staying in Don’s cousin Frank’s co-op apartment. We’ve come full circle!