In March 2002, my sister was given a trip to New York City by her employer so she could attend a banquet to honor herself and about 20 other employees for exceptional service. She was allowed to bring one guest, and she invited me. I accepted, and since she's friends with (and a co-worker of) my girlfriend Willow, we agreed that she should come with us, so I bought her a plane ticket. And off we went to the Big Apple!

One thing I read or heard while in the city was the term "the canyons of New York." This is an example of them, with a view looking down from the Empire State Building. By the way, it was REALLY cold on top of the USB in March! It was cold at ground level, even colder at the top of a HUGE building with icy wind blowing across the top....

Another view of the "canyons of New York," this time from street level.

One of those carriage-horses just outside of Central Park.

The big statue outside of Central Park.

On our first night we were starving and we found a restaurant called "Lasagne Ristorante," which had really good Italian food (I had lasagne) although the wait staff were all French. :)

A picture of Ground Zero, where the World Trade Center used to stand. It's all fenced off and most of it has been cleared out, and it looks like a big construction site. You can still see damage to the nearby buildings.

This is the cross-girder they unearthed from the site. A lot of people take this to be a Christian image surviving the destruction.

Our room at the Inter-Continental, empty of our stuff.

Our room at the Inter-Continental, full of our stuff, including Willow, who qualifies as some of my "stuff" for the purpose of this caption. :)

My sister ice skating at Rockefeller Center. When you go to New York, that's just one of the thing you have to do. It's funny, from the movies and such you'd think this ice rink is HUGE, but it's normal-sized. We went here on Thursday (it was just a short walk from the hotel) but it was too cold. We went back on Friday and it was still cold, but tolerable. The skates were uncomfortable, though, which is why I wore two pairs of socks (that and because it was COLD).

So one of the reasons I went to NYC was because I wanted to see the musical Rent on Broadway. Of course, the one time I go to NYC the orchestra members and actors went on strike to protest proposed cuts in the size of orchestras. A strike for the first time in like TWENTY YEARS. I don't blame them for striking (the big producer companies wanted to replace some orchestras with recorded music. Doing so would save the producers about $4 per $100 ticket (the savings wouldn't be passed on to the consumer, of course) but would cost 10-20 orchestra musician jobs per show, which would suck. So the musicians protested, and the actors joined in with them. They walked around on Broadway with signs. So almost all shows were canceled for that weekend, including Rent. And the strike ended a few hours after we left NYC. Ah, well, that means I'll have to go again some day.

The central portion of the skating rink at Rockefeller Center.

The rightmost portion of the skating rink.

The opposite side of the central portion of the rink.

A zoom in of the big reclining statue.

So we were walking down 5th Avenue and went by the Saks store, which is apparently trying to tell us that the new trend for fashion-minded pillows (yes, PILLOWS) is to wear tank tops or bustiers with no pants. Saks is freakin' expensive ... we went in there to try to find my a dress shirt to go with my suit (I got makeup on my last good one at the 2002 Gen Con Ravenloft play) and for a simple one it was like $120. Ridiculous! We went elsewhere.

On Saturday Willow, Keri, and I met up with my aunt Susan (whom I haven't seen in at least 20 years), her husband Kevin (whom I had never met) and my 4-year-old ("still four, as he puts it when you ask how old he is) cousin Seth (ditto). They live in Jersey and took the train up since they knew we were going to be in town. We went to lunch, walked around on Broadway, and went to Central Park, where there was still a lot of snow and slush on the ground. It was a neat place, and I'd like to go there again in the summer. Uh, so this is Willow and I in the park. We're wearing the matching red knit caps we bought at the NBA Store in the city. Did I mention it was cold in NYC????

There were a few park-recreation-things (such as a seesaw) in Central Park, and after waiting for some kids to leave (and then waiting for the kids who usurped the seesaw from us before we got there) we got to play on the seesaw. You'll notice that I'm scooted all the way up to the handle of the seesaw and holding on for dear life with both hands ... that's because I weigh a lot more than Willow and the only way we could achieve a reasonable amount of balance was for me to scoot all the way forward, and I had to hold on with both hands to make sure that the hard, cold, iron handle wouldn't cause me to speak in a very high voice for the rest of our trip.

This is the NYC skyline, shot from Central Park.

So we arrived on a Thursday, and it was snowing and REALLY cold, like below 20 not counting wind chill. I admit that's cold, but after living in Wisconsin it's not the coldest I'd ever felt (that was something like 0 conventional, -30 with wind chill). However, Willow says it was the coldest SHE had ever been.... Anyway, this is the street as we were walking around in the cold.

The south Manhattan skyling from the Empire State Building. Smack dab in the middle of that cluster of buildings is where the World Trade Center used to be.

The exterior of the St. Patrick's Cathedral, at night. A very cool building. Catholic.

Daylight shot of the front (lower portion) of the St. Patrick's Cathedral.

Daylight shot of the front (upper portion) of the St. Patrick's Cathedral.

A composite photo of the cathedral exterior I made by pasting together four photos with photoshop. The place is so big that a regular camera can't show all of it in one picture.

The interior of St. Patrick's, looking toward the altar area. Very tall! Big! Impressive!

A view of one of the interior doors of St. Patrick's.

Exterior view of the door to St. Patrick's.

Stained glass in St. Patrick's.

More stained glass in St. Patrick's.

Even more stained glass in St. Patrick's.

A stairwell in the central part of the cathedral. It leads up to some platform, maybe for the priests to breakdance or something.

Big giant wooden doors in St. Patrick's.

Shrine in St. Patrick's to St. Andrew.

Shrine in St. Patrick's to St. Bernard & St. This is a perfect reproduction of the entrance to St. Bergard's Chapel, Melliford County, Louth, Ireland, erected 1142 AD.

Shrine in St. Patrick's to St. John Baptiste de la Salle, founder of the Brotherhood of Christian Schools. Patron Saint of all Teachers.

Shrine in St. Patrick's to St. Rose of Lima.

Another shrine in St. Patrick's, but my notes don't tell me to whom the shrine is dedicated. Can anyone help me out here?

The exterior of St. Thomas' Cathedral. An Anglican church.

The wall behind the altar at St. Thomas'. The columns & arches along the sides of the pews were really cool.

Closer view on the rear wall.

A closeup of the arches along the side of the cathedral interior. The picture is a little blurry because I had to use the low-light setting on my camera, which means it needs to take a longer exposure, which meant any little shake of my hands showed up.

This is a big cool statue across the street from St. Patrick's.

Willow and I skating at Rockefeller Center.

Wing Wah restaurant. This is only funny if you have been to Chula Vista and been to the Wing Wah Chinese restaurant there (no relation, I assume).

Thursday
I wasn't able to sleep on the plane. The old guy behind me coughed so wet I thought he had tuberculosis. Our taxi driver from the airport was a maniac, going 60 on snowy tight NP freeways, weaving in and out of traffic, and "making a lane" where there wasn't one. The hotel was cool; the bulidings around us were tall enough that even though we were on a high floor (8th? 12th?) we could look out our window and not see the tops of any of the adjacent buildings. It was really cold. We ate at Lasagne Ristorante; they had good lasagne. Rockefeller Center was neat but it was too cold to skate. On the way back from Rockefeller Center we stopped at TGI Friday's to soak up some heat and have some dessert. Walked past St. Patrick's Cathedral, it was cool.

Friday
Got up, had a mediocre breakfast at the hotel. Went shopping for hats, gloves, and mittens. Saks was expensive. We got hats at the NBA store. Keri and Willow bought gloves for $1 from a street vendor. Went to St. Patrick's and St. Thomas' Cathedrals, they were awesome, took a lot of pictures. Keri and I got ready for her banquet. Since Keri could only bring one guest, Willow called her cousin in Philly and took the train down there to visit. Keri and I dressed up and walked to the banquet. It was cool. I sat next to a department head named Joe Simone, who is a nice and funny guy, and smart and charismatic ... it's obvious why he's a good leader. After dinner there was a comedian (a Letterman impersonator, who was so-so), and another comedian (who was funny, but was cut off by an exec because he was a little too off-color). Dessert was really good, I ended up eating Keri's dessert (she didn't want it, so why let it go to waste when I could be a gluttonous pig?).

Saturday
Keri and I walked over to a place called the Comfort Inn (on East 45th Street) for breakfast (Willow stayed over in Philly at her cousin's place). Their cornmeal blueberry pancakes were interesting. This was the day the musician's strike started in full force (the night before it was just the musicians, today the actors joined in). Damn you Disney and Clearchannel for trying to scrape even more profits at the expense of the arts! Willow showed up while we were out and the three of us took the subway to the Times Square station and walked to Times Square. Quite a big impressive place, with all of the giant billboards and light-signs everywhere, and a lot of people. We met up with my aunt Susan, her husband Kevin, and their son Seth. Had lunch, went to Central Park. Checked out what tickets were available - nothing except Cabaret. While I liked Cabaret, I had seen it less than a year before in Seattle and really wanted to see Rent (I only found out after we left NYC that "Doogie Howser" was playing the part of the Emcee in the show, which I would have liked to see ... ah, well). After sending the family back to NJ via the train, the three of us had dinner at an Indian place -- Diwan Indian Restaurant 7 Lounge (148 East 48th Street, 212/593-5425). While their chai (Indian tea) was so-so, their food was really good, as was their kheer (Indian rice pudding dessert, like tapioca pudding but better) ... if you're in town, definitely go there. That night we went skating at the rink at Rockefeller Center. Makes me glad Willow and I went skating at the rink in downtown San Diego (I had never been ice skating before this year). Nobody in our group fell, though I had to lunge for the wall to keep myself from chopping off the fingers of a boy who fell down in front of me.

Sunday
Sunday we got up early, packed up, left our luggage in the hotel storage area, checked out, then walked to a diner called Broadway's on 52nd and Lexford. The food was fine, and our server (a guy name Chuck) was REALLY nice and friendly, we liked him a lot. If you get a chance to eat there, see if he's around and if you can be seated in his area. Then it was back to the hotel to collect our luggage and wait for the car, a quick ride to the airport (at that time of day and day of the week there was almost no traffic so we made great time), and another airplane ride home. Woohoo!

All in all, a good trip. I'm glad I did it. Though I wasn't able to see Rent on Broadway, that just gives me an excuse to go back again some day.