Urban Adventure

Our summer adventures usually take us to the wilderness, some rural location, or the beach.  But, with the Crazies off visiting their grandma, we, the Parents, decided to embark on a most thoroughly urban adventure in the Greatest City in the World, NYC.

The weekend getaway started with a near misadventure, when we barely made it on the bus.  We grabbed the last two aisle seats next to each other.  Next came the actual misadventure: heavy traffic between Washington DC and Baltimore.  The normally 4 hour bus ride slowly turned into more than 5 hours.

Thankfully, there were no misadventures for the rest of the weekend, and the weather was perfect for exploring the city by foot.  Here are the highlights:

• Well maintained parks stretching from the southern tip of Manhattan north along the Hudson River.
• The Irish Hunger Memorial - a very cool sculptured landscape reminding us of the Great Famine that brought so many Irish immigrants to this country and the hunger that still exists throughout the world.
• The Highline - a unique, beautiful park created upon the structure of long abandoned, elevated train tracks.
• Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral, standing behind a mother and daughter who wore matching pants, t-shirts, and sweaters and shared the same manicure, carefully painted lady bugs on each nail.
• Home-cooked Austrian meal complete with our gracious hosts, E. and I.
• Bike ride through Central Park on Father's Day - rent bikes at the entrance of the park, not from the throng of harassing vendors canvassing the streets around the park.
• Pizza at Lombardi's, the first licensed pizzeria in the country.

Self-portrait of the Parents in a store window.