A & E's Adventures: Going East: Resting, Walking, and Eating

After the Met, we were seriously in need of some food, and decided that this place sounded good.

Since we were very much ready to rest, we decided to take it back to our place (very close) so that we could eat and rest there.

When we got to our hotel, the manager told us we'd be on the 4th floor and he'd meet us up there. It seemed a little odd that we were being personally escorted, but we really didn't think anything of it.

On arriving in the room, it looked nice, but small. As we were taking it in, the manager explained that our original room wasn't available because some renovations they were doing limited the number of rooms, so we would be staying here, free of charge, if that was okay.

This seemed like excellent news, though Ed was careful to not show too much happiness at the prospect of a free night in New York. However, as I looked around, I noticed a significant lack - a bathroom. There was a sink, but nothing else.

The manager explained that the restroom was down the hall, but it'd be ours alone, and it was a decent size, so we were feeling happy (though, sort of funny but not really, the bathroom apparently wasn't just ours, as I discovered at 5am the next morning when I went to take a shower and there was someone already in there - we never really found out why there was the mix up in information, but we weren't happy that we had left all of our stuff in the bathroom that other people were using.)

After we were left alone in the room, we got down to business - burgers and a custard shake for sustenance on our first New York day.

After resting, it was time to do some more exploring. Right near where we were staying, there were some apartments named perfectly for us.

We jumped on the subways (which we found pretty easy to use and not dissimilar from other major cities' transportation),

and headed to Macys.

Now, as I mentioned, Ed was in need of some clothes (or more specifically, pants) for the wedding we were attending, so we decided that the largest Macy's, supposedly, in the world, would be the perfect place for Ed to buy a new suit.

Unfortunately, if you can't tell, Ed is a pretty long and lean fellow. Unfortunately, he's so apparently uniquely long and lean that Macy's had no suits in his size, so no suit for Ed.

Since he had to buy something to wear, however, he went with an inexpensive but very nice pair of khakis that would fit the bill. I also got a new pair of comfy walking sandals to keep my feet happy during city exploration, which I wore out of the store.

Weary, but tired shoppers, we headed out to Greenwhich (about 20 blocks away - in retrospect, walking this distance was not, perhaps, the best of decisions).

The walk afforded us a chance to get to see a lot of New York, which was wonderful.

The Empire State Building was on our list, but for a later date.

I was very excited to see the flatiron building.

As well as so much other beautiful architecture, that looked golden in the fading light.

In one of the many parks we passed, we saw this large sculpture.

We had to get a picture of Ed with the Papyrus, since now Ed always thinks of my Dad's "instructions" for being a good husband whenever he sees one (that every year for our anniversary, Ed must buy me a blank papyrus card and write a heartfelt message). He had a bit of trouble finding me a papyrus card this year, but after three stores, finally got one :).

By the time we were firmly in Greenwich, we were running late, so decided to skip the bookstore and head straight to the restaurant. Now, unfortunately, we had a little trouble. I had written down the directions on a piece of paper. On the other side were directions to a different restaurant that we had thought about but decided against - those had a line through them. Sadly for both of us, Ed looked at the wrong side when directing us, and we spent about 20 minutes headed towards the wrong restaurant.

And unexpected benefit was that we got to see this arch, which was very exciting :).

Around this point, I will admit, my mood started to go south (right around when I found out we had been going the wrong way for 20 minutes, in fact). It was 9pm (and we had missed our 8:30 reservation), I was starving, we'd been up since 5:30 (and still slightly jetlagged, so it was an early 5:30) and we had been walking for 20+ blocks, on top of all the walking before the afternoon. So, I was less than pleased that we were still not sitting and eating and I may have been a less than pleasant travel partner.

Finally, we arrived, were seated and could just relax, and all was well. The restaurant was a small brick establishment with nice Italian waiters serving delicious italian food and wine. I slipped off my new and now fully broken in sandals to rest my very sore feet on the icy table legs and, after some sips of good white house wine, started to feel very relieved to be there and in a significantly better mood.

Ed was happy, too.

I let the waiter direct my choice, asking what he would recommend in terms of pasta dishes, and was very pleased with the choice of the lobster canneloni - rich, delicous and wonderful.

Ed got an intense amount of food, getting the chicken parmesean, which came with a side of pesto pasta. This place totally understood Ed's need for copious amounts of food.