This is the third in a four-part series discussing my trip to NYC

I wake up without an alarm, and it is glorious. I think that we must have passed out around ten-thirty or so. There comes the point when you’re not moving anymore, and your body just goes that’s enough. It’s time for bed.

Eleven hours of sleep later, I feel pretty good. We start our day off as one should on vacation – with a mimosa at the bar downstairs and a breakfast sandwich that should not cost twelve dollars. From there, we ask ourselves the all-important question:

“Well, what’s next?”

Already we’ve seen so much that it is almost incomprehensible that there could still be dozens of significant attractions left to explore. But of course, there is. Central Park was only twenty-five minutes away and, around it, there was a slew of touristy kind of attractions.

Before we left, I had looked over a map which detailed the absolute MUST VISIT and NICE TO VISIT spots, and I was a little disappointed to learn that Central Park was lower on the list than I had expected.

For the record, my only understanding of the attractions of New York was from other people’s stories and the latest Spiderman video game.

 

 

Seriously, it’s actually a superbly accurate map of Manhattan! Down to the building locations and everything. It was delightful – I’d recommend playing it if you haven’t already. But I’m getting off-topic. Central Park, right. The views from the park were some of the best in the city. We wandered around there for a couple of hours, and it wasn’t until hours later that we realized we had seen only a small portion of the park.

And people were jogging in thirty-five-degree weather! What kind of nonsense was that!

After that, we hit up the American Museum of Natural History. Which was good, if you can get over the racist overtones of the colossal sculpture out front.

And that brought us to lunch.

Now I’ve talked in previous posts about the food of New York. We were sitting at about a fifty percent satisfaction rate if you didn’t include the breakfast sandwich from the hotel. I don’t really like brekky all that much. The unpopular opinion of the day, I know.

Lunch brought the percent down to 33%. Not cool, Cosmic Diner, not cool. You see, leading up to the trip I got food recommendations from half a dozen people without even asking. It’s an NYC staple! Oh, you’re in Manhattan? You’ve GOT to go to Blah Blahs!

There’s always a story behind it too. My cousin recommended a bar because it was the bar which McLaren’s in How I Met Your Mother was based on, for instance. Unfortunately, a lot of these places are scattered around New York, and it’s a pretty darn big city.

I’m telling you all now if you go to New York do NOT go to the Cosmic Diner. I paid $17.50 American, which is about $500 Canadian, for a Philly Cheesesteak with Kraft Singles cheese slices on top. And I was hungry enough to eat just about anything at that moment in time.

To top it all off our server tried to give himself a twenty-five percent tip by sneaking it in on the bill. I sense a strongly worded Yelp review in their future.

At night we went to the Mets game. So for some context, I’m a Blue Jays fan. I got aboard the bandwagon back in 2015 when Josh Donaldson and Jose Bautista were crushing bombs at the Rogers center, and I never hopped off. I still watch about 40 or so games a year, even though they are figuratively screwing the pooch now.

I’m also an Astro’s fan, because of my connection to the city. But even if we’re talking about New York team only, I’m more of a Yankees fan than a Mets fan.

But oh man, I was glad we went. We were treated to an entertaining game with lots of hits, some pretty good catches, and even a dinger. But as the ninth inning drew to a close, the teams were still tied at 3 runs apiece.

I wanted to leave. We’d walked a half marathon already that day, and I wasn’t sure the subways would keep running after a particular hour. Afterward, I learned that it’s New York, the subways ALWAYS ran, but I didn’t really want to be stranded in Queens after more than a couple Mets game specials. But it just seemed wrong to leave. And the two annoying kids in front of me who wouldn’t stop snap chatting each other pictures of their faces had left. So we stuck around for one more inning.

 

 

With a runner on second and two outs, J.D. Davis smacked a perfect single down the third base foul line. The Mets walk it off, and the stadium erupts! It was so neat to get on the subway as the strong Queens accents around me chanted:

“Go Mets go!” and “F*** the Yankees!” over and over again. That was a big win for them. It was neat – surreal in a way – to be caught up in another team’s victory celebration.

On the way back to the hotel, we stopped and grabbed a few slices of New York-style pizza. We got four slices for four dollars.

Barring the Italian food on the first night, this was the best meal I’ve eaten in New York so far.

What did we learn this week?

• Nobody told the boys from Queens that the Yankees are the more popular of the two teams. I’m not telling them, either. Go for it if you want. Just get ready to throw down if you do.
• This was the only time during the trip that my knees hurt, and we covered a LOT of territory. Maybe I should start walking more.
• We saw Trump Tower, but we didn’t go in. Some things are better left unexplored
• If you walk 19 kilometers a day, I guarantee you that you’ll have no trouble sleeping
• The subway is an… interesting place. Check out @subwaycreatures on Instagram. You’ll see what I mean

Tune in next week for the final installment in my New York series! Also, if you like this series of posts, let me know! Sound off in the comments or smash that “like” button

Later days,

M