This past weekend was a fun-filled, whirlwind 3 days in NYC. Friday night, I took the red-eye to Newark, arriving at 6am. I was planning on staying with my friend Lisa, in Manhattan, but since she was going to be out of town, she sent me her keys and let me stay in her place anyway. It turned out to be a very nice gesture, since a hotel would've cost me in excess of $300!
After checking in to Lisa's apartment, I tried to find my way down to Ellis Island. Even though I had never really navigated the city on my own, it seemed to be easy enough -- just take a green train to Battery Park. Of course, there was construction on that line, and I ended up having to do a few transfers to get to my destination. Fortunately, I ran across a family from Haverhill, MA, who was in town to visit their daughter at St. John's for freshman parents weekend. They also happened to be getting on at the same stop, and were also bound for Ellis Island, so at least I had some company. Turned out to be a good thing, since the lines to get on the ferry were about an hour and a half long. I was fortunate to be the last one on the 11:30 ferry, although it didn't look like my adopted family had made it. Ellis Island was a real treat. Given my late start, I didn't have nearly enough time to spend there. It was filled with history, pictures, and relics from the great wave of immigration, and I will have to come back sometime to see it in its entirety. After Ellis Island, I rushed uptown to grab a quick lunch with Jenn, who was in town for a job interview. From there, I made it back to Lisa's apartment to shower and change into formal wedding attire.
The wedding, for my friends Brett and Liz (from Dartmouth), was quite nice, held at the Union Theological Seminary near the Columbia University campus. The building reminded me of Hogwarts from Harry Potter -- very dimly lit and gothic architecture. Even the reception seating was a long, cafeteria-style tables. I saw a lot of familiar faces from my Dartmouth days, including many I hadn't seen since graduation. There was a strong Seattle contingent there as well, as Brett worked at Amazon for about five years after graduation.
Sunday morning, I met up with another Dartmouth connection, my friend Tracy, who was a freshman of mine when I was a UGA. Shortly thereafter, I met up with the rest of my family who came into town for a de facto reunion: Mom, Cari and Matt (and their children), Aunt M., Devin, Devin's girlfriend Kate, and Devin's friend Aly. We decided not to ascend the Empire State Building as first planned, as the lines were long, and instead headed up to Central Park and the zoo. Connor was very interested in finding the Balto statue, and the photo album below has several pictures taken there. After the zoo, we briefly headed down to Battery Park so that everyone could get a glimpse of the Statue of Liberty, and then headed to Little Italy for a sumptuous and filling meal. I returned to Lisa's apartment and, later that night, finally got to see her briefly once she got back from her trip to Vermont.
Monday was a short day, since I had a 3pm flight, but I managed to spend some more time with Lisa, and also got to have lunch with my friend Umesh, who recently moved to New York to work at Google. All in all, I managed to see numerous friends that I hadn't seen in a long time, as well as hang out with the fam. What a weekend!
Here are some pictures...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment