Heading Northeasterly – Day 5
On Monday, 10/26, Robert kindly dropped us off at the
Alexandria Amtrak station on his way to work, and we spent some time looking at
the structure of the old building and admiring its details.
Gorgeous wood beams on the ceiling
A close-up of the
light fixture
Our train was running a bit late, but eventually, it pulled
in and we hopped on.
All aboard!
The trip took around four hours, and we stopped in all of
the major cities along the route, including Baltimore, Trenton, Philly, and
Newark. On the way through Baltimore we
grabbed a few shots, no doubt inspired by our recent viewing of The Wire.
I see Stringer Bell!
About 45 minutes later than expected, we finally arrived in
the outskirts of New York.
We can see the city!
We disembarked at Penn Station and hopped on the A subway,
heading north along the western border of Central Park to Sarah’s apartment in
Harlem, which she shares with her gentleman Kevin and his daughters, during the
time they’re not spending at their Mom’s.
Sarah and Kevin’s
building is the one behind the police station.
Safe!
The doorman let us in and told us Sarah was expecting us in
12E. As it turns out, the apartment
floors are only numbered to 11 and 12 is also known as PH, as in
Penthouse. According to Sarah, she’s
embarrassed to tell people that. Hence
this picture:
Hee!
We happily reunited with Sarah and her dog Bluebell and
dumped our crap all over her lovely home:
Snaggle!
Happy to have canine
company once again
We also snagged some photos of her gorgeous living room
decorations and stunning view:
Lovely!
Happy to be off the train and subway, we headed out for a
stroll southward, to eat lunch at a Middle Eastern place called Silvana, which
was delicious. We continued our wander
down to Central Park and spent some time strolling along its thoroughfares,
resting every now and then; after all, one member of our party had run a
marathon the day previous.
But not either of these
two!
Sarah and I posing in Harlem Meer
Other shots in and around Central Park:
This looks famous!
The outer façade of the Guggenheim
A pedestrian underpass in the Park
Chris and I in the
Botanical Garden
As we started to flag, Sarah used her membership to the
Metropolitan Museum of Art to find us a seat in a special café reserved for
members. We shared some adult beverages
and were joined by Kevin after he finished up his day at work. We really enjoyed meeting him and truly
appreciate him letting us crash with both of them.
The outside of the Met
Kevin and Sarah inside
the main staircase of the Met.
We wandered a bit more through the Park, particularly to see
Cleopatra’s Needle…
…and then we continued out the west side of the Park. By that point, we were pretty done with
strolling, so we grabbed a cab and headed to the bar at the Mandarin Oriental
hotel. The bar is up high, so it has
amazing views of the park and midtown Manhattan. I forgot to take pictures of it, so here are
some shots from the world wide internets.
Amazing, right?
Seriously, it was gorgeous.
After drinks and apps, we took the subway back to the
apartment, freshened up a bit, then headed out to dinner at Red Rooster Harlem,
one of Marcus Samuelsson’s restaurants.
Fun story – when we were walking through Central Park, we saw Marcus in
full jogging regalia, stopped and chatting with someone. Although we didn’t bother him, I found out he
ran the NYC Marathon on 11/2 in just under 4 hours. Nice!
Anywhoo, dinner was as delicious as we expected it to
be. We shared a bunch of apps, veggie
sides, and two mains, as well as a carafe of sangria. Everything was good, but the standouts were
the deviled eggs, the oxtail, and the mac and cheese – seriously, I could have
eaten multiple pounds of that. I’m
getting hungry just thinking of it.
Dang.
We all stumbled home and promptly passed out, full of food
and worn out from all of our travels. In
the next blog, we spend a full day in the Big City, do lots of walking, and eat
even more amazing food!
Later!
Amy
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