From Camano Island to Manhattan Island!

January 31, 2009

Just a day after getting home from our week in the mountains, John got a call from his brother that his step-dad was dying. He passed away a few days later so we had to quickly make decisions about flying back to New Jersey for the memorial and funeral.

This would also mean that I would be meeting John’s WHOLE family – all 7 brothers and sisters plus nieces and nephews! Quite a prospect for a girl that comes from a small family!

We landed in NJ, Thursday, Jan. 1. Not everybody had arrived so I got to meet the family slowly over the next three days. It was wonderful getting to meet them, even though it was a sad time for them.

On Friday, we took the train into NYC with John’s youngest sister and her family. This was my first time to NYC and I was so excited! And guess where we went first!?! The Metropolitan Museum of Art!!!!!! It was amazing. John and I lost our group because we decided to stop outside and get pictures of the beautiful building and pictures of us too.
We were amazed at how many people were there! It was so packed that you practically had to crawl through the crowd to get to the entrance lines. But once through, the crowds dispersed through the acres of floor space and rooms. We had a wonderful time wandering around for the next 2 hours. We especially loved the sculptures, the huge 10-foot by 20 foot landscape pictures of the America’s by various artists. We saw paintings by Klee, O’Keeffe, Mondrian, Signac, Van Gogh, Matisse, and jewelry by Calder. It was really special to see the artwork of the artists that we had been studying in our art classes.

After two hours of walking around we were ready for a break and lunch. We headed outside, grabbed a pretzel and knish (a mashed potato pie with mustard). We walked in Central Park while we ate, visiting Jackie Onassis Reservoir, the Egyptian Obelisk and took pictures of the Belvedere Castle. By then we were so cold (it was in the 20’s) that we headed back into the Met. Museum until everybody was ready to leave.

Next, we caught the subway to the Rockefeller Center. By then it was dark and again, super crowded! But the musical snowflake light display was fun to see and the buildings were wrapped in bows of light. The highlight was the skating rink – it took us awhile to make our way to the lookout but it was worth the effort. By then, we were all exhausted so we headed back to NJ. A great day in NYC!

Saturday was the memorial and funeral of John’s step-dad. It was held in their childhood town of Montclair, NJ. It was a beautiful ceremony and later there was a military honor guard that played taps and presented the flag to his daughter. Then everybody gathered for lunch/dinner, talking and sharing memories or getting reacquainted with childhood friends. It was a beautiful day with the whole family.
Sunday was another day in NYC with John’s brother Frank and his sister Cathy. The mission of the day was PIZZA – the best pizza in NYC! But first we headed down to lower Manhattan and got off at the World Trade Center’s site. We visited the oldest church in NYC that is right beside the WTC site. It was very moving to walk through this beautiful little church that was turned into a rescue relief center for the firefighters and rescue workers. They had several memorials set up with lots of pictures. George Washington used to go to this church and they still had his chair that he sat in!

Then we were off to Battery Park. We could see the Statue of Liberty! It was a beautiful sunny day and we took several pictures of the statue, the park and us.

Wall Street was next. Frank, John’s brother, had worked close by so it was fun to have someone that was familiar with the area. We saw George Washington’s statue standing boldly overlooking all the people that passed by. We passed one of Trump’s buildings too – it was big and bold like all of his buildings.

Then we were off to the Trinity Episcopal Church. Remember the movie, National Treasure? Well, this was the church that was in the movie! From the outside, you can see the doors in the brickwork that the camera crew used for filming. But the highlight was that in the cemetery- one of John’s ancestors was buried in 1764! Frank had seen the grave when he had been through NYC on another trip but couldn’t remember where the grave was in the cemetery. So we were off on a hunt and scattered all over looking at the different markers. Some of the grave stones were so weathered you couldn’t see any writing on them – we were afraid that would be the case for the Dalzell grave stone since it was from the 1700’s. We had just about given up when I finally saw it! It was a big gravestone right at the entrance. The inscription read:

Mary Dalzell
Here lies the Body of Mary wife of James Dalzell of this City
who departed this Life March 20 1764 aged 28 Years 4 Months & 17 days.

After we found the gravesite, we went into the church. It was BEAUTIFUL, inside and out!

By this time it was early afternoon and we were all getting hungry. So off we went to find the best pizza in NYC! I had directions printed out from the Internet so we hopped on the subway and got off at what we thought was the right stop. We followed the directions on the map, found the right streets and walked up and down and all around trying to find Grimaldi’s. We finally figured out that we were on the wrong side of the East River! It had the same street names on both sides of the bridge! So we hopped on the subway again (good thing we bought a fun day pass for the subway! Unlimited rides for the day.). We finally found Grimaldi’s! It was just a little place that was PACKED with people and a line outside the door. It took us about 20 minutes to get in but it was worth the wait! Fresh, thin crust pizza baked in brick ovens that were oh, so good! I forgot to get a picture of the pizza before it was devoured but you can see from our happy grins that we had a good time.

By now it was dark, and we were headed into Grand Central Station! What a cool building. The ceiling had the different constellations painted on it, the bull, the crab and others. There were big beautiful chandeliers hanging on either side of the huge room. We walked around outside, getting pictures of the station, the sculpture at the top of the building and pictures of the Empire State Building all lit up.

Then we were off to Times Square where we got off briefly to have a look at all the crazy billboards and lights, and to take more pictures of the Empire State Building. And somewhere along the way we dropped into the “BIGGEST” department store in America! Ten floors of non-stop Macy’s shopping at everybody’s finger tips! We walked through the men’s department and they had rows of men’s ties sorted BY COLOR! And talk about color, they had oranges, purples, reds, blues and a multitude of other colors all in order of varying hues of a single color. Hundreds and hundreds of ties! And the big main room with the pillars, all festooned in red ribbon, fruits and bows. It was just like the movies!

Finally we were off to Penn Station to catch the train back to NJ. We were dog-tired but so happy with all the things we got to see. NYC was a lot of fun and we packed a lot into the two days that we were there and it was extra special going with my new family.

We left early the next morning to catch our flight back to Seattle and got home in time to get what we needed for our children’s drawing class. What an amazing and unexpected honeymoon we’re having! Looks like this will be a wonderful year of adventures! But wait until you hear what happened next!

Jen & John