It's time.....(in more ways than one)

For several years I have wanted to "someday" take the cruise that sailed to ports like Boston, Bar Harbor Maine and Canada. Well...last year John decided that "someday" should be this year....for an early 60th birthday gift for me.

 We started planning last summer. Once we decided which cruise we were going to take we "put it out there" to see if anyone else in the family wanted to join us. Martha and Tony were on board (pun intended) immediately. There was some other interest ...but in the end it was just the four of us. We decided to tack on a few days in NYC

 before the sailing date...and that worked out great. (the day we disembarked I over heard several people who were getting off  the ship and going directly to a booked tour...and all of  the four of us agreed that we were sooooo glad we did not have anywhere we had to be !!!!)
Elizabeth had recommended a hotel in midtown NYC.

 We booked that first thing. It was a perfect place to stay. It's an old place that a lot of stars used to stay/live in. Nice.

old mailbox/slot in hotel

We could walk to Central Park...to Broadway shows, shopping...everything we wanted was right near by. Also...since we weren't sure which port we would be sailing out of...we were kind of in the middle...which was a good place to be.
As it turns out...the UN was meeting the week we arrived. Just outside our hotel there was a checkpoint for all vehicles going to the site. I was intrigued by the activities involved with clearing any vehicles entering the area.. It was also fun to watch the pedestrian traffic....who seemed to not care at all about the bomb sniffing dogs, etc that fascinated me.Sirens would sound....flashing lights and lots of black limos would zip past on the street...whisking some diplomat to the meeting(s).
The traffic from the airport to our hotel was interesting.....hahahah Thank goodness we weren't driving our own vehicle... (otherwise...we might still be circling around the city). Our driver kept having to pass streets that were temporarily marked One Way and our 18-20 mile trip took us over two hours!

 Good thing I was entertained....and John was just happy to be riding not driving. We both agreed that Indialantic traffic was just fine thank you very much....no plans to live in the city!!!
We managed to do a little bit of sight-seeing while we were there. Enjoyed walking through parts of Central Park. Made our way up to Macy's...just because...NYC...Macys...why not. Walked past Rockefellar Plaza (smaller than it seems on TV)....network studios...Stephen Colbert's show, 

St' Patrick's Cathedral. Also took the ferry to Staten Island so we got a nice view of the Statue of Liberty. We went late at night, so it wasn't very crowded. It was a beautiful night so we got a nice look at it. We rode over...hopped off, walked quickly around and boarded the ferry going back to Manhattan. Easy!
Thursday afternoon...we arrived before Martha and Tony...so we had some time to explore a bit. Our friends from Indialantic were in town...leaving later that day...and we had made contact with them. They were riding around the city on bikes. We decided on a place for lunch and wouldn't you know...right as we sat down at our table...they sent a text saying "We decided to stop at Rue 57".

 I thought it was a joke...that they were riding by and saw us enter...but no they were actually there. Funny out of all the options...we both chose the same place to eat! We joined them after John walked around and found them on the patio. 
Met up with our nephew Ryan and his girlfriend Thursday night at a place called Flute.

 We enjoyed meeting Callie and and had some good laughs. Ironically I did NOT drink anything at the place that specialized in champagnes! (saving it for the cruise).

 We also went to see "School of Rock" on Friday night. When we first decided to go on the trip there were a few shows I had in mind. I love Peter Pan...so I thought about that...but figured John, Martha and Tony might have other ideas...hahaha A few of the shows I mentioned M & T had already seen...so they got scratched off the list. "Hamilton" would have been great to see...but tickets if by some remote chance were available...were waaaaay out of our price range! (did hear a rumor that one of the group of diplomats in NYC reserved the first two rows of seats for that one. Interesting! Not sure if it's true....but seems plausible. Any way when I was watching the Tony Awards...I saw a clip from "School of Rock". I liked the fact that the kids played the instruments...and so many were in the show...also figured the movie was funny...so the show might be fun. It was! It was great! Very lively and energetic...good music and just a lot of fun. We all enjoyed it. Kids in the audience really seemed to like it. Turns out Ben Stiller was in the audience that night...so we heard that the director invited parents of the performers to fill some empty seats in the theater. We happened to be next to two dads. One had a daughter in the show that night...the other's son was behind the scenes that particular night. It was interesting to listen to them chatting. They were fine...another mother stopped by during intermission...we all agreed...she was a little too much...hahahaha But they were understandably very proud their children. Before the show we had a great dinner at a nearby steakhouse. It was early so not very crowded. Good food, nice quiet setting that slowly filled up as we finished up...perfect.
After the show we took an Uber ride down to the dock to take the ferry ride...since that was one of the things I really wanted to do.

So our trip was off to a great start. Saturday morning we took our time packing up and getting a bite to eat.

 John and I took a walk around the neighborhood and had a really tasty buttered bagel...because...it was New York after all!

at the port...acting like the tourist that I definitely was!

view of the docks from our room...getting settled in.

And I will follow up with more in a day or two. We got home last Saturday night around 11:30pm...so it took a day or two to get reorganized after being gone for 10 days. I had asked for Monday off. Ended up that I also was off on Tuesday. Then yesterday the Hurricane started heading up and everything shut down at noon. No work Wed-Thurs_Fri. IT's now 7:15 Thursday and we are boarded up and hunkered down. Have a plan in place. Have checked in with all our friends who are also staying...and we are waiting. So far we've had some rain...but not much Very quiet...quieter here than in Orlando and Kississme where a few strong bands have moved onshore. Watching to see which way Matthew is going to go and hoping it stays offshore till it passes us by...that would be the best case senario. One hour it jogs slightly east...then slightly west...so we won't know till early this am...probably sometime between 3-6am. We will certainly lose power at some point...for how long....that's another question that remains to be answered. We do have a generator...everything is charged up and our emergency back-up plan is in place...so right now I'm feeling okay. I'll check back in a few days.