Welcome to New York

Hello all,

Today went by in a bit of a haze as we were both so tired from last night (see my Taylor Swift concert post below if you haven't already). We got up at 6.30am after 2-3 hours of sleep and walked to Back Bay station. In January 2017 when I did this walk there had been a blizzard and the path and all surrounds were covered in thick snow. Today it was sunny and clear, and much easier to navigate with our suitcases than back then!

We boarded our 8.21am Amtrak train south and spent four hours on the train to New York. It was busy and we were lucky to get two seats together. Once we arrived at Penn Station, we then caught the Subway and alighted at Grand Central, the nearest station to our hotel. Rob and I have both been to New York previously (me in December 2016 and Rob in February 2020) but despite this we were still taken aback by the beauty of the station even though we had both visited before. This visit to New York for me feels a bit "full circle". I hopped on a plane to New York four days after I first met Rob, thinking by the time I got back five weeks later I probably wouldn't hear from him again. And here we are, together!

Our room wasn't ready but we left our bags and went walking. Oddly, we went into the foyer of the Chrysler building as we walked past it, and the security guard told us unless we walked against the wall we had to leave. There was not a single other person in the foyer so that was strange. There are a lot of strange rules in this country that make no sense. We ended up just leaving. Last time I visited there were heaps of people in the foyer, so not sure what that was all about.

We stopped at a bagel shop and each had a yummy bagel and some ginger ale for a late lunch. Whilst we ate I couldn't get 'Welcome to New York' by Taylor Swift out of my head, a song she wrote when she started living here. I was so tired all day that any time I would lean back or close my eyes slightly I would start to doze off, even at lunch or out in public. This generally seemed to coincide with Taylor Swift songs playing through my head. It was like I was in a daze!

After lunch, we walked to Times Square and sat on the red steps people watching for a while. We googled and figured out it gets its name from the fact that the New York Times used to be based off of the square. It's such a touristy area, there were dodgy people everywhere trying to give you things you would then have to pay for etc. We are really good at flat out ignoring them at this point.

We finished off our loop by walking past both of the theatres we will be visiting tomorrow night. Rob is seeing 'The Book of Mormon' and I am seeing 'Funny Girl' (keep those fingers crossed for me still, no update on Lea Michele's COVID yet). Then we headed back to the room and had a three hour nap. You know I am tired when I have a nap, I fell asleep basically as soon as my head hit the pillow.

At 7pm we left the room and went to get dinner. I had some takeaway sushi and Rob had Subway. Now we are relaxing in the room. We are on the 21st level, hardly any traffic noise, in a nice comfy room with a huge bed. We are feeling like we should hopefully sleep a lot better here than in Boston. So far everyone here has been way nicer than the unfortunately rude people we came across in Boston too.

Love to all
Claire
Xoxox