Journal of Random Tangents: I thought we'd have to survive on berries and pond water...

Monday, July 07, 2008

I thought we'd have to survive on berries and pond water...

So we had an interesting day... as I mentioned this morning, we slept really late after our day of traveling yesterday. So by the time we got outside and started our walk to Starbucks (the day's first stop, obviously...) it was already lunch time. So we got our coffee, wandered out to Fifth Avenue, and walked up to Rockefeller Center. Then we kept walking up Fifth, until we hit Central Park. And then we had an idea -- why not stop in at Mickey Mantle's restaurant for lunch? I hadn't been there in YEARS... It's on Central Park South, so all in all, not a very far walk from our hotel.

As we were eating our lunch (which was quite good, by the way...) I noticed a guy with a big video camera near the table right behind Rick. And then some guy with a microphone started to interview the people at the table. I sort of half-wondered what was going on, but seeing as one of the people was wearing a Yankee hat, and the other was wearing a Red Sox hat, I thought maybe it was some New York/Boston rivalry thing. But then Camera Guy and Microphone Guy headed over to OUR table... Microphone Guy was some channel 4 news reporter, and he was interviewing people about the A-rod/Madonna scandal. So, before we even had a chance to say, "please don't put us on TV," Microphone Guy started asking questions and Camera Guy filmed the whole thing. So there is a possibility Rick and/or I could be on the news tonight. I'm really hoping NOT, actually, since I'm pretty sure I sounded like an idiot... I believe I said something about how difficult it is for people in the public eye to have decent private lives. (Gosh, thanks for the brilliant insight, genius... :))

After lunch, we decided to check out Central Park, since we were right across the street. In all the years I lived up here, I never once went into Central Park. And at first, we were like, "ooooo... look at the trees! Look at the pond! Hey, look at the cute squirrels and ducks!" And then after about an hour of aimless wandering, we started to get tired... and hot... and I was pretty sure I was getting blisters on my feet. Another 30 or 40 minutes and we finally found a map, which showed us that we'd been walking around a part of the park called "the ramble." Which would explain why it just kept going on and on and on... And even AFTER we looked at the map, we were having trouble getting OUT of the stupid park. We came upon several other people with the same problem... everyone was trying to figure out how to get out of the stupid park with the stupid greenery and the stupid fresh air and we all just wanted to find some buildings and sidewalks and smell some car exhaust. And when, at last, we FINALLY found our way back to Fifth Avenue, we were so relieved to be out of the park that it took a few seconds to realize we'd emerged at 85th street -- and our hotel is on 44th. It was a long walk back to the hotel...

Some pictures from today: