Birthday Celebrations

I had a birthday recently and managed to double-dip with celebrations since the actual fell on a weekend and I received my gift the following weekend.

On my actual birthday, we took a day trip to Frenchtown, New Jersey. I had read several times that Frenchtown is New Jersey’s most appealing/quaint/cute town so I have had it on my list to visit for a while. I get to impose trips on my family without their complaints or protestations twice a year: Mother’s Day and my birthday. My original plan had been to visit Frenchtown for the Mother’s Day trip but – for one reason or another – that outing kept getting postponed until it collided with my birthday 6 months later. It, therefore, became my birthday trip (and now I am contemplating which historic cemetery will be the destination for the second “no moans” trip I am owed.)

It was a perfect day for aimlessly meandering, golden Autumn sunshine and the perfect temperature, so we took our time wandering around the streets. We popped into several stores, whatever grabbed our attention. My 17 year old is a magpie whose eye is always drawn to shiny, sparkly things (one of the few things he has inherited from me) so we spent a lot of time in a gem store. My 15 year old, meanwhile, loved a hip clothing store but mostly because it had a vintage pinball machine that the store owner encouraged him to play. And the 13 year old predictably loved a candy store. I meanwhile loved spending time in an independent book store and making selections in an artisan cheese shop.

All of the stores are clustered around one main street so it did not take us long to complete our pootling around the stores. We, therefore, decided to get a late lunch / early dinner at a little Mexican place. The food was tasty but unfortunately the service was terrible but I cannot complain since any meal I did not have to cook is appreciated, especially on my birthday.

My birthday gift from my husband and kids was a surprise trip to New York to see a show. Therefore, this past weekend, my husband and I took the train into Manhattan. Despite the train being an all-stopper (and in rolling stock probably as old as I am) we arrived mid-morning so we had time to do some other things before heading to the theatre. First up, since we were right next door, was Moynihan Train Hall. I have zero interest in trains or mass transit beyond their transportation purpose so this was of very little interest to me. However, Mr Pict had been involved in the project to transform the old Post Office building into an extension of Penn Station so he was keen to see the completed building with his own two eyes.

As someone who likes the Harry Potter books and movies (November is our month for watching all of the movies as a family), I was interested to visit the store. I had heard about long lines to enter the store but that must have been when it first opened because we just walked in and it really wasn’t that busy. My only plan was to browse the store so we did not spend time even investigating any of the VR experiences or making purchases from the Butterbeer bar. Of course there was merch galore to look at but what I was really keen to see for myself was the design of the store. I was really impressed by how much thought had gone into creating a flow around what is actually a reasonably compact space and the way in which different sections were themed and structured as their own mini experiences. There were also fun details like mandrakes and dirigible plums dangling from the ceiling and a giant Nagini slithering between Ministry of Magic tiles.

The Harry Potter store is just south of the Flatiron building so from there we just had to walk about 26 blocks up Broadway in order to get to the theatre. We were going to see a matinee performance of Hadestown at the Walter Kerr Theatre. Despite having visited NYC several times, this was my first ever experience of seeing a show on Broadway. I was very excited! My husband had picked Hadestown because I am a fan of Anais Mitchell’s music and have been listening to songs from the concept album for over a decade. The show was fantastic and the performances were excellent. It was an amazing experience and I am thrilled to have finally seen a musical on Broadway.

It was getting dark when we left the theatre so we took a stroll from the Times Square area over to the Rockerfeller Center to see the lights and window shop and people watch. We had not eaten all day so were pretty famished by this juncture so we found a Mexican restaurant tucked away on a side street for dinner. It was very loud but the food was delicious, the prices were right, and the service was excellent so it was just the ticket. We then we just had to schlep all the way back to Penn Station and take the NJT back to Trenton and, from there, drive home. It made for a long day but I had a fabulous time and I very much appreciated my birthday trip. Mr Pict did an amazing job planning my surprise trip. He’s a keeper.

Museum of Natural History

Our 14 year old had some options for a Biology assignment. I was pretty keen on a project involving writing about unusual diseases that appear in our family history but he chose to undertake one that involved a trip to a Natural History Museum. There is one close to home, in Philadelphia, which would have been more straightforward. However, he requested that we take a trip to New York to visit the museum there, which we had visited as part of the boys’ first ever trip to NYC back in February of 2014.

We had not been to NYC for years so we decided it could form the basis of a fun day trip. We formulated a plan for the day that we had to throw away the evening before the trip when the 14 year old fell of his skateboard and badly sprained his ankle. Since he was still pleading to go and given we had already booked and paid for the admission tickets, we decided to forge ahead with the trip to the museum but to junk all of the other plans for the day.*

One area of focus for the assignment was early humans so we headed to that section first. I took a DNA test a few years ago as a means of making contact with other family historians researching the same families. It has led to all sorts of interesting interactions but there was really nothing interesting about my DNA. It proved I was as boring genetically as I was on paper. The only unexpected find was that I have a smattering of Neanderthal DNA. Until then, I had not known that Neanderthal DNA can still be identified at detectable levels in contemporary humans. I guess now I know where my massive forehead comes from.

There was a special exhibition about sharks so we decided to boost our tickets for entry to that gallery. You might recall that my 14 year old and I are a wee bit obsessed with sharks. I cannot say that we especially learned anything new about sharks but we appreciated the life size models as we could really grasp the scale of some of the less familiar sharks. We also had fun with the megalodon models.

I am sure that many visitors to natural history museums spend a lot of time among the dinosaur fossils. While I am certainly no dino nerd, I have never outgrown that childhood fascination with these ancient beasts. One of the things my son was writing about in his assignment was fossil evidence of dinosaurs being feathered so we particularly honed in on the exhibits relevant to that topic. We also made sure to visit all of our favourite dinosaurs – mine is a triceratops in case you are interested. We visited the Ice Age mammals too. As much as I know it would be wholly unethical to do so, I do think it would be marvelous to resurrect mammoths from extinction.

Other sections of the museum we visited included the Central American gallery and the meteorite and gem sections. You will observe our family tradition of taking photos of ourselves in the same poses as sculptures. My 16 year old loves sparkly shiny things so has always enjoyed that section and my husband is an astronomy geek so he loves getting up close to space rocks. He was especially enthralled by a case containing three chunks of meteor taken from the surface of the moon.

Unfortunately the limping 14 year old was starting to feel the strain of his busted ankle so we could not keep forging on through all of the other areas of the museum. We felt satisfied that we had covered a lot of ground, however, so left feeling fulfilled.

And now we need to return to NYC at some point soon to do all of the things we had planned on doing that day but didn’t manage to achieve.

*The reason the 14 year old is in the majority of the photos is because they will be used to illustrate his assignment and not because he is more biddable than the others when it comes to having his photo taken.

Our Autumn

We have had an incredibly busy couple of months so this is going to be a bit of a “catch up” blog post that jumps from subject to subject.

My oldest son moved to Rochester, New York, in the middle of August in order to attend college and then the other boys went back to school on 1 September. This was their first time attending in-person school since March 2020. After 18 months of virtual learning and only seeing teachers through screens, they were very much looking forward to a more normal school year. However, not long after they got home on that first day, our community was hit by a tornado. Some neighbourhoods were devastated and community buildings, including the High School, sustained damage. My two High School aged sons, therefore, had to pivot back to a few weeks of virtual school again. As deflating as that setback was, we were very thankful to have not personally endured any lasting damage to our property.

In October, my in-laws came to visit. Having not seen their grandsons for almost two years, they decided to risk travel and international flights. Their visit inspired us to return to some seasonal family traditions we had skipped last year because of the pandemic. The first of these was apple picking. We went a bit crazy picking a variety of apples. Over a month later and I we are still eating those same apples and I am still baking apple cobblers for dessert. I never thought I would get sick of apples but …

Our second son turned 16 in early October. What he wanted to do was take his two best friends to Shady Brook Farm to hang out and eat fair food. We all went together and then we set him and his friends loose to do whatever they wanted while we did the visited the Halloween themed barns, found our way around the corn maze, and visited the pumpkin patch. Mr Pict and our youngest son even took a ride in the monster truck hearse.

My in-laws wanted some time at the shore while they were in the US so they rented a beach property in Lewes, Delaware, for a week. We went down to stay with them for the weekend and properly explore Lewes, having only dipped in there before. We took a wander around the historic town centre. I enjoyed seeing all of the vintage architecture. Even my kids enjoyed seeing a cannonball from the War of 1812 still lodged in the side of the building that now serves as the town’s maritime museum. We took a stroll past the lightship Overfalls and played draughts (checkers) on the waterfront. I also managed to meet up with a friend who moved to Lewes over the Summer.

My in-laws celebrated their Golden Wedding Anniversary at the end of their visit with us. We went for an elegant and delicious brunch at the William Penn Inn.

Finally, in the last weekend of October, we took a flying visit up to Rochester to visit our oldest son. He had attended the open day on his own – the weekend before we went into lockdown in 2020 – and my husband had dropped him off in August so this was actually my first time visiting the RIT campus. Our son took us on a tour of the campus and to his dorm room. He is actually sharing with one of his best friends from High School so that worked out perfectly. He seems very happy and settled there and it was reassuring for me to see with my own eyes how comfortable and confident he is and how successfully he is managing everything.

It was cold and rainy while we were in Rochester so, in search of something indoors to do, we went to the Strong Play Museum. It was a terrific museum focused on the history of games and my kids would have had an absolute blast there when they were younger. There were lots of interactive exhibits, indoor playgrounds, and even a miniature supermarket. With our kids all being much older than the target demographic, we spent most of our time on the upper floor which was focused on board games and video and computer games. We are a big board gaming family with an extensive collection and Mr Pict and the boys all love computer games so we all found it pretty engaging. It is always amusing and mildly disconcerting to see things from our own childhoods now being curated in museums as vintage and classic items and there were abundant cases of that in this museum.

It was so lovely to have all six of us together again and the perfect way to round out a very busy couple of months. I am now looking forward to things slowing down and getting quieter for the remainder of the year.

Canada Trip #1 – Hyde Park

Last year’s road trip (which saw us drive from the Philly ‘burbs to a corner of Montana and back) was a stretch for our tolerance of each other’s company in the confines of the car and the ratio of miles in a car to miles covered by foot.  We, therefore, curbed our ambitions this year and decided to try a different pace of vacation.  In comparison to our previous family road trips, our plans were extremely modest: Quebec, Montreal, and Lake Charleston, Ontario.

The first day of our trip took us through upstate New York.  Determined to achieve at least one thing beyond getting from A to B, we decided to stop off at Hyde Park, the Hudson Valley home of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  This is the site of FDR’s presidential library and of Springwood, his family home.  Although the property was older, it had been owned by Roosevelt’s father since the 1860s and had been expanded and extended over the decades.  Roosevelt was born there in 1882 and, when Roosevelt married Eleanor in 1905, they moved into his boyhood home.  They lived and raised their family there and continued to visit even after FDR became president and the White House became their primary digs.

We kept our visit to perambulating in the grounds as the kids were not enthused by the prospect of a tour of the house.  I acquiesced because I had visited previously and had vivid memories of the house and the presidential library.  It was not until the end of our visit, however, that Mr Pict revealed that he thought he had never been there before.  He seriously had zero memory of ever having visited.  I started rattling off details of the interiors and finally something stirred in his memory banks and he recollected that he had at least been there.  Therefore, we probably should have forced the kids to submit to a tour.

As you may recall, I have a new domestic travel bucket list which is to visit every presidential gravesite.  I love to visit cemeteries, I am keen on history, and I am enthusiastic about travel (trifecta!) so I think it’s an eminently sensible ambition.  I have a good few checked off already and had obviously previously visited this particular grave but I want my husband and kids to “opt in” to my scheme so I was happy to have the opportunity to see the grave of my favourite US President and First Lady.

After departing Hyde Park, we had no plans beyond getting to Burlington, Vermont. We were by then thinking of food.  Our road trips often involve thoughts of food because we are always either famished or indulging.  We seem to have no mode between.  I, therefore, foolishly googled best places to eat in Burlington and, after a family discussion, booked a table for early evening.  In doing so, I utterly jinxed us.  Almost instantly, our journey went off-piste.  We had no signal for GPS and no map operating at the detail required for our cross-country hypotenuse.  We must have taken a wrong turn but, when we double-backed, we couldn’t identify the road we should have taken, so we triple-backed and forged on.  And then we realised that we had no choice but to cross Lake Champlain by ferry.  We crossed near Fort Ticonderoga on a chain ferry that could thankfully take enough cars that we made it onto the next available crossing.  Still, it set us back.

Thankfully, when we got back into phone reception, the restaurant was willing and able to push our booking back to accommodate our late arrival.  This was just as well because Mr Pict and the Pictlings were salivating for barbecue food and would have been despondent about a change of dinner venue.  The restaurant was Bluebird Barbecue in Burlington.  We ate in a screened in porch area that was lovely in the early evening air after a day inside a stuffy car.  Barbecue is not really my thing so I cannot judge the quality but my carnivorous husband was happy, my oldest son got to try out the fusion of barbecue and ramen, and I was happy because I had an absolutely delicious lavender flavoured mocktail.  It was a great way to end the first day of our road trip.

Niagara Falls

We couldn’t possibly be in the Buffalo area and not visit Niagara Falls.  I am told that the Canadian side is prettier but, for various complicated reasons, I am unable to cross an international border right now so we had to plan our trip around staying on the American side.  I have seen so many images and so much footage of Niagara Falls and it is so very commercial and touristy that I felt there was a risk I would be underwhelmed by seeing the Falls for myself.  However, I was neither disappointed or deflated.

Niagara Falls is in fact a gathering of three waterfalls, a fact which I had not really appreciated before my visit.  In order of viewing them from the American side, there was the American Falls, the Bridal Falls, and the Horseshoe Falls.  The latter straddles the international border and is the most powerful waterfall in North America.  Wanting to see the Falls from as many perspectives as we could, we decided to get tickets for the Maid of the Mist.  We were given blue ponchos and headed aboard the boat.  It was actually really cool to see the Falls from water level, to experience the roar and strength of the spray, in order to really appreciate the power of the Falls.  The Horseshoe Falls in particular was so powerful that we had to turn our faces away from the water at times.  It was also kicking up so much spray that our view, once we were as close as possible, was like peering into dense fog.   It might be a super-touristy thing to do but it was actually pretty awesome.

Having disembarked from the Maid of the Mist, we took in two further perspectives of the Falls.  One of these was a flight of steps that took us up the crags alongside the Falls and the other was a viewpoint high above the Falls.  While I cannot say I was overwhelmed by my visit to Niagara Falls, I definitely was not underwhelmed.  It was very impressive and I was really glad we had made the trip.  Let us just say that I was sufficiently whelmed.

Family history in Buffalo cemeteries

Something I am certain you know about me is that I love cemeteries.  Even when I don’t have any sort of connection or personal interest in a cemetery, I love to wander around and explore cemeteries and graveyards.  I enjoy the restful tranquility and appreciate the memorial symbolism and funerary sculpture.  Something you may know about me is that I am a total family history nerd and, therefore, when a cemetery has personal significance to my genealogy then it is all the better.  When we were visiting family in update New York, therefore, it was the perfect opportunity to have some family history fun while exploring cemeteries.  I do not have to have a DNA connection in order to be absorbed in a family’s history.  I have researched the genealogy of my step-grandfather, for instance, and when Mr Pict and I became parents, I decided to take on his family history as the custodian of that information for our children – whether they like it or not.  The dead folks I was pursuing in Buffalo, therefore, were not my own but were indeed the ancestors of Mr Pict, specifically his Strickler ancestors.

The Stricklers had arrived in America from Germany at the turn of the 18th Century, fleeing persecution and discrimination for their Mennonite beliefs.  They settled in Pennsylvania (so I have lots of Strickler adventuring to do in future) but, two generations later, Mr Pict’s 4x great-grandfather, Ulrich Strickler, set out with his family north, first to the Niagara River area before settling in Clarence, in New York’s Erie County.  It was in Clarence that we found Ulrich.  Finding the cemetery was a challenge.  It doesn’t appear in GPS listings because it is disused, was never a public cemetery, and now sits on private land.  My research had narrowed the search area and happily my 12 year old caught a glimpse of a distant sign flashing white in the sunlight as we drove a circuit of the relevant streets for the second time.  We disembarked from our cars – as there were 10 of us on this mission – and in no time at all we were in the shady spot where Ulrich Strickler (1767-1838), his wife Magdalena, and various of their relatives are interred.  We had three generations of Stricklers gathered at the grave of their direct ancestor.  That was pretty cool for me as a family history nerd.  The name of the cemetery incidentally is the Strickler Pioneer Cemetery and we also stopped off on Strickler Street for a quick photo of my husband, his mother, and her cousin.

Next up was Forest Lawn Cemetery.  When I got the other family members on board with the idea of my cemetery trip, my mother-in-law and her cousin had thought they were signing up to visit two cemeteries.  Forest Lawn was the one they had not anticipated and they seemed stricken at the thought of a visit there.  That is because Forest Lawn is a vast city cemetery, covering almost 270 acres and containing over 150,000 graves.  It is where many of Buffalo’s wealthy, successful, and famous residents ended up and is, therefore, home to some spectacular mausoleums and statuary.  I agreed, however, to focus my attention on finding the Strickler graves and I, by and large, kept my promise.  I think the relatives anticipated we would be in the cemetery until dark trying to locate the graves but – thanks to the wonderful volunteers of Find A Grave – I was prepared with the two lots where the most direct ancestors were buried.  It was my father-in-law who found the graves of Daniel Strickler, his second wife and children from both marriages.  Daniel (1809-1901) was the son of Ulrich so these were the 3x Great-Grandparents of Mr Pict – or a full six generations above our kids if that makes more sense.  My mother-in-law has just entrusted me with caring for a blanket made by Daniel’s wife, Eliza Faust, so it was great to see her grave too.  In a nearby lot, it was my mother-in-law’s cousin who almost literally stumbled upon the grave of another of Mr Pict’s 3x Great-Grandparents, this one being Sarah Augusta Tyler, nee Clapp (1831-1920).  It is she who is the connection to John Alden and Priscilla Mullins who came to America on board the Mayflower.

Despite my commitment to stick to the clusters of Strickler graves in Forest Lawn, I am afraid I did break my promise.  Since we have found ourselves visiting a number of Presidential graves, it did not seem right that I should be in Forest Lawn and not stop off to see Millard Fillmore.  The 13th President is certainly one of the more obscure ones, and perhaps would be even more so if not for his memorable name, and he frequently appears in lists of the nation’s worst presidents.  He is also controversial for a number of reasons but especially his enactment of the Fugitive Slave Act.  Still, I thought I would pop by to have a gander.  In contrast to the more elaborate presidential graves we have seen, Fillmore’s was a simple obelisk.  Nevertheless, it was easy to find thanks to the flag flying above it.

I also visited the grave of Red Jacket.  I had, however, successfully convinced everyone of a family history connection so they were agreeable to seeing his grand statue, which is sited near one of the cemetery entrances.  Red Jacket (Sagoyewatha) was a Chief of the Seneca and is, of course, famous in his own right.  However, his connection to Mr Pict’s family history involve his remains.  Red Jacket – and many other Native Americans – were originally buried in an Indian Burial Ground that was on land opposite the Stricklers’ houses.  Not being keen on this, the Stricklers successfully petitioned for legislation that led to the closure of the burial ground and the removal of all of the remains, most of which ended up in Forest Lawn, including those of Red Jacket.  Therefore, Red Jacket is only commemorated in Forest Lawn because of the prejudices and insensitivity of Mr Pict’s ancestors.

All of which is a neat segue into the next location of the family history trip which was to Buffum Street, where generations of Stricklers had owned property and lived and where the original Indian Burial Ground was located.  One of these, at number 49, is currently the focus of a restoration project given its significance as the oldest extant house in South Buffalo.  My mother-in-law and her cousin explained some of the history of the house and then we all wandered along the street to see two other houses that had once been Strickler residencies.  While the older family members chatted with the current occupants, I took the kids across the street to the Indian Burial Ground.  I felt it was important to impress on them the connection between their family history and local history.

The final cemetery of the day was Woodlawn, where the more recent generations of Stricklers are buried.  Among others, we visited the graves of Allen Darius (1845-1938) and Emma Augusta Strickler (nee Tyler, 1851-1946) who are Mr Pict’s 2x Great-Grandparents (five generations above my boys), and their son, Herbert Arthur Stickler (1881-1951) and his wife Lily, nee Styles (1886-1962).  When figuring all the graves we had visited, not just the direct ancestors but also the collateral ones, we had visited the graves of Stricklers from seven generations.  Now I really must visit the graves of the even earlier Stricklers in Pennsylvania!

Canandaigua Lake

We recently spent a few days in upstate New York visiting with extended family of Mr Pict’s while his parents were also in the country.  The couple with whom we were staying own a boat so – on our first full day there – we were treated to a trip out on Canandaigua Lake.  Canandaigua is one of New York’s eleven finger lakes.  I learned it was 16 miles long and 1 mile wide (hence the “finger”) and was about 130 feet deep on average – but sinking to 276 feet at its deepest point.  Humphrey Bogart used to vacation at Canandaigua so it’s an upscale kind of place.  We saw plenty of incredible properties lining the shore as we headed out on the boat, some of which had their own funicular systems for getting down the steep hillside to the water’s edge.

Our kids had never been on a powerboat before so this was a first time experience for them.  They were unsure of the motion of the boat, especially when it slammed into and crested the wakes of other marine vehicles.  They were especially not enjoying the motion when Mr Pict was given a turn at driving the boat.  What they absolutely loved, however, was getting to tube.  A large inflatable was launched into the water and pulled behind the boat with the Pictlings (and sometimes their dad) clinging on.  There were zero complaints about the motion then.  They were grinning and laughing the whole time as they were flung around on the tube.  At first they were tentative and asked that the speed be kept to a minimum but soon they were using their hand signals to request higher speeds.  Our youngest, who had been the most reticent to clamber on to the tube, didn’t even bat an eyelid when he and his father were pitched off the tube and into the lake.

After a few hours out on the lake, we pulled into one of the marinas and enjoyed an evening meal at one of the bars there.  We felt like we were really getting to experience a little sliver of life as part of the boating set.  I think our kids might be wanting a boat now.

Sunday in the Park with Picts

On a normal, everyday basis, I am pretty used to living in America now.  There are times, however, when I almost pinch myself and think to myself how weird it is that I live here.  Sunday was just such a day.  The littlest Pict – as part of his birthday festivities – requested a trip to New York City.  So we did.  And that felt a bit weird and also pretty cool.

Young kids travel free on the New Jersey transit on weekends so – with three of our kids qualifying – we determined that we could make a trip to NYC an affordable day trip.  We crossed state lines by car and hopped on the train.  It was the first time my kids had ever been on a double-decker train, a concept which they thought was excitingly awesome.  We travelled there on the top tier and came back on the bottom one so that they could experience both decks.  They thought it was cool to be eye level with people’s feet when on the bottom deck.  In really no time at all we were at Penn Station and right in the midst of midtown Manhattan.

The train tickets were our expense for the day so we were all about free fun.  We strolled up through the smack-bang-wallop sights and sounds of Times Square and continued on a few blocks until we reached Central Park, the focus of our trip.  Yes indeed: we essentially travelled all of the way to New York in order to play in a park.  Also kind of weird and kind of cool.

We were no sooner in Central Park – which was absolutely thronging with people out enjoying the Sunday sunshine – than my four kids all scarpered off to climb on rocks.  They scrambled up and down the rocks like a herd of little mountain goats.  I have acrophobia so watching their antics gives me the heebie-jeebies but I don’t want to turn my kids into little quaking jellies like me so I try to let them just get on with it.  Of course, all four of my kids have broken teeth through face planting before so perhaps my hands-off policy is not the best.

Our 9 year old has the most powerful imagination of the bunch and he is also the most persuasive so he engineered a game they could all play on the rocks.  The game was very complex, too complex for me to comprehend, but it definitely involved battling mountain orcs.  Occasionally I would spot another child or two wander towards my kids, observing them, perhaps tempted to join the fray, but my kids are kind of a pack and completely wrapped up in their game there was not a chance anyone else was going to get absorbed into their play.  That’s the thing about a gang of four brothers who are also best buddies: they have each other so they can tend towards exclusivity.  So they ran around on the rocks for a couple of hours, being orcs, killing orcs, and ever so often Mr Pict and I would herd them a few yards further into the park so that we could make some sort of progress.  They would then career around and caper on some other rocks for a good while.

Eventually they decided they were up for a stroll.  They were quite taken with the pond near the Hallett Nature Sanctuary so we idled there for a while before doubling back towards the Dairy so we could gulp cold water from the drinking fountain there and refill our water bottles.  The boys then decided they wanted to see some statues so we wandered along Literary Walk where we saw Shakespeare, Walter Scott and Robert Burns.  We the continued along the Mall to Bethesda Terrace because I wanted to see the Bethesda Fountain actually operating.  I had seen it on my trip to New York a couple of months ago but that was in very different weather conditions.  The bronze angel dates from the early 1870s and symbolises purity, hence the lily in her hand.  Below her feet are four cherubs who apparently represent purity, health, temperance and peace.

We then cut across to the east and wended our way past the model boat pond, which was full of model yachts competing with a few ducks, and then to the Alice in Wonderland Statue.  I had had a notion to take the boys on a highlights tour of Central Park statues but they had spent so long enjoying simply running around on the rocks and across the grass that my plan was abandoned as soon as it was hatched.  They did, however, want to see the Alice statue.  It was, as always, covered in children.  I managed to get an almost child-free photo of it last time I was in Central Park but there was no chance of that this time.  The photographer in me might find that a little dismaying but the parent in me is much stronger and enjoyed seeing all of the kids – not just my own – enjoying the sculpture and becoming part of the Mad Hatter’s tea party.  Half a century of kids clambering all over the statue has given it a glowing patina.  My kids particularly enjoyed exploring beneath the mushrooms, finding all the smaller sculpted details of bugs and beasties, and also enjoying the shade it provided.

We then popped out onto 5th Avenue with its many museums behind us and its miles of very expensive shops in front of us.  We had not even reached the southside of Central Park before the kids started to flag so they had an ice cream to fortify themselves for the many more steps to come.  We did, however, decide to add another free item to our day’s itinerary not least because it offered us some shade and air conditioning, and that was a trip into FAO Schwarz.

FAO Schwarz is the oldest toy store in America, having been founded in 1862, but sadly it is going to be closing its doors this summer.  I was eager to get the kids into this iconic shop before it ceased to be in that location and perhaps even ceased to be permanently.  The store front – part of the General Motors Building – is actually quite unassuming but is Tardis-like once inside.  I was instantly wowed by the chill blast of the air conditioning but my children were wowed, their eyes like saucers and their jaws agape, by a massive display of cuddly toys.  It was like a zoological park of plush animals.  Some of these were massive and carried massive price tags to match.  Our 8 year old was smitten with unicorns and pegasuses the size of Shetland ponies but a lifetime of pocket money was not going to get him one.  Knowing there was no way we were going to cover the whole store, the boys were asked to determine which areas and displays they wanted to see.  Inevitably, therefore, the sections we visited were for superhero action figures, Minions, video games and Lego.  The kids had a great time looking at all the toys, mentally creating lists for Santa.

Then it was time to leave the soothing cool of the toy store and go back out onto the busy, baking streets.  Somehow the walk back to Penn Station felt so much longer and further than the walk to Central Park had been that morning.  The train was surprisingly busy for a Sunday, alarmingly so since we had to walk the length of several carriages to find one that had space.  The kids’ feet and legs were pegging out at the mere thought of there being standing room only all the way back to our destination station.  Thankfully, at the penultimate carriage, we found some spaces on the bottom deck.  We sank into the chairs, exhausted, sticky from humidity and park dust, but very glad that our very first day trip to New York City had been a grand success and one I think we shall repeat.

Three have Fun in Manhattan – Day 3 – Statue of Liberty

After breakfasting at the Moonstruck Diner again, we caught the downtown tour bus and hopped off at Battery Park.  Our mission for the day was to visit the Statue of Liberty.  Tickets to get inside and ascend the Statue sell out in advance but we didn’t mind as we only wanted to visit the island anyway.  I personally don’t think I will ever climb that statue as I have claustrophobia and a crippling fear of heights.  The queue for the ticket line moved quickly but the queue to get through the security checks moved like molasses.  I am not against security screening at all.  I completely understand the need for it.  However, there has to be a more efficient system for processing people.  For instance, initially we were in an orderly queue but then the fence opened up wider and we were all directed to fill every nook and cranny of the space which meant any order there had been was completely lost.  It’s the type of anti-queuing that makes we British people twitchy.  That blob of people then had to narrow down to get up a set of steps and through a door which created a bottleneck.  That bottleneck was what slowed everything up because once inside it took really no time at all to go through the security check, not least because we had all had ample time to strip off belts and organise our possessions so that we didn’t bleep.

Once on board the boat – which can transport a heck of a lot of people – we scurried up to the top deck to get a good view of Governors Island, the NYC skyline, Ellis Island and, of course, the Statue of Liberty.  It was very cold indeed out on the water and I was dressed like a polar gnome for the third day in a row but the views made it worthwhile.  It took no time at all to reach the island and make land fall.  I had seen the Statue of Liberty before but en route to Ellis Island, back in August 2001, so this was actually my first time on Liberty Island too.  After the obligatory trip to the restrooms, we went for a stroll around the statue.

As impressive as Lady Liberty is from a distance, she is even more striking at close quarters.  I am curious as to what the statue would have looked like when the copper was new and shiny but the patination of the verdigris is effective in emphasising the contours of the figure and the folds of the cloth, the weight in the stance, the facial expression and the contrast with the brightness of the flame element.  It was interesting to see her from different angles, really appreciate the dimension of the sculpture, understand the way the pose works to support the symbolism.  I must have snapped a hundred photos of the statue as we circled around it.

Back on the boat, it was a hop, skip and a jump to get to Ellis Island.  We were tempted to get off and explore but knew our timings were tight so decided that we would all three return to New York some time and visit both Ellis Island and the 9/11 Museum.  Although I have been to Ellis Island before, my kids have not yet been and I am eager to take them as they are the descendants of immigrants to America as well as being immigrants themselves.  As with our trip to Plimoth Plantation, I do love it when family, social and national history combine and drill some learning into my kids.  So I will be back some time with the family in tow.  The 9/11 Museum, however, will have to wait until the kids are older.  I digress.  We resisted temptation and landed back at Battery Park.

There, we caught the tour bus which unfortunately completed its downtown circuit by heading up the west shore of Manhattan.  Unfortunate because the blue skies and sunshine of the day had led to the upper deck being opened up; unfortunate because we decided to go and sit on the top deck to get the best views, shored up by our false belief that it was warmer than it was; and unfortunate because the wind sweeping across the Hudson was freezing.  We did our best to scrunch up against the cold, burrowing into our coats, hats and scarves, but our fingers went numb and our skulls felt as if they were vibrating in the chill wind.  And the traffic was slow, painfully slow, so we dragged past the meatpacking district, Chelsea, the piers, before turning inland a bit in the region of Hell’s Kitchen where we then went from a crawl to a standstill as we encountered gridlock.  The slow pace of the traffic seemed to provoke lawlessness too as cars continued to creep out against a red light simply because the vehicles who had a green light were moving so slowly that they could risk it.  It was like bandit country in the middle of the city.  Finally the bus rocked forward far enough to escape the traffic stalemate and we got back to the theatre district.  Had we been permitted to disembark, we would most certainly have been quicker walking the last leg of the journey.

We badly needed to thaw out and eat warm food.  A and M wanted to experience a New York slice so we went off in search of some street pizza.  There were hot dogs and pretzels galore but trying to find a hole in the wall selling pizza proved to be more difficult than we envisaged.  Finally we found a little place just off Broadway and better still it had a place to sit down and better still it had more than 20 tables which meant it had to have a restroom.  It is all about toilets, you see.  The pizza could have stood to be hotter – especially since we were so very cold – but it was really tasty and had a lovely crisp base.  I chose a slice of veggie pizza and a slice with fresh tomatoes and mozzarella on it, a warm version of a caprese pizza.  I devoured both.  A great last supper for our trip together.

Just like that, our trip together was over.  A and M had to catch their bus back to the airport and I had to catch the train to get back home.  I actually lucked out and entered Penn Station and reached the NJ Transit area just as my train was about to head off so I had no malingering to endure.  Our three days as a trio went very quickly and we barely scratched the surface of what Manhattan has to offer.

In terms of tourism, the highlight of this trip to New York City was certainly seeing the Statue of Liberty.  However, for me the highlight was getting to spend quality time with my good friends.  Considering we used to see each other daily and meet up at least once a week, I cannot claim it was just like old times but – after 18 months apart – it was great to know we could just pick up where we left off with our friendship and have a whale of a time together.   “When shall we three meet again?”  We were already discussing where we might meet up next.  Hopefully with warmer temperatures.

Three have Fun in Manhattan – Day 2 – Central Park and Brooklyn by Night

Waking early, we strolled across the street and popped into the Moonstruck Diner for breakfast.  The whole place had the feel of a retro diner but with modern decorative flourishes such as tables covered in petrol iridescent mosaic tiles.  The service was great, the menu was good and the prices were pretty fair by Manhattan standards.  I had a bowl of oatmeal with fresh fruit which was good fuel for the day which was useful because it was an absolutely freezing cold day, complete with flurries of snow and wind that whipped and chapped our skin and chilled us to our marrows.

We walked up through Times Square, already starting to bustle even that early in the morning.  We popped into the M&M store partly to show M and A the bizarreness of a store dedicated to just one single type of candy but also partly for some respite from the outdoor temperatures.  Three floors of nothing but M&M merchandise and a whole wall covered in tubes of different coloured chocolate sweeties, the shop is completely and utterly bonkers but impressively so.

Thawed out, we emerged back onto the streets and headed up into Central Park because you absolutely cannot visit New York City without a visit to Central Park.  We walked up through the centre of the park as far as Bethesda Terrace.  Unfortunately the fountain was not running, presumably because of the low temperatures but the angel was still appealing.  We then cut east past lots of sculptures.  We stopped to study the charming Alice in Wonderland statue just in time because a massive group of teenagers on a school trip then clambered all over it.  Then we popped out onto the Museum Mile section of Fifth Avenue.  Snow was falling by this point and it felt like we had to walk much further than a mile to reach our eventual destination: the Museum of the City of New York.

Tickets for the Museum had been part of the package that came with our bus tour tickets.  Given the temperatures, we would otherwise have chosen to visit a much closer museum.  We were welcomed by a lovely lady who explained what the current exhibitions were in enthusiastic detail when all we desperately wanted to know were where the restrooms were.  Having availed ourselves of the facilities, we then sought out a place to rest our weary legs and view a permanent exhibition, a short film named Timescapes.  Narrated by Stanley Tucci, it told the story of the city from pre-European settlement through to the present day.  A particularly successful element of the film was the use of maps to illustrate the expansion of the city and its development.  Another memorable element was the juxtaposition, across the three screens, of photos showing the lives of wealthy residents contrasted with those of the poorest residents.  Both of those aspects of the film drove the message of New York being a city of contrasts and of constant change.

The other exhibit we spent time in was a section devoted to the city’s history of social activism: abolitionists, suffragettes, gay rights activists, environmentalists, social justice campaigners, the Civil Rights movement , cycle safety and bang up to date with the controversy over the siting of the Park51 Islamic community centre.   All these examples of activism were represented in the exhibition space and illustrated with various artifacts, photographs, film footage and audio excerpts.  The slave irons were poignant but the section that I found most evocative was the revolving gallery of photographs by Jacob Riis depicting the city’s slums, impoverished residents and criminals.  The artifact I enjoyed most, however, was a plastic doll – a bit like Barbie’s boyfriend Ken – who was named “Gay Bob” and whose box read “Come out of the closet with Gay Bob”.  I thought the disarming wit of that item was fantastic and demonstrated a another approach to activism, differing from all the debating, arguing and rage.

The wind was blasting and the snow was whirling when we stepped back out onto Fifth Avenue so we were glad to be able to catch the tour bus to take us back down to Times Square.  The journey on the bus did nothing to warm us up but our plan was to stay out of the cold as much as possible by popping in and out of shops.  There were various items that M and A wanted to purchase so that was our mission for the afternoon.  Our first pit stop – after a quick bite to eat in a cafe – was Macy’s.  Macy’s bills itself as the world’s largest department store and it is certainly a bit of a warren inside, a maze of escalators and elevators and half floors.  The store was absolutely thronging too.  In addition to people who were there to shop, of which there were masses, there were also people who were visiting in order to apparently see all of the flowers that were on display.  Apparently Macy’s hold an annual floral exhibition and that event had apparently attracted a whole horde of people.  They were taking photos of flowers, standing around discussing botanical species and posing with the floral displays to have their photos taken.  Navigating the heaving crowds certainly helped warm us up.  I was determined to show A and M the wooden escalators in the store.  Most of the escalators have the original wooden sides but with modern metal steps but I really wanted them to see the flight of escalators that still have wooden treads.  That was my nerdy mission.  I was over the moon when I finally found them.  I suspect A and M were underwhelmed.  We wandered in and out of a few more stores so that my friends could buy all of the things they wanted to get and buy souvenirs to take back to Scotland and then it was time to wander back up into the theatre district to catch the bus for the night tour.

The night tour was the only bus ride we had with a female guide.  It would have been quite useful to have encountered her earlier in the trip as she was obsessed with toilets and was able to tell us which were the cleanest ladies’ loos in the midtown area.  As a female traveller, that type of intel is golden.  The three of us plus a lady from Florida elected to sit right at the back of the upper deck.  This was because the rear section of the perspex roof had been removed and we could get a better view and better photographs.  Any warmth we had accumulated from our jaunts in and out of shops immediately dissipated with the breeze whipping in through the back of the bus.  We also had to inhale exhaust fumes ever so often.  We all refused to budge, however, even though the seats were also too high for us which meant we all shuttled forwards any time the bus came to a jolting stop, which it did frequently.  We thought unimpaired views and better photographs made it worthwhile.  The tour took us past all the usual suspect sites but it also took us over the Manhattan Bridge onto Brooklyn – affording us a decent view of the Brooklyn Bridge – and then along the side of the East River so that we could see another view of downtown Manhattan before taking us back over the river to complete the circuit.

Temperatures had fallen to subzero (centigrade) while we were on our bus tour so we decided to just scurry back to home base which we did as quickly as possible but via a wine shop.  We chilled out in the living room of my hotel room, drinking wine, chatting and giggling until the wee small hours of Sunday morning because this trip was about reuniting with friends as well as exploring the city and that was our last evening together.