Impulse Bye
by Rob

This vacation has flown by, but they always do. When it started last Saturday, we didn't have any plans to go anywhere during the break. I wanted to be sure that we got out of here for at least a little while, so I went to the Internet to create a last minute New York getaway.

We set out from here on Wednesday, heading first to Westchester County and the home of our friends, the Barkats. Laura and Kim have been life-long friends. Laura met her husband, John, at The King's College, which is where both Kim and Laura did their undergraduate work. It had been two years since our last visit with them, but this is one of those friendships where that doesn't really seem to matter. They have two girls, and in very little time, all the kids were having a blast -- especially the girls. Although we were with them for a little less than 24 hours, the kids played instruments, did craft projects with clay, played games, had dance lessons, played in the snow... I'm sure that I'm leaving something out. Nate wasn't always interested in the same things that the girls were doing, but he didn't seem to mind spending time with the adults instead during those times.

We left our friends on Thursday afternoon, and headed for the city. Even though we didn't make our reservations until last Saturday, we had managed to get a room in the same hotel that we had used in December. The "Travel Inn" is on West 42nd Street, just a few blocks from Times Square and the theatre district. The hotel isn't fancy, but it's clean, easy to get to, includes parking and is very inexpensive (by New York standards). We arrived at the hotel just before 5:00 PM, with plenty of time to get some dinner before heading to the theatre.

We decided to take the easy way out for dinner that evening. Obviously, New York is full of good restaurants, but we went to Applebees. Actually, the food was predictable and adequate, and the service was great. The prices were shocking. Fortunately, when Kim and I realized that we had both decided on the same salad, the waitress cheerfully agreed to bring us some extra plates so that we could split one, rather than ordering two. We sat at a table on the second floor, overlooking 42nd Street, and we had a great time.

After dinner, we were off to the theatre. Ironically, February 22 was the one year anniversary of our family's Phantom of the Opera experience at Proctors here in Schenectady. When I started "browsing" the ticket sites online last Saturday, I never expected to find anything. When I found 4 of the cheap seats for Spamalot, I jumped at the chance to buy them. After all, I'm the only member of the family who had ever been to a Broadway show, and I felt that the rest of them needed to start catching up (not that they have much of a chance of that). We had also been talking about this show, because Nathan recently discovered the film, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and he loves it. We knew that the show was based on the movie, so I was pretty sure it was a safe bet.

As it turns out, it wasn't such a "safe" bet. Yes, it was fun and we all enjoyed it a lot, but the new material that was added for this stage version was quite a lot racier than the movie. I sat next to Abbie during the show (our seats were split between two locations in the upper balcony), and at one point she turned to me and said, "Daddy, they're using the 's-word' a lot!" She was right. I suppose that I shouldn't think that it's funny, but every time that they used "the s-word," she would cover her mouth and her eyes would spread wide open. Then she'd look at me and giggle. I lost track of the number of times that she turned to me and said, "I don't get it," but I know that on several of those occasions I was relieved, and glad that the performance wasn't going to give us an opportunity to have any discussion about it.

Nathan loved the show. Since I wasn't sitting with him, I have no idea how he reacted to the language or the racy bits, but I suspect what he really enjoyed was seeing the comedy that he knows so well, adapted for the stage. A great many of the scenes were taken directly from the film -- word for word. I know this, because Nathan has memorized several of these scenes, and we have heard them -- word for word -- often during the past several months. Another part of the staging that was fun was the gore. The film includes a duel scene and a killer rabbit scene, both of which are very funny, but bloody. In the stage version, they managed to work out these two bits, complete with dismembering and beheading. The blood was replaced with red streamers, and it was very, very funny.

On the way home from the theatre, Abbie made it clear that we needed dessert. On our December visit, we stopped for ice cream after the Christmas Show, on our way back to our hotel. Well, it was a lot colder this time, so Kim and I said that there wouldn't be any ice cream. But within a block, we walked by a pastry shop that had cheese cake and cookies. Abbie thought that this would be okay instead. We got our food to go and finished our day, watching the evening news and eating cheese cake and rice pudding back in our hotel room.

This morning, we were in no real rush to get up and going. In fact, last evening, the weather report didn't sound so great, and we half expected to get up to ice on the streets. Fortunately, the sun was shining and the streets were dry. Unfortunately, the wind was howling. The wind chill was probably in the teens. Once we had figured out what the weather conditions were, we decided that we'd head to The Metropolitan Museum of Art. None of us had been there before, and although museums and kids are not always a great combination, we figured there would be plenty to look at for the afternoon.

After eating breakfast at the deli next to our hotel, we checked out of our room, and loaded our stuff into the car. Then we set out on foot for the subway station. I know this sounds strange, but I love subway system in New York. I haven't been on a subway since I lived there, so I was a little apprehensive about the money part of it. The system has switched from tokens to swipe cards. I was afraid that I would have to wait in a line, and then be unsure about what to buy. Sometimes, during the rush, people in the lines (and the agents) expect you to pay for your fare and get the heck out of the way. Fortunately, there was no line, and the agent was very helpful. She put all of our fares on one swipe card, which even saved us some money.

The museum was even larger than I imagined, and it was amazing. I can't believe that I have never been there before, and I can not wait to go back. Nate was less patient with Kim and me than Abbie. Both Kim and I had a hard time moving fast enough to suit him and the word "boring" was heard at least a few times. None the less, I know that both of the kids saw things that they really got excited about. Looking at the Van Gogh paintings was a highlight for Nate. I think that Abbie was impressed by the paintings in general. She wants to know what she needs to do to have an opportunity to paint on canvas. I didn't realize that there is so much more than painting and sculpture there, and although I really enjoyed the paintings the most, I was also glad to see the Frank Lloyd Wright room, and the Tiffany windows, and the Egyptian artifacts... In all, we spent about three and a half hours there, which I think is a pretty good amount of time, when you have a 9 and a 12 year old.

Although the kids hadn't said much of anything about the subway since we left the hotel, as we were leaving the museum Abbie asked if we could go back on the subway. She was excited when I said, "Yes."

The drive home to Schenectady was smooth and uneventful. The kids slept part of the way. When we pulled in the driveway this evening, it was about 8:30. Actually, when we got home, I almost didn't pull in the driveway, because it was full of snow! The weather that didn't seem to happen in NYC, happened in Schenectady instead. Oh well, at least we escaped it for awhile.

By the way, I forgot to use the camera during this getaway. But as you can see, I have discovered that if you forget to use your camera on your trip to New York City, some other nice people have already taken plenty of pictures for you, and thoughfully left them on the Internet for you to "borrow."