Farewell, Harveys!

This was the last weekend that Kristy’s parents were in town, so we made sure that we crammed in as much as we could before they left the Big Apple. After a late start on Saturday morning, we headed down to the USS Intrepid, an aircraft carrier-turned-museum parked in the Hudson River.

The museum is absolutely awesome! I had completely underestimated how much I would enjoy it, and also how long it would take to see. It has some of the coolest exhibits, including a concorde, a submarine, and numerous planes and helicopters. There’s also lots of interactive exhibits for the kids, and the big-kids like me! I got to go rock climbing (my first time ever!), and also pilot a flight simulator that does twists, turns, flips, etc. I was the only one game enough though – everyone else gets motion sick!

Saturday night, we headed to the Hard Rock Café for dinner. We were somewhat discouraged by the enormous line out the front, and even more so when old mate at the door told us it was at least a 1/2 hour wait. However, on seeing Kristy’s Mum’s All Access card, old mate simply said, “oh, you have an all access card – come on in!”. It was a similar story once we got inside – first we were told it was a 1/2 hour wait, but after seeing the card we were seated in about 5 minutes. Moral of the story: Memberships definitely pays off! We all enjoyed our meals and desserts, and despite our protests, Kristy’s folks were especially kind to shout us our meals as an unnecessary thank-you for having them. It was our pleasure!

After church on Sunday, we headed over to the upper west side, via Central Park. Now that it’s Spring, Central Park is really blooming – it’s really beautiful! There’s still so much of it that we haven’t seen; though we managed to cross off the Alice in Wonderland statue, and Strawberry fields from our “to see” list on Sunday. We also went past the boat-house and lake which is used by model boat racing enthusiasts, as featured in the movie Stuart Little.

Lunch was at a place called the Utopia Diner, which was very good value, had excellent, friendly service and served very large meals. Post lunch, we took a quick trip downtown for some last-minute shopping and a glimpse of the Brooklyn Bridge before heading back to the apartment. It wasn’t long before we had to head back to the subway and say our goodbyes to the Harvey’s, as they started on the next leg of their holiday. It was sad to see them go, as we love having visitors, but I’m sure they’ll be having a blast on the rest of their vacation. Our weekend finished with some gym and some TV, before our first early night to bed for ages. Ahhh… sleep…