Let's go back in time to a month called February. A month filled with family, fun and travel. A month that just barely existed according to the evidence displayed on this blog.
My mom arrived on February 5th, and spent a little time with us before she and I boarded a teeny tiny airplane and jetted up to the Big Apple to visit my sister. All three of us stayed at a very nice Hilton in the Fashion District, which was sort of a miracle in of itself in that there was room for both us and our stuff to coexist in relative harmony. Being that it had been such a mild winter, we had big plans for our touristy adventures, but the day we arrived temperatures plummeted, the wind picked up, and we spent most of our stay trying to dash from one indoor location to another.
Since both my mom and I had been to New York so many times, we spent a lot of time relaxing in our hotel room, coffee shops, and restaurants. Most of our stay was spent deciding on where we would eat our next meal. We experienced a hummus restaurant, Lebanese food, Italian, a pretty decent New York pizza (yes, even in NYC it's hard to find good New York pizza), a vegetarian fine dining establishment, and my favorite, brunch at Alice's Teacup.
Being that it was so cold, I kept my hands in my pockets at almost all times, and therefore have a dearth of photos of our trip. On the more touristy side, we visited the Tenement Museumwhich I would very highly recommend. They have a number of different tours, both of the inside of an old tenement that has been partially remodeled to represent life at the turn of the century for various immigrant groups, and of the area around the Orchard Street tenement which was essentially immigrant central for many years. We also made a very quick stop at the Guggenheim--quick because the majority of the museum was closed for renovation. And we attempted to visit the Freedom Tower, but being that it was a blustery, frigid day after 30 minutes of walking around outside trying to figure out the ticketing system, we bailed. It was impressive to see how much the site has changed since the last time I visited in 2006 when it was still just a massive hole in the ground.
But hands down, the most incredible experience we had was our last night in the city at the absolutely amazing Off Broadway cult hit, Sleep No More. The premise of the play is that you are checking into the McKittrick Hotel, a luxury hotel built in the late 1930s, but which closed suddenly and mysteriously before it ever opened, two days before the start of WWII. The hotel has been reopened, and you are invited in to explore the premises. In reality, an immersive theater company has purchased some warehouses in Chelsea and converted various floors into the different areas that you explore during your two or three hour "show". It's very confusing to try to understand without having experienced it yourself, but at no point are you sitting down in an audience watching actors perform on a stage. Instead, you are given a mask and left alone to explore an old hotel, a graveyard, a sanitorium, and a small town where the actors (identified by the fact that they aren't in masks) run in and out and perform short scenes almost entirely without speaking. I cannot even put into words how enthralling my hours in the McKittrick Hotel were. Even after putting together everything that I saw with what my sister saw and what my mother saw, there are still mysteries that we can't solve, and I would give anything to be able to go back. If you get the chance to see this show, DO IT. It is creepy and mysterious and wonderful!
