Our Trip Blog

Events of Wednesday, November 24, 2010

          You’d think that we would go easy on ourselves. Three days of early mornings, walking fourteen miles a day, , constantly in motion—when do we stop? Not today! Although initially we were planning to relax a little today with a later start, we decided to start the day early to fit everything in but at a slower pace. Like the past few days, we were up at seven, had breakfast, and then headed out to catch the 8:19 bus. We arrived at Port Authority, bought tickets for the return ride, and then headed off towards Grand Central Station.

          On the way, we decided to check out Bryant Park. When looking down from the Empire State Building last Tuesday, we could see the brilliantly lit park and ice rink. On a whim, we checked the prices and were shocked. The Rockefeller Center was $30 a person for admission and rentals, Central Park was $17 a person, but Bryant Park was quite a deal. Admission was free! Here, if you owned your own skates, you could skate whenever you want for as long as you want. We begged Mom to let us skate for $13 each (you pay for skate rental), which is quite a deal. Unfortunately, we had things to do and places to see, so we pressed forward.

          We stumbled (almost literally) onto the Library Walk. A section of 41^st Street was transformed in 2004 to include a series of plaques in the sidewalk with quotes from famous people about reading, knowledge, and words. Even though we were headed in the wrong direction and had to stop and turn around to read each plaque, we had fun reading and thinking about these quotes. Without any more distractions, we made our way into Grand Central Station.

          Still an active train station, this is a hub in the area’s network of railroads. On the 40 or so tracks, we saw trains headed to Point Jervis, Poughkeepsie, New Haven, Waterbury, and Spring Valley. Two railroad systems, the Long Island Railroad and the Metro-North Railroad still serve much of the region surrounding New York City. Although the history is not too important, the station itself is quite interesting. There are huge arched windows, a ceiling painted with constellations, and elaborate stone decorations. Our next challenge was figuring out how to exit the station headed the right direction. Grand Central is quite large, and none of us would have any problem getting lost. Luckily, we managed to find our way out alive.

          Back on the street, we pulled out our map and scouted out a route to the Lincoln Center. We saw that Broadway would be the most direct route, but we’ve learned to take advantage of pedestrian crossing signals. If, in general, we want to go northeast, we will start walking north. If the crosswalk signals let us continue northward, we cross. If we have a green light going eastward, we go east. This way, we can zigzag our way toward our destination. Walking along Broadway, we found ourselves scouting out spots to view tomorrow’s Thanksgiving Day parade. We reached Columbus Circle, which appeared to be an excellent viewing spot, and again turned northward.

          Finally we reached our lunch destination, Ed’s Chowder House, at 11:15. While touring the Apple store last Monday, Dad tried out a Zagat app to find a good spot for Manhattan Chowder. He came up with this restaurant, so we know that both the app and Dad have good tastes. We arrived fifteen minutes before they opened, so we sat in the lounge of the Empire Hotel to rest our legs and read. Looking around, I liked what I saw. Soft lights, nice furniture, a calm atmosphere. “Hey Mom, why don’t we just stay here tonight? The parade will go by right outside, so we won’t have to deal with trains, walking, crowds, or anything!” She just looked at me and laughed. Basic rooms start at $400 a night. Never mind about that!

          Once we were seated inside Ed’s, we took a look at the menu. We came for the chowder, but everything else looked so good! We ended up getting three different dishes to share: crisp calamari, fish and chips, and a bluefin bass sandwich to go with our four chowders: winter squash, Manhattan Blue Crab, New England Clam, and Ed’s Loaded Shellfish. And the Taylor Tasting Round Table began. Take a few bites, pass your plate. Take another few bites, pass again and repeat. After a taste of each delicious dish, we were all content and full. Chowder is quite rich and filling! Strangely, we found room for the scrumptious apple cobbler (a la mode) they served for dessert. This was a fantastic restaurant; they had helpful waiters, good service, and even better food.

          We picked up our backpacks and headed to Avery Fisher Hall, home of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. We had tickets to the 1:15 open rehearsal, so we found six seats in the orchestra level and read our programs until the first notes began. As I skimmed the playbill’s pages, I stumbled upon the name of the conductor: Rafael Frübeck de Burgos. I knew I had heard the name before, but I just couldn’t remember where. It just so happened that, on the eleventh of this month, he was conducting the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra. The concert we attended! None of us really expected to see any conductor twice on this trip, nonetheless in the same month!

          The 1:15 concert began around 1:30, which was a surprise. In New York, everything and everyone seems so rushed and so timely. Here, anything scheduled at 1:15 begins at 1:15. The opposite of New York time is Hawaiian time, where 1:15 means that you are supposed to get there at 1:30, as the concert begins at 2. I think this open rehearsal operated on California time, which is somewhere in between the two.

          The program listed four pieces: Glinka’s Overture to Ruslan and Ludmila, Tchaikovsky’s Vioin Concerto in D major, featuring soloist Leonidas Kavakos, Debussy’s Nocturnes, featuring the Women of the New York Choral Artists, and Stravinsky’s Suite from The Firebird. Being reasonable people, we expected that the concert would be played in the order listed. Of course, it wasn’t. It started with the Firebird Suite, which was very interesting. The orchestra did a great job portraying the moods of the ballet through the dynamics. Next, we heard the Nocturnes, which included the women’s choir. I expected more of a vocal piece, but the choir treated their part not as a feature but as another instrument in the orchestra. Lastly, we heard the Overture to Ruslan and Ludmila. This was an overture to an opera, but the composer wrote his opera strangely. Glinka composed the music first and then added the storyline. Tchaikovsky, who occasionally critiqued music, wrote this about Glinka’s opera: “[The libretto is] a motley of shreds and patches hastily sewn together…The Overture…introduces a sequence of outstanding musical pieces which, unfortunately, are not linked by any unity of dramatic movement.” Despite the criticism, I enjoyed the piece, mostly because of the unity I saw between orchestra and conductor. During the pre-concert talk at the Philadelphia Orchestra, a question was asked: What makes good chemistry between a conductor and his orchestra? The cellist’s answer went something like this: When he waves his baton, it seems like he is directing the orchestra in improvisation. That was definitely the case here.

          An hour and a half after the rehearsal began the conductor spoke some words to the orchestra. Suddenly cheers broke out and the orchestra applauded and left. Intermission? The entire audience was confuzzled. Was that it? What about the Tchaikovsky? Finally, an usher came up the aisle and explained. The orchestra rehearsed the Tchaikovsky that morning, so the concert was over, so we headed outside. We took a brief stroll thorugh the Metropolitan Opera House and then walked over to the Julliard School just to peek inside. We have been very well educated on this trip, visiting eight universities, and now we “went to Julliard”. So much for not being schooled on this trip!

          We headed up Central Park West Avenue toward the Museum of Natural History to see the balloons be inflated for tomorrow’s parade. The whole event was very well organized. Several NYPD officers directed us around two blocks to form a path through the viewing area. As we passed a schoolyard, the crowds increased tenfold so that we were being pulled by a current of people. Once we reached the block long inflation site, the traffic slowed a little. As we walked, we saw all the balloons for tomorrow’s parade. Some were inflated, some were being blown up, and some were spread out across the road, waiting to be filled with air. Huge 18-wheelers carrying tanks of compressed helium were sporadically spread along the block. Hoses connected these tanks to the balloons. Among the balloons we saw were Mickey Mouse, Shrek, Hello Kitty, Snoopy, a pirate, an icosahedra (Dad’s favorite), a globe, elves, stars, Po (from Kung Fu Panda), and Diary of a Wimpy Kid. It is one thing to see them on TV in the parade; seeing them 20 feet away helps you realize the true size of the creatures. The last balloon we saw inflated was of a girl named Virginia. All the people around us were wondering who this was. Since we had seen Macy’s holiday windows, we knew the story of Virginia-“Yes, Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus”. Soon, we were experts on the story and had explained it to 50 other curious visitors.