Bagels on the New York Public Library terrace

It’s spring break and we’re on the road again.  Or at least 3/5 of us are.  Zoe and Nadia are focused on wrapping up their semesters and preparing for finals, but the rest of us decided to head south.  Lanie never got to go on her 8th grade trip to DC due to Covid, and we have beloved friends and family in the area who we haven’t seen in way too long, so that’s our primary destination.

Unfortunately the first requirement for a road trip is a car, and we have encountered some challenges in this area.  We expected to take our “new” car (a seven-year-old Honda Fit) but after a deer collision in late January we are STILL waiting

You can go stand on that little triangular platform up there! On a glass floor! And they make you pay money to do it!

Inside the library

for repairs to be completed (local readers, avoid Midway Collision!)  The trusty old minivan has acquired a distinctive aroma after Bob spilled some kind of weird lamp oil in there a couple of years ago — plus we had loaned it to Zoe at Easter so she would have room to move herself out of her apartment at the end of the semester.  This left us with the kid car — a 90s-era Pontiac Vibe with close to 200,000 miles and a lack of such modern features as power locks and power windows.  We figured that even if it made the trip successfully, we’d be taking years off its life.  So, we’re traveling in a Nissan Sentra rental car with Maine plates.  (The guy at Enterprise said, “Well, it’s better than if people thought you were from Massachusetts!”  Massachusetts drivers don’t have the best reputation.)

Library BeReal

Our first stop was a visit to Nadia, who is conveniently on the way.  We picked her up late on Friday and headed to an airbnb in Mount Vernon, which is between where she lives (in Pleasantville) and the city.  There were a lot of logistical complications involving getting her back home again on the train and having a place to park our car, so this seemed like the best solution.  It turned out to be a great spot — spacious and easy to get to, with easy parking and a 15-minute walk to the Metro North to take us into the city on Saturday.

Jamon Iberica at Mercado Little Spain

Our first mission was coffee and bagels, which we accomplished without too much trouble.  Luckily we found ourselves right by the NYC Public Library, so we ate in the little park there and then took a quick trip inside.  I love the Hogwarts-style reading rooms and the ornate ceilings.  The girls particularly loved the gift shop.  We came out with a couple of posters in a cardboard tube (which would later provide a fun challenge to protect as we walking long distances in pouring rain).

We made our way over to Hudson Yards to meet our friend Justin for lunch.  This is a large mall-type area with very high end stores.  Luckily Zoe, never a big fan of shopping, did not have to suffer through it.  The other girls enjoyed a little browsing even though there was zero chance that we’d be making any purchases.  We had lunch at a cool place called Mercado Spain, with lots of kiosks selling different types of Spanish foods.  We tried a fancy kind of Jamon (apparently from pigs that ate only acorns or something like that), sandwiches, Spanish pizza, churros, and some desserts.  It was a great success apart from when I tried to order horchata as a treat for us to share, and was instead given a tiny cup of espresso (“cortado”).

It was a lovely spring day and we spent some time walking the High Line park with Justin and his wife Robyn, enjoying the sunshine despite the mobs of people.  We got down as far as Little Island, the quirky new park built entirely on concrete tulip-like supports (see photo at top).  Zoe and I came here in December and had the place pretty much to ourselves, but today it was wall to wall people.  We persevered and fought our way to the top for views across the water and to the Statue of Liberty.

Near the top of Little Island Park

We can always count on Justin, a born and bred New Yorker, to show us something that we never would have found on our own.  This time it was a “sample sale” (a misleading name, according to Justin) for jewelry.  You had to be on a special mailing list to get an invitation, but fortunately Justin and Robyn frequent lots of these sales so they brought us along.  We had to check our bags then go up to a big room, empty except for a large square jewelry counter in the center.  They broke us into pairs and assigned us each our own salesperson, who followed us around on the other side of the counter, helping us look at and try on anything that interested us.  The jewelry was beautiful, and 70% off the sticker price — but however good a deal it was, 70% off of four-figure jewelry was still not something the Pavlik familly was likely to purchase.  Nadia and I had a whispered consultation on whether it was more polite to just breeze by and not look at anything, or to give our jewelry minders false hope by trying on jewelry that we had no hope of purchasing.  Luckily we eventually found some more reasonably-priced items that we were at least willing to try on.  (Our salespeople then followed us around hopefully with them on a velvet tray as we finished our circuit.)  I had to talk Nadia out of a $200 necklace, but Bob and Lanie did make a secret purchase that I think I may see next month.  Regardless it was an interesting experience that we definitely have never had before.

We said goodbye to Justin and Robyn and headed to an old favorite, Kung Fu Kitchen noodle house, also recommended by Justin.  We had a little time between dinner and our entertainment for the evening, the Broadway show Peter Pan Goes Wrong.  We mostly filled this time with a frustrating and ultimately fruitless search for a public bathroom near Times Square.

Before things go wrong for the Peter Pan crew

Bob and I saw The Play That Goes Wrong last summer and laughed ourselves silly, so we were thrilled to find tickets to this sister production that just opened a couple of weeks ago.  And for the first few weeks it is featuring guest star Neil Patrick Harris!  We all laughed for two hours straight, while admiring the amazing talents of the cast and crew.

By the time we got out, the rain had begun.  It should have been a fairly quick walk back to Grand Central, but (a) we went the wrong direction, and (b) I was attempting to shield our posters by keeping the long stiff cardboard tube beneath my raincoat, which greatly hampered any kind of quick movement.  (Lanie, who was the one who had bought the posters, found this all very amusing.)  Luckily through some good luck and superhuman effort we made the 10:38 train with about five seconds to spare.  Less luckily, it was still raining when we got back to Mount Vernon and had to face the 15-minute walk back to our place.  Let’s just say that moods had soured a bit by that point.  But we made it eventually and as far as I am aware the posters are still dry (which is more than you can say for our shoes).