My 50th Birthday Trip

After my great Sunday evening (The 17th) in North Carolina, I woke up to a beautiful sunny day. Two of my high school buddies came over in the afternoon and they had not seen each other in quite a while also. We sat out on Loretta's patio in the sun all afternoon drinking beer and telling crazy stories and laughing. We also played some yard games like frisbee golf and a bean bag toss game. One of the guys had to get home and my other friend stayed to go out with us for dinner. It was fun.
~
On Tuesday we flew to New York, got settled into our room and explored the neighborhood. We had dinner at a local pub and went back to the room to make it an early night.
~
On Wednesday morning I actually got out of bed around 5:45 or so. I took my time getting ready and we headed over to Rockefeller Plaza. We saw Ben Stiller through the window being interviewed and then made our way to the outside crowd:
People around us who saw my sign were all, "Happy Birthday!" This next picture was taken just outside of there after we left the crowd area on our hunt for breakfast. You can see the studio lights through the window just on the upper left:

We found some breakfast and wandered around for some photo ops and saw the Letterman studio and then found a place with a full glass wall to sit and drink beers and watch the New Yorkers walk by. We eventually made it all the way back to our hotel. I was proud of myself - it was a long walk.

~

After making some clothing adjustments for the air being colder on the water, we grabbed a cab to take us down to the pier for our boat ride. We stopped in for a beer at P.D. O'Hurley's after getting our boat tickets, then headed back to board the boat.

~

The boat was not very crowded and I got a seat on top right on the rail. We loved looking at the views and then when I wanted a cigarette, we went looking for an unintrusive spot and found this nice spot on the back of the boat:

It was a large area and away from everyone so we stayed down there for the rest of the trip. The sun was coming a going and we caught the Statue of Liberty at a great moment when the sun came out and really loved all the great views of the city:

After the cruise, we had dinner in Ed's Chowder House and I had scallops and soup and everything was delicious and cost a million dollars, but I finished off my night at an Irish pub and drank all night for just $23. I think people were all buying my drinks because it was my birthday.

~

On Thursday we took our time getting ready. We were a little tired from our very long Wednesday and decided to see Central Park the expensive lazy way:

Our driver was fun and informative and knew all sorts of histories about everything. The only walking we had to do was jump out for pictures like this one taken at the fountain used in the "Friends" opening montage:

And to get to The Boathouse for a beer:

Thursday night Loretta's friend from Yonkers came to our hotel. We visited for a bit then walked to Columbus Circle to catch the subway down to SoHo. We walked over to Little Italy to eat at a restaurant that the friend swore by. They served family style and everyone shaared all types of food, which was good, but the atmosphere and lighting were horrible. I would never have eaten there by choice. So then this friend wanted to go to a desert place and I was through with playing nice and gave Loretta some money for cab fare and gave her the address and I took a cab down to my favorite place from my 2007 trip, the Broome Street Bar. I was happy to be back at my place. I played all my favorite songs on the jukebox. They showed up some time later and we had more drinks and then took a cab back to the hotel and changed into fancy clothes. We wanted to try out the rooftop club, but as soon as we got in the door, I was deafened by the music and had to leave. I changed back into street clothes and hoofed it back down to my Irish pub. After a few beers I walked back and stopped for ice. (Our hotel did not have an ice machine and you had to order a bucket of ice and it was tiny!)

~

Good Friday was just get up, pack, airport, although we did hang out in the hotel lounge for just a little bit. We took it easy at Loretta's that night and did some laundry.

~

Saturday was so much fun! We went to a home improvement store and I got Loretta a neat little lamp and she bought a hand towel holder and toilet paper holder and I installed them in her half bath. We layed out the stuff for dyeing eggs, then my brother and his two sons came over. Except for Loretta, none of us knew what we were doing. We were doing all sorts of experiments with the eggs. I forgot to add the egg pictures and blogger won't let me insert pictures post facto, so I'll show those later. But we were all laughing. Then we all went out for Mexican food and Loretta took this great picture of my brother, my nephews and me:


It was a great ending to a wonderful week. When I got home on Sunday I was exhausted. I was still exhausted on Monday. On Tuesday I was finally able to resume being a productive human being. Maybe 50 is the cut off date for partying for a whole week. We'll see.