New York City / center of the universe

We got home from our whirlwind weekend in New York at 1 this morning. I still can hardly believe we got to go. We had the BEST time! It was the least touristy trip I've taken to NYC -- no sightseeing at all, unless you count when Matt and I popped into the New York Public Library as we were walking past.

Our flight got in around 3 on Friday afternoon but we got caught in some insane rush-hour traffic and it took something like an hour and a half to get to our hotel. (It was OK because it was part of the experience, but I cannot imagine dealing with traffic like that on a daily basis.) We still had enough time to walk around Times Square and eat a requisite street-vendor hot dog (the first of many) before unpacking and changing clothes for the night.

First we saw the Green Day musical "American Idiot" and I was so surprised how great it was! Luckily I knew most of the songs from driving Matt's car and being too lazy to change his music. Then we went to a pizza place in a beautiful converted church right next door. And then we went to the late show at Comedy Cellar. I had low expectations because the couple of New York comedy shows I'd been to previously had been excessively vulgar and not very funny. This one had six or seven comedians (including Aziz Ansari from "Parks and Rec"). Not one of them was a dud, and I could have stayed there all night. High hilarity.

The next day we shopped in the Times Square area -- most of our time was spent in equally massive H&M and Forever 21 stores that overall I found more overwhelming than exciting, although I did get some cute shoes, my second pair of skinny jeans and some leggings. We ate more hot dogs and pretzels intermittently and Matt and I did a little wandering.

In late afternoon we started the journey to the Giants stadium in New Jersey to see the United States/Argentina soccer game. Carrie and Jacob are friends with Clint Dempsey and that's how all six of us wound up sitting eight rows up from the field. Eight rows! It was incredible. A lot of the people around us were family members of other U.S. players, which is why it was a little surprising that the people behind us kept yelling at us to sit down whenever we stood up to cheer.

It. was. COLD. We were prepared. I wore three shirts, two sweaters, my heaviest wool coat, leggings under my jeans, two pairs of gloves and my running headband. I was still very, very cold. Especially my feet, which were numb. I was OK during the game, especially since soccer games only last 90 minutes plus halftime and it was a good game (tied 1-1). But getting back to the hotel was not fun.

It was a sold-out crowd, and most of us were heading back to the city via the subway. Picture more than 70,000 people, all freezing, many drunk, jostling for spots on trains running every five to 15 minutes in the dark. After three train connections we were finally back in Manhattan, where we made the decision (ill-advised in hindsight) to walk 17 blocks back to our hotel rather than call a cab.

Once we finally were back in our room Matt and I lay on the bed for about half an hour trying to gather the energy to go back out for dessert. Every few minutes I'd mumble, "If we can't pull ourselves together to go on a midnight date for New York cheesecake on our last night in the city without kids, something is seriously wrong with us," or something to that effect, and Matt would agree and then we'd lie there for a few more minutes. Eventually we just fell asleep.

Yesterday we went to Chinatown looking for purses but the options were disappointing. I think there was a raid on black-market designer bags since last time I was in New York. We walked up to SoHo, shopped a little more, then went back to the Times Square area until we had to leave for the airport.

Except for the weather, the trip was perfect. I can't wait till next time. And one more huge round of applause to Mom and Dad, babysitters extraordinaire!