Getting back to the Big Apple.

New York is a swirl of energy. It can be the most exciting place in the world, but despite all the people, it can also be the lonliest. I feel fortunate that I have some people there I can call friends, so it's not that lonly. Also, it's a great place to visit, but I don't have to live there. This is from my trip there on the last four days of August. I just haven't had the chance to get to this yet.

We landed in New York on a muggy Sunday. We had some great Chinese food in flushing and then ventured down to Manhattan. We walked around all day covering parts of Central Park, the Time Warner Plaza, Rockofeller Center, NBC studios and a bunch of shopping places on 5th Avenue. We had dinner at a pizza place near Times Square. I don't know how much walking we actually did, but it felt like miles.

On Monday, we took the subway downtown to the Ground Zeron, Statute of Liberty, Ellis Island. South Street Seaport, and Wall Street. We went to SOHO where we watched some guys play selfish street basketball. We got cupcakes from the place in Sex & the City and ended up eating at a nice sushi place around there. If we were less tired and hungry we could have eaten at all kind of places. There's just so much to see there.

On Tuesday, we went to South Street Seaport early and picked up some tickets to the Producers, a Broadway musical. We then did something a little different. We drove up to the suburb where I grew up. With my friend and wife it tow, we visited my old middle school, my old high school and the house where I lived when I was a teenager.

The house looks pretty much the same. It was painted a lighter shaded than it was in my days, but it still had its own unmistakable barn-like appearence. Though there was one strange difference. In my days, the house had been 10 Red Oak Lane. For some reason, the street had been renumbered in reverse order. Now, my house was 53 Red Oak Lane. Wacky. We had some Dunkin Donuts and headed back to the city just in time for the show which I thought was fun, lighthearted, but nothing that wowed me.

On Wednesday, we had a complicated schedule. We had a flight leaving NY at 1pm, but we thought it might be nicer to leave a few hours earlier and get back sooner. We had a bunch of stop overs. We hit LaGuadia, O'Hare, Phoenix and SF. In each airport we caught a standby flight after spending less than half an hour at the airport. It was a miracle that we hit all these planes and they all had just enough seat for us to get on. I wouldn't recommend it, but it worked for us.

Just taking notes of all this so I won't forget it.