On the plane to New York, Abby and I had discussed that we wanted this trip to be focused a lot on walking. We both are sporting FitBit watches that track our activity levels… and this was a great chance to get some steps in! At the end of the trip over four and a half days or so, we hoped to get in 100,000 steps. It was a big goal, but definitely doable with the extra half travel day, this would mean somewhere north of 20,000 steps per day or around 10 miles depending on stride-length. This should be a pretty easy achievement for a trip to New York assuming the weather cooperated. The thing about going to New York City in December is it’s either going to be fine but cold, or miserable and cold. There’s not a lot of in-between… especially if the weather gets wet.
We woke up early, thinking it would take around an hour to walk to MoMath (The International Museum of Mathematics) and also wanting to fit in some time for breakfast. Abby had heard that there was a Tim Hortons in New York… and I found it on Google at Pennsylvania Station (Penn Station). We’d walk a little bit further west than necessary, but it was about halfway to the Math Museum and I could get some Tim Bits (donut holes)! I should point out here that I didn’t actually know the store was inside Penn Station’s underground entrance, and this led to some confusion as we walked around Madison Square Garden:
Eventually, though, we found out that this Tim Hortons wasn’t what Abby wanted (no tea), and the Tim Bits were likely not up to snuff either. I settled for a Starbucks coffee next door (which I’d eventually throw out as they didn’t have peppermint and after adding hazelnut it was sickly-sweet for some reason) as we elected to walk to the Math Museum and then see how we felt instead.
We walked further on, and came to MoMath without finding exactly what we wanted just yet. A few more blocks, though, and we stopped in at Essen Deli, where we both got bagels and after learning that they were out of onion bagels I had my first-ever “everything” bagel. It was delicious! Feeling full, and ready for some time in the museum, we headed back just as they opened at 10AM and made our way into a world of applied mathematics.
MoMath, for those who are not familiar, is a kid-focused museum that talks about applying mathematics in interesting and applicable ways that is meant to inspire. This means things like möbius strip racetracks (where the car’s don’t really go too fast, of course). There’s a bicycle with square wheels, puzzles that have solutions soundly based in mathematics, and some fun and interactive exhibits with robots and sensors looking at things like distance and velocity. Each exhibit comes with an explanation station where you can work on a touchscreen to better-understand what you are looking at. These can range from very simplified to very descriptive with the push of a button, and it was cool to see all the different exhibits.
A möbius racetrack
There are two floors and you could easily spend a great deal of time there. I think we spent more than two hours and skipped some of the exhibits because we didn’t’ want to take away some of the exhibits from the kids who were playing them! As an example, one has to changing the track curvature somewhat like a slot-car track to achieve the fastest track time. You can raise and lower somewhere around 10 different levers that pull the track along with it starting at a high-point and ending in a mid-point which means you can’t just make the track straight. It’s interesting, and we had some good speed gains going before a few children came over and also began moving levers. We let them play, and moved on in the museum without breaking the track record for the day.
A bike with square wheels… and you could ride it!
MoMath was definitely a highlight of this trip, and I’d strongly encourage a trip there if you love math, or want to have some educational content for your children while you’re also meandering around a museum of sorts. I’d definitely go back, and I hope it grows larger and larger over the years! The gift shop was a bit on the pricey side and had less math-focused clothing, bags, etc., than we expected… but overall it was a great stop to begin our New York adventure. We headed from there to a bookstore that was recommended online called Rizzoli’s, which specializes in large-format printed books like coffee table books. We walked around briefly, but didn’t find anything amazing for us before again heading out and meandering the area to find something to eat.
And if you know me at all… “something to eat” in New York when I’m just wandering around doesn’t mean a hot dog or pizza… it means dumplings. We sat down at a small Chinese restaurant, and while we shared a plate of beef lo mein, I also ordered some shrimp dumplings (pronounced: har-gow) and ate them as well as we discussed our plans for the rest of the day.
It’s important when you pick a travel buddy that you consider the speed and pace at which you both travel. Abby had talked about a trip where she exceeded 40,000 steps in one day with a friend and this had me a bit concerned overall. Jen will tell you that I’m usually good to be on my feet and going for a good three or four hours before I start getting grumpy… and about the time I start getting grumpy is when you start looking for a coffee shop for a little time relaxing and recharging (read: filling Brad’s coffee meter) so that we can plan our next activity. To a large degree, Abby and I are still figuring out this rhythm (though I’ve expressed the importance of coffee many times!) with each other and what our overall activity level would look like. Abby suggested we not just keep going to place after place without consideration for downtime, and we decided instead to “call it a day” and maybe we’d venture out later for dinner, but maybe it was time to relax a bit at the hotel. I agreed, and we began the walk back up toward the Lexington Hotel. We also found a pretty cool Lego store along the way!
And this is the part where I mention that I easily forgot how busy Rockefeller Center is around Christmastime. See? Less than 24-hours from my last post, and it went straight out the window. All I wanted was to find the liquor store I thought was up between 49th and 48th on Lexington so that we could have a glass or two of wine when we got back to the hotel… but when we walked up 7th avenue all the way to 49th and then began to cross over… streets were blocked off from cars and the throngs of people began to get thicker and thicker. We made it down a back-alley between 48th and 49th where there was a tunnel of water I had wanted to walk through (it just looked cool!)… and then we were in the thick of it.
Crossing the street became an ordeal where you might have to wade through the crowd just to get off the street. It was easy to become separated right on corners, though the crowd thinned out as you walked along. Once traffic was back in the mix, we’d probably lost ten or fifteen minutes just to fighting the crowds. Eventually, though, we did find the liquor store, and two bottles of wine later we were headed back to the hotel where we found out they had a wine happy-hour for guests anyway (for free!). This is something I’ve seen at other downtown Marriot hotels (like the one on Denver, Colorado!) but it was a first for me in New York! We dropped off our coats and wine in the room, then headed down to the lobby of the Lexington to enjoy some free wine and do some collective crossword puzzling.
Over the next few hours, we puzzled through a few crosswords, randomly asked other lobby wanderers if they knew things like a five-letter word for “sea mammal” (which, oddly, wasn’t ‘whale’ like I thought it should be)… and eventually found out the answer was “otter” as the wine refills kept coming and we relaxed and enjoyed spending time with those around us. Eventually we elected to go to dinner, and unfortunately picked a bar nearby that isn’t really worth mentioning. The calamari was chewy but fine, the brussels sprouts were also fine… none of it was amazing and the bar was pretty empty so we wrapped it up quickly with the plans of an early breakfast tomorrow before The Met, and headed back to the hotel to sleep.
