(Not Really) Planning Our Trip to NYC

Bogdan's parents flew in from Ukraine last week to spend 2 weeks with us in Maryland. We had decided that one of our Christmas presents for Bogdan's dad (and mom) would be a trip to New York City. Vlad had never been to Manhattan and, to be honest, we'd only been once a couple of summers ago (I went once as a child with my parents, but it was a one-day thing part of a whole Northeastern Tour).

We booked two rooms at a Kimpton Hotel, reserved our train tickets, and...well, that's about it. Normally before we go on a trip I spend a good amount of time researching the location - I discover the hidden local gems, plan out a walking tour or two, and figure out where we should eat.

Because we were leaving for NYC on Friday, December 23, I had absolutely no time to plan the trip. I get the whole week off between Christmas and New Year's so I was busy finishing up projects at work and then when I got home in the evening I was finishing up holiday prep and getting our house ready for Bogdan's parents. As a last ditch effort, I made my way to the library on Thursday before we left and checked out two NYC tour books.

The four of us spent Thursday evening talking about the most important thing when you go to NYC.

Dinner reservations.

Kicking off what I thought would be a "three hour tour"

I did some web searching and found a few restaurants that looked awesome, but unfortunately we're already booked for the night (I mean, we were planning this the day before!). Then I found a list from another list of a blogger I trust and in one of the comments of that list a local NYCer suggested Hundred Acres. I pulled up the menu, thought it looked interesting, and reserved a table for four for the next night.

The next morning we woke up super early and drove to the train station. We had a 3 hour train ride so I made good use of that time and spent it researching the tour book. By the time our train pulled into Penn Station, I had a walk planned out with turn-by-turn instructions that weaved us in and up Manhattan from the very bottom up to Midtown. I assumed that by the time we got to Midtown we'd have enough time to drop in to the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) for the Friday evening free admission and then catch a cab or the metro back to Hundred Acres for our dinner reservations.

Calling this plan ambitious is an understatement.

But at least it was a plan.