Seeking shade

August 8th - (or as I like to call it, an exercise in how to keep cool) 

Such a comfortable sleep in that bed last night, with its down duvet and pillowtop mattress. So wonderful - too bad I got woken up at 3 am by some random alarm on Mario's old phone! Blah. Our in-room self-catered breakfast works great too, allowing us the time to take it easy and relax until we head out to our bus around 11 am. After all, we are on vacation, we don't need to wake up at 6 am to maximize our days. We have nowhere to be before Broadway tonight at 7 pm, and we have no plans laid, either.

The heat hits like a wall of bricks as we exit the bus station in town - hot and heavy and lung-crushing. There's little in the way of a breeze, but we make sure to keep to the shady side of the street as we walk, making our way, slowly, to the Hudson River and the High Line. If for no other reason, we head here for the shade we know it offers, and the idea that all that vegetation might offer some freshness that we so desperately need today. 

Past the Hudson Yards, the Vessel is official closed for construction(which is surprising as it was only build in 2018!), but the base is open for a free visit, so we take advantage of this fact to get a look at it from the inside. Along the High Line, some of the art displays have changed, though the city views have not, so we take them in while attempting to eat a rapidly-melting Indian-inspired saffron milk pop before it drips all the way down my arm. So sticky.

We descend from the raised walkway into the Chelsea Market to pick up some snacks for a picnic lunch, and find it significantly changed since our last visit. Once more of a market for foodstuffs, there are now so many restaurants and take-out shops, taking the place of the self-catering options. Gone is the soup shop where we had hoped to buy cooling cups of tangy tomato gazpacho. The cheesemonger is still hiding in a far corner of the basement, and there we find an assortment of small offcuts being sold at reduced prices. We blindly choose 4, knowing that really, any cheese is tasty cheese, and that this right here is the start of a tasty picnic. We add to it a bag of grapes, and some fresh bread from Amy's Bakery upstairs. We also stop in at a CVS pharmacy hiding in a columned, neo-classical bank building for much cheaper drink options.

On the Hudson River is this new place called Little Island - part sculpture, part floating park - the park is perched on a cluster of what looks like cement funnels, with differing heights, pathways and curated vegetation. At its center, a large plaza filled with tables, covered with shade canopies, so we grab a spot and spread our lunch fixings, tasting all the delicious cheeses while listening to another park visitor tickling the keys of a public piano, and rather well, too. A family next to us lays out squares of paper towels and makes a loaf's worth of sandwiches, while the kids splash each other with bottles of water refilled endless at the nearby fountain.

After our slow, drawn-out lunch break,  we wander the pathways of the island, taking in the views of the city as well as the hyper-clean washrooms(never miss a chance to use a washroom in NYC!), and then we head inland to the shady streets of Greenwich Village. Here, quintessential New York streets, or at least the ones you see in the movies, tree-lined and dotted with stairs leading up to beautiful doorways, lie around every corner. There are less crowded sidewalk, and LOTS of beautiful little shops and boutiques, quaint window displays and entrances framed by flowers. We pop into one or two of them, but this is a higher-end neighbourhood, and that is clearly reflected in the pricing. But the reprieve from the oppressive heat outside is nice, if only for a few minutes at a time.

We work our way, eventually, to Washington Square Park, in the middle of the NYU campus. The fountain at the centre of the park begs to be played in, if it wasn't sitting out in the glaring sun. It it also surrounded by what seems like all the pot vendors in the city, with their tables set up like a craft fair. I suppose marijuana has been legalized here too since our last visit in 2019, either that or people are less interested in hiding their sale and consumption of it! There is so much being smoked in this park, I am surprised I am not sitting in a cloud, to be perfectly honest. It's almost overwhelming. 

Not for the same reason, we decide to sit in the shade, on the grass, to cool down for a bit. It's just too hot to keep moving. An hour later, we reluctantly get up, brushing off the grass, and begin the trek back to Broadway. We stop for some iced Thai tea at Surreal Creamery, hidden in a low basement, walls painted a clean white but doing nothing to brighten the place up. The tea, however,  is refreshing and just what we need to keep us going.

We hop on the subway to 42nd street. We briefly tour Times Square, the M&M store and the I <3 N Y souvenir shop, where we buy nothing, then join the queue for the Ambassador Theatre for this evening's showing of Chicago.

What a fantastic show! We are sitting in row B, at the very front left side of the stage, so when the performers look out and interact with the audience, which they do a lot in this show, they are seeing and interacting with us! And from this vantage point, we can see all the small winks and gestures between performers that are lost to viewers sitting further back, including the goings-on in the wings and back-stage - it truly is a whole different theatre experience. I was personally blown away by the actress playing Roxy Hart, she was phenomenal. More than that, I spied a knee brace underneath her fishnet stockings, which made all her dancing, high kicks and split even more impressive. 

After too much applause, though never enough, and a quick exit through an open service door, we pour out onto the street in the steamy night air and walk down 8th to Shake Shack for our favorite NYC food. I love me a good 'shroom burger, and Mario is always a sucker for the Shack burger, so with a little time to spare before our bus, we head in for a quick late-night snack. It was so hot today that food seemed more like an afterthought, but now we are hungry, and basically have to hold back to avoid inhaling the burgers whole! So good. And we make it back to Port Authority with 10 minutes to spare before the bus back to New Jersey, too.