Wanna get away?

I needed a break. From what.. I don't know. But my weekends had been packed since the start of Fall, so I wanted some time to just relax.

So where does one go to relax? Why, the quaint town of New York City.

This was the plan. We had booked a hotel (Millennium Broadway)and tickets (The Color Purple) through Broadway.com. We hoped to see "The Lion King", but tickets weren't available, so we went with our second choice. It just so happens that the stagehand strike continued while we were in NYC, so we didn't get to see "The Color Purple" at all. We hoped to find discounted tickets when we got there at TKTS, but there was nothing showing that we were dying to see..

.. so we walked.

There was vendor we had heard about on Good Morning America who won the Vendy Award for being the best vendor in the city. I had read that he sold vegetarian food, so we wanted to find him and try his fare. With our backpacks stuffed with layers of clothing (it was a chilly weekend), our bathroom toiletries, and food, we headed down towards Washington Square.. some 30 blocks away. It was nice to get away from the tourists and the overwhelming visual stimulation of Times Square. It was too much. We stopped at a flea market in Chelsea and just wandered. It was nice.. it was what we needed. The vendor wasn't at Washington Square, so we watched the dogs in a very small dog park in the area. It's like parents who rarely get away from there kids finally get a night to themselves to go out to dinner, and the conversation is about their kids.

Since the vendor wasn't there, we had lunch at a vegetarian restaurant we just happened to find nearby. It was a small place that hit the spot. Needless to say, the 30 block walk back was a little slower. We didn't know what we wanted to do and didn't really want to do any shopping, so we ended up at the skating rink at Bryant Park. We had a nice corner spot on the rink where we had a great time watching people fall. How great of a time? We were there almost 2 hours. I decided to take pictures of people falling as proof that we were in NYC. That's me being a tourist.

The sun was low around 4:30 and we were starting to shiver and decided it was time to check in. We ended up calling it a night and stayed in the hotel room for the evening. We romantically dined on PBJ's and trail mix while watching "Spiderman 3" for $12.95 + tax and could barely stay awake at 10pm. The king size bed had two distinct body prints in the mattress (before we got in the bed) so I didn't move much during the night.

Waking up on our own.. with no dog chewing my Crocs or barking to be let out to pee.. was a treat in itself. The $30 breakfast tasted like something we could've made ourselves, but that wasn't the point of the trip. We walked around a little bit more that morning before ending up at Bryant Park again. I don't know what it is about people ice skating and falling that draws me to them, but it was very entertaining to just people watch.

It was the perfect, uneventful weekend that I needed before the busy holiday season starts up.