Small screen, big screen, NY scenes (Ch 10)

Yes folks – they’re back.  In the aftermath of the Real Royal Wedding, it’s the Right Royal Stars of Granite Glen in this blog’s very own FairyBlogTale, gathering their collective scraps of warmish clothing to take on Day 2 in the City of the Mostest, Noo Yawk, Noo Yawk.  If you are new here, I suggest getting a large brew of your choice (caffeine, alcohol or iced, whatever it takes to sustain you through the next 20 minutes or so of your life).  It’s an image-laden onslaught of Regal Proportions. (With lots of Capitals).

Ready?  Good.  Let us commence…

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So after sleeping deeply in the Best Ever Beds (like EVER) after the wonderful blogger meeting the previous day, our Family dragged themselves away from their downy mattresses and pinched themselves as they once more looked at this view out of their hotel windows. (Don’t worry, even the Mother/author of this blog feels jealous of the characters in this FairyBlogTale.) 

And after contemplating just staying in their rooms and ordering room service, they hauled their slightly reluctant butts into the chilly streets of NYC.

Now remember, Gentle Reader (and the rest of you Rough Nuts out there) this family is from the Aussie Bush.  So signs like ‘Fashion Avenue’ and ‘Starbucks Coffee’ are generally only sighted by our stars during reruns of ‘Sex and the City‘ very late at night.  Well, only by The Mother actually.  And the only obvious signs of Mother Nature in the very centre of Manhattan Island were the odd naked tree bravely sticking it’s scrawny branch out amid the towering structures cleverly stacked by Man on every available square inch of landscape.

Yes, it was a little confronting for our space-lovin’ family.  But they forged ahead nonetheless, scarves wrapped tight against the freezing winds funnelling up those man-made canyons, and into the wilds of The City.  The Mother was struck by the contrast between Inside and Outside – where Inside was some 20 degrees warmer than Outside and the expressions on the inhabitants faces reflected Relief and Resignation respectively.

In other words: it was COLD out there.

So cold, that after some Pain (which was happily kinda bread-like in this particular breakfast nook!)… The Family lined up with many, many others outside the doors of a certain Inner City Store…

With a Prince and Princess whose pearly whites were a-chatterin’ despite the pathetic layers provided by their parents against the weather. They were then all sucked (with a few thousand patrons) through the revolving doors and into the fluorescent warmth of Macys.

The Family actually had a little bit of Retail Fun here, not the least of which was purchasing (on sale!) two Very Warm Coats for the Prince and Princess.

Snug as two little chequered bugs!  Who are ready for the Arctic… or maybe Central Park?  With the 2/3 of a day remaining to them, the family decided to be Good Little Tourists and climbed aboard a Double Deck bus.  With a tour guide who seemed to them to be all New York stereotypes rolled into one human being…

The Mother is not entirely sure what he talked about for the first ten minutes, she was too busy getting lost in the thick accent and the giant reflection in the perspex roof of the bus.

But when she looked about she could see CLEARLY that they were in the city of Friends, and Law and Order,

The Cosby Show and Sesame Street and Letterman…

And let us not forget, dear fellow TV addict, Seinfeld…

All together now: NO SOUP FOR YOU! (It’s the Soup Nazi’s real life kitchen. Which will mean nothing if you don’t watch Seinfeld.)  And then, before we knew it, we were looking across a big roundabout at the glass building that housed the Mega Toy Store we visited the day before. The Mother may be wrong, but was it somewhere here that Harry dropped Sally off on her big New York adventure in that most quotable of all movies, When Harry Met Sally?

As the bus skirted around huge city blocks the Family saw many amazing building, including this one (the Mother thinks) where John Lennon was shot.

The Mother was very intrigued by this building, while the Prince and the Princess were all ‘Who is John Lennon?’ (and the Mother was all: ‘I need to do some Music History Homeschooling with my children when we get back to reality’…’or at least point them at a decent Beatles documentary or two’).

And then, in a blink, they were back beside The Park – a sight which caused the young one’s eyes to once more light up after all the Building, Buildings, Buildings…

But before that Park could be explored, a special place awaited… a place the Parents thought their two little explorers might not mind venturing into at all.

Hidden behind plumes of steam and a strange facade (the old girl was getting a facelift – how very New York!) was a very special building:

The Museum of Natural History.

(You MAY know it as the place that Ben Stiller created a little UnNatural mahem in Night at the Museum.)

And while the Family found the queues extraordinary, the welcoming party in the foyer was reassuringly familiar.

And while not EVERYTHING at this amazing and humongous museum was DINOSAURish…

… it did kinda feel that way.  Or perhaps it was just that the Prince and Princess were determined to pose in front of Jurassic-ish kind of skeletons.

Although the odd bovine-related exhibit did seem to strike a chord also…

The Mother did get distracted with framed views of the City, as she (and other patrons) took a break from the bone-fest to catch their breaths.

And eventually, some three hours after diving into the AMNH (and after seeing probably 1/10 of it’s offerings) the Family stumbled out into the bracing New York air once more.

To breathe deep.

To get a quick bite to eat.

And to see snow for the first time ever.

But that, dear Patient, Stoic, Gentle Reader, is a story for another bucket of coffee…

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Question: What television show/movie says ‘New York’ the most to you?

I’ll go first in the Comments Section (see you there!).