We walked from there to the subway to head to Grand Central Station. It was this subway ride where it really hit me what an amazing feat of engineering this city really is. We were about eight stories below ground riding the train. A combination of staircases and escalators took us underground. We took an underground walkway when we needed to change trains, probably three stories underground. When we got to Grand Central Station this is what we saw.
I didn't take this picture, I found it on google images. The ceiling is painted with zodiac images. This is the main concourse. There are several shops in the wings off of the main concourse on this level. One level below this is where we had lunch, in the dining concourse. I wanted to branch out and have something different, so I had a lamb gyro in a pita. The pita was given a layer of hummus before lamb and slaw were stuffed inside. I had lamb once when I was in England several years ago and I've had hummus before, but not a gyro in a pita. It was very tasty! After lunch we walked through the Holiday Fair that was set up in one of the halls. They were all handmade items and they were gorgeous! I wish I could have bought so many things.
From there we went to Trader Joe's in Chelsea. Trader Joe's is a grocery store. Groceries here can be very expensive, but Trader Joe's is one of the more affordable places to shop. The thing about grocery shopping here is that you have you be able to carry everything that you buy. That limits what you can buy. We limited ourselves to four bags, two each to carry back through the subway and the four block walk to her apartment.
After we dropped the groceries at the apartment we went to Central Park. Kayla lives about five blocks from the east side of the park, so we went there for a stroll. We walked through part of the Central Park Zoo to get to The Great Mall. There are even stairs and hills in the park. This is not a flat island! We bought roasted nuts and sat in the cool weather to eat our snack. It was about forty five degrees but I was comfortable. Kayla, however, was bundled in her parka! We are very different in what temps we enjoy. As we were leaving the park we walked past the ice rink. This isn't the best picture, the camera on my phone isn't great, but the white area toward the back of the picture is an ice skating rink. Some kids were playing hockey and other people were figure skating. It looked like so much fun, although I'm not coordinated enough to ice skate.
We took the subway from Central Park down to the lower east side to Hi Thai for dinner. It was the first time I'd had Thai food. Greek for lunch, Thai for dinner...it was a day of firsts! Kayla ordered me the Chicken Pad Thai. It was really good. I'll have to try Thai again sometime and pick a different dish. I'm really trying to branch out and try new things.
From Hi Thai we went to Hotel Chantelle to play Bingo. Again with the vertical experience, we had to climb two large flights of stairs to get to the Bingo room. We had such a great time. It was so hilarious! The prizes were all very silly and we laughed the entire time we were there. I won the first round which was a pair of lanterns that light up. One is a duck and the other is a bunny. I had to go up on stage when I won to collect my prize. The emcee interviewed me while I was up there. I also won a later round and got the DVD board game for The Office and a t-shirt. The grand prize of the evening was a jackpot of $143 dollars and several other silly prizes. Kayla and I were both disappointed that we didn't win that prize, but we had such a good time while we were there that we got over it.
It was a great day...tomorrow it's The Met!
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