Once Nadia’s swearing in was complete, we had the rest of the day to spend in New York. I, of course, wanted to see some of the sights from Seinfeld, while Nadia wanted to walk around the city and do some shopping. Of course, by shopping, she meant looking, but still…

A couple of days before the trip, I looked up the specific locations I wanted to visit. At that point, I didn’t have the address of the courthouse, so I didn’t map them out by the distance we were from them. I just wrote down the cross streets, and we went from there.

First, we decided to go to Soup Kitchen International, which was run by Al Yeganeh, a New York City soup vendor who inspired the Soup Nazi character, because it was closest to us. It is located in Manhattan on 55th St near 8th Ave. So, we hopped on the subway and took it to 59th St. Then, we hoofed it down to 55th.
 
The store was closed in 2006, and has remained closed since. But, the awning identifying it remains. Also, the rules for ordering are still displayed in the window in both English and French. We snapped a couple of pictures and then decided on our next destination.

We decided we would head over to the building that was used for Pendant Publishing, Elaine Benes’ employer. The address of the exterior is 600 Madison Ave. between 57th and 58th Sts. We could have just gone straight there from the Soup Nazi’s place – it was about seven blocks – but we decided to go to the Apple store and FAO Schwarz instead.

I had been by the Apple store before, but never went inside. Other than the glass cube and spiral staircase, it’s just like any other Apple store. There were quite a few people there for 11 a.m. on a Wednesday, though. It was packed.
 
From there, we went next door to FAO Schwarz. The store is much bigger than it appears from outside. And, it still has the doorman. Inside, you’re greeted by massive pink plush puppies, and a display of stuffed safari animals. There was even a $2,400 replica of Noah’s Ark that came with several plush animals.
 
The big piano is no longer on the second level near the escalator. Now, it’s in the party room. I don’t know what — other than the piano – qualifies it as a party room, but that’s what they call it. You can get your picture taken on the piano by them or do-it-yourself. The piano costs $20,000, by the way.
 
We decided not to wait in line to get on the piano. We walked around the store and looked at the rest of the toys. I really, really wanted to get myself made as a Muppet Whatnot. But, for $130, I passed. I have no idea why I wanted myself as a Muppet, but when I first saw it, I thought, “Mike as a Muppet…that sounds about right!”

Nadia looked around for a present for a friend with a baby, but couldn’t settle on anything. So, then we headed to the exterior used for Pendant Publishing. I took a couple of pictures there, but it wasn’t as rewarding as the Soup Nazi’s place. It actually had a bit of a boring feel so we moved on.

It was about lunchtime, so we decided to go to a pizza place Nadia knows from when she lived in the city. I call it “this place Nadia knows” because, despite the many, many times she ate there; she never learned or remembered the name! Anyway, last time we were in NYC, we walked 70… 7-0… blocks to get to this place, all while I was dealing with sciatica. She kept saying, “It’s only a few blocks away.” It was good pizza, though, and we were only about 30 blocks away this time. So, we started walking.
 
Now, keep in mind we’re both wearing professional attire, and I’m wearing casual shoes — shoes that apparently weren’t designed for walking. About 15 or so blocks in, my feet started hurting. It wasn’t so bad that I couldn’t walk, but it wasn’t like walking around in sneakers, or Himalayan walking shoes. And, I had to pee. But, by then we were only 10 or so blocks away so I figured I would hold it.
 
Now, she remembers it being around 82nd and 2nd Ave. But she wasn’t 100% sure. So, when we arrive at 82nd, she says it may be as high as 87th. Sigh. So we walk towards 87th. At 86th, there’s a section of storefronts that are boarded up with plywood that reads, “Post No Bills.” When we get up to 87th, there’s no pizza place. It appears that the pizza place was at 86th, but it was closed.* Blimey! I was so annoyed! Nadia wanted to find another place to eat, but after 30 blocks thinking about pizza, I wanted pizza.

* It turns out the pizza place – based on my research – is called Piazza Restaurant and it relocated to 3rd Ave between 86th and 87th. Google Street View shows it closed with a sign. We should have checked it earlier. We were so close. D’ah well.
 
We hailed a cab and asked the driver to take us to a good pizza place. He took us to Zesty Pizza on 95th St. The pizza was good, but listening to the owner of the pizza place explain, in his thick New York accent, how his “sun gawt bit by a freakin’ dawg while playin sockah,” was priceless. He was explaining to a customer – who I assume has a kid that goes to the same school as his and frequents his establishment – that he was going to “soo huh” (sue her) because “she freakin’ laughed when huh dawg bit him.” I should note that the dog that bit him belonged to the school’s chancellor and it was the chancellor’s wife who laughed at the incident.

Anyway, after lunch, we continued on to Tom’s Restaurant. We walked through Harlem. It didn’t feel unsafe, but apparently people up there do not curb their dogs there. There was poop all over the sidewalk.
 
We walked down 112th, looking for the intersection of Broadway. As we approached what appeared to be the end, we did not find Broadway. The road ended at Manhattan Ave. and across the street was a very large park and cathedral. We had walked about 18 blocks at this point, on top of the 30 before, so I was thinking we should give up. But Nadia said it might be on the other side of the park and the cathedral school, so we pressed on.
 
Two long blocks (uphill) later, I was ready to give up when Nadia asked a crossing guard. “Broadway is the next block,” the woman said. Excellent. So, we walked up to the corner and, nothing. Where was it? How could it not be here?!?!?!?!

Then, we realized that in going around the park, we were on 110th, not 112th. We walked up Broadway two blocks and there it was. We took a couple of photos and soaked it in, which basically means we stood there trying to decide on what to do next.
 
Nadia wanted to go to Canal St to look for a hat and possibly gloves. I also wanted to buy a scarf. So, we took the subway to Canal.

If you’ve never been, Canal St has a lot of little shady-looking open storefronts that sell hats, gloves, scarves, clothes and handbags. They also have a lot of street vendors. The handbags, however, are fake.*

* I can’t prove that they’re all fake but the last time we visited Canal St we went into a shop that had all of their bags sitting on a shelf with small holes where the brand name/logos go. There was also a stack of the purse emblems next to them, ready to be glued on.

As Nadia was walking by, several of the vendors would say, “Do you want Gucci bag, Louis Vuitton, Prada.” I must have heard some variation of this 50 times in a two blocks. Also, there was a group of young (16 – 18 year old) white girls with an older black guy with them. He was one of the street vendors.
 
Apparently, they must have answered, “Yes” when he asked if they wanted a Louis Vuitton bag. So, he was asking them to follow him across the street. Two of the girls were gung ho, while one of them was saying that they should not go. She was “freaked out” by him and did not want to go. Before they decided what to do, though, we were out of earshot. When I last saw them, they didn’t appear to be crossing the street with him.

Anyway, once we walked through Canal St, we wanted to take the subway back to Penn Station so we could go home. But, Nadia said that none of the trains there would take us back to Penn. So, we ended up leaving that station to find an A,C,E or 1,2,3 train. Going into the station and then coming out of the station got me disoriented. So, I couldn’t help.

We looked at a map and determined the best route to take. The problem, however, was two-fold: the map didn’t contain all of the streets because it was a subway map, and we got confused because both Broadway and W Broadway intersect with Canal St. So, we picked a direction to walk, and stuck with it… until we ended up in Chinatown.
 
We stopped and asked a traffic cop where the nearest A,C,E or 1,2,3 train station was and he mumbled something about being all the way on the other side of something. Nadia could probably hear him better than I could. I asked him about the Grand St station, as it was supposed to be nearby according to the map, and it would take us to 34th, where we could walk the few blocks to Penn Station. He told us it was “right there.” We didn’t really know where “there” was but we walked in the direction he pointed.

After a few blocks, we didn’t see the station. Nadia suggested a cab. At that point, I saw the station, but we decided to take the cab anyway. The driver got us where we were going. He might have taken us a longer way to drive up the fare, but it was $11, so I wasn’t too upset. Plus, it kept us from having to smell poop, and we were sitting, not walking. So to me, it was money well spent. To Nadia… not so much. But, she didn’t complain.

We took the train from NY Penn to Newark Penn. Then we needed to transfer to the Newark Penn to Fanwood train. After some slight confusion, and a call to my dad, we verified the NJ Transit train we needed to be on, and headed to it. It was departing in less than two minutes, so we hustled on board. In our haste, we both knew we got on the last car of the train, but we didn’t really know, know, if you know what I mean.

This was an important tidbit of information to have, as the conductor announced that at Fanwood only doors with stairs would open. NJ Transit has double-decker cars, so every double-decker has stairs that go to the two levels. I assumed that these were the stairs the conductor was referring to. They weren’t.
 
Apparently Fanwood doesn’t have a raised platform. So, you can only take certain doorways – those with stairs – to get to the ground. So, when the train pulled into Fanwood we’re standing by the doors that didn’t open. But, since were in the last car, we couldn’t actually see the station. It seemed like we were waiting to get into the station. (Think of how Metro trains pull into the station but stop before getting to the point of being able to open the doors because there’s another train in front of them.)
 
So we waited, and then the train started moving again and the conductor announced the next station was Netherwood. We missed our stop!  I called my dad and told him to meet us at Netherwood, which wasn’t that far away.
 
When we got there, we stopped before pulling into the station. Nadia didn’t want to wait at the same door in case it didn’t open. So, I opened the door between the cars. It was the conductor’s car from the end of the train. When I saw this, I was like, “Oh what the hell!” Nadia, however, thought we should quickly move to another door. So we practically ran to the other end of the car where the door – with stairs – was open.
 
After packing up and having dinner with my parents, we drove back to Virginia. We both had to be at work Thursday morning. The first hour was smooth. No traffic, just open road. Then, my eyes started fade in and out of focus. This is how I know that I’m not too tired to drive, but I have about another 30 minutes or so before I am. So, I stopped and got a Cherry Coke Zero.
 
That woke me up, and allowed me to finish the drive. The NJ Turnpike was smooth sailing, as was 95 through Delaware. In Maryland, there were quite a few cars on the road, but it was moving.
 
When we passed Chesapeake House, a car was entering the roadway from the left ramp. I was in the second lane doing around 82 mph. I slowed down to get over when I noticed it was a State Trooper. I slowed down to about 65, just by coasting. He hung back from me about 20 car lengths or so. So, I started to relax. Then, he just gunned it and came up behind me. I almost had to change my undies it scared me so much. Then, he flew around me.
 
So, naturally, I sped back up to around 75. He was a good 20 lengths in front of me to my left. Then, he slams on his brakes, so I slam on mine – didn’t want to pass him doing 75. Just as I catch up to him, (I’m down to about 70) he turns into a space in the divider and turns his lights off. He was getting in position to get speeders on the other side of the road. Whew.

For the rest of the ride, things were pretty smooth. We take 95 through Maryland, to 495. We take 495 all the way into Virginia without incident. I decide that I’m not taking the toll road, because they raised each toll 25 cents recently. So, we go up to the next exit so we can get on Rt. 7, which takes a little longer, but is free.
 
A little ways before the exit, I notice the overhead sign says 495 Closed in 5 Miles. Follow Detour. Fortunately for us, we’re only going 1.5 miles, I thought. As we approach the exit, traffic is stopped in all lanes. But, the exit ramp from the toll road onto 495 (which turns into the exit ramp for our exit) looks to be moving.
 
So, I jump into that lane only to have to slam on my brakes a few feet up. The cops have the highway closed a mere 150 yards from our exit. I tune into 103.5 to find out that parts of the beltway will be temporarily closed for up to a half hour.
 
I was so angry. We were so close, and yet so far. I woke Nadia up with my swearing. She tried to calm me down to no avail. After about 15 minutes, the cops re-opened 495 and we were on our way. The 15 minutes went by pretty quickly mostly because I was cursing the police and construction company the whole time. At the time, it wasn’t funny but now it is.

Anyway, we got back around 1 a.m. It was a long trip, but it was a lot of fun and we had a good time. And, it was good that Nadia finally became a barred attorney.