by Love Train
Last Saturday (9/1) my father and I took our annual weekend vacation to New York City to see the US Open tennis tournament. Every single aspect about this trip was perfect and flawless, which I don't think has ever happened to me on a vacation.
We left the house at around 10:40 to catch the 11:36 am train (Amtrak Regional #88) from New Carrollton to New York Penn Station. There was no traffic at all on the beltway, which gave us auspicious signs about the rest of our trip. At New Carrollton was where we experienced the only setback on our trip: a few minutes before the train was scheduled to arrive, a PA announcement told us that our train had not yet left Washington, DC and it would arrive 25 minutes late. My guess is that the delay occurred while changing locomotives at Washington Union Station, as the train originated in Richmond, VA. The train ended up arriving closer to 40 minutes late. It was pulled by an HHP-8 engine and it was 8 coaches long; despite the length of the train, we couldn't find two open seats next to each other; the train was full. We were forced to sit separately. Our coach had one of the newer interiors with blue seats and LED displays. Excluding the 40-ish minute delay, the train arrived in New York with no further delays. The train made stops at BWI Airport, Baltimore, Wilmington, Philadelphia, Trenton, Metropark, Newark International Airport, and Newark along the way.
After arriving at Penn Station we walked to our hotel on 44 St between Broadway and 6 Avenue. Our hotel was called the Millennium Broadway Hotel. We had stayed there before and liked it a lot, and it had a good location, so we decided to stay there again. This time we had a smaller room than last time and we were on a lower floor (21st as opposed to the 49th floor last time), so we didn't enjoy it as much. My guess is that we were given a smaller room on a lower floor because we payed a special promotional discounted rate. We still enjoyed it as it was perfectly fine for one night, and we spent a minimal amount of time in the hotel anyway. We actually didn't check in until 2:00 am because we didn't have time between arrival and dinner to do that, so we just stored our bags and left.
We decided to eat dinner at Lombardi's (BEST PIZZA IN THE UNIVERSE, HANDS DOWN) in the East Village, so we headed to the subway. We walked over to 42 St/Bryant Park at 6 Av and got an R32 F train (woo-hoo!) which we took to Broadway-Lafayette St, where we transferred to an R142A 6 train that we took one stop to Spring St. The F train got good speed on the 6 Av local. From there it was just a two block walk to the restaurant. We had a long wait so we walked around Little Italy before eating.
I've dedicated a paragraph of this report to Lombardi's because it EARNS IT! This pizza was meant to be eaten by gods. The crust stayed crispy and fresh and never got soggy. There was so much flavor packed into the homemade meatballs and the clams on the famous clam pie tasted like they were just taken from the ocean. Lombardi's is like a whole different level of pizza than almost every other pizza in the world.
After the pizza, we walked back over to the subway to go to the US Open, the highlight of our trip. We got an R142A 6 train that arrived while we were entering the turnstiles (in fact, with the exception of the 6 train from Bleecker St to Spring St, we never had a long wait for a subway train the entire weekend) and took it to Grand Central-42 St, where we transferred to an R62A 7 train that we took to Willet's Point-Shea Stadium. I was very surprised at how uncrowded our 7 train was. There were plenty of open seats throughout the whole long ride.
The US Open is such a fun place to be. I was disappointed that there weren't as many matches that night as usual for some reason, but the matches we did see made up for that. Unlike the last time we went, when we walked around the grounds and saw matches on all the courts, we stayed at Arthur Ashe Stadium the whole night. Our seats weren't great but not terrible either. The first match we saw was a women's singles match between Nicole Vaidisova and the Israeli star Shahar Peer. Although Nicole Vaidisova was a lot bigger and more powerful (6' to Peer's 5'7"), Shahar Peer countered her pace with deep and well-placed shots and upset the favored Vaidisova by a score of 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (7-5) in an extremely close and thrilling match. In the second match that didn't start until after 10:30 pm (!), James Blake, my favorite professional player, defeated Stefan Koubek by a score of 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (7-5), 6-1 in a sloppy match that featured a lot of missed shots. My father and I had so much fun that night.
It was around 1 in the morning when we left to go back home. Luckily an R62A 7 train was sitting at the platform and even more lucky was the fact that we were able to get seats, because I don't think I could've survived standing on a crowded subway train for such a long, local ride that the 7 is from end to end after 1 in the morning. The C/R opened and closed the doors extremely quickly at the intermediate stations between Willet's Point and Grand Central, where most of the passengers got off. We stayed on the train all the way to the end, 42 St-Times Square. By that time it was almost 2:00, but many passengers were still entering and exiting the station. We didn't get back to the room until after 2, but we fell asleep as soon as our heads hit the very comfortable pillows.
We woke up at around 9:30. We took showers and left at around 10:30 to go eat breakfast. We wanted to eat at Norma's in the Le Parker Meridien hotel on 57 St between 6 and 7 Avs,, but it was a 2 hour wait. We found a little restaurant called Cafe Europa to eat at instead. I had delicious fruit-garnished pancakes while my father had an omelette. After breakfast we walked over to Madison Av and then down Madison to 42 St, stopping in the Brookstone and Sony stores along the way. At 42 St we headed down into the subway at Grand Central-42 St. We got a very crowded R142 4 train after a 3-4 minute wait and took it to 161 St-Yankee Stadium where we would attend a New York Yankees game. Kudos to the great T/O of this train who hauled a$$ on the Lexington Av Express. Is it just me, or are the R142s incredibly smooth? This is the second time riding the Lexington Av Express this year on an R142 and noticed how smooth the ride was. I could tell a number of ways that we were moving quite fast, but it was so smooth that it sure didn't feel like it. It's only on the R142s that I feel this; the R142As bounce around like the other cars in the system. I could be just crazy. The ride from 42 St to 161 St was very quick.
Every time I see a Yankees game I love the Yankees more (I've now been to 3 home games). I've rooted for the Orioles before the Nationals came to town and I've rooted lightly for the Nationals since they've been here, but it gets clearer to me that the Yankees are the team I was meant to love. The history is endless and the atmosphere is electric. The Yankees have the most diehard fans in all of baseball, and being a part of that, even if just temporarily, was the most amazing feeling. I know that I can never be a pure Yankees fan because I didn't root for them growing up, and that causes me a lot of pain, but I'll make sure to raise my kids as Yankee fans. I try to like the game of baseball but often times it just gets too boring and tedious, but now I blame that on the fact that my hometown is not a baseball town and it is just not appreciated here. Yankee Stadium is the contrary; it is the only place I've ever watched a baseball game and truly loved the sport. I know my friends criticize me for being a "fairweather fan", but I call myself a Yankee fan, and have been ever since my first game last year. The Yankees got embarrassed yesterday 8-2 by the last place Tampa Bay Devil Rays, but I was still cheering passionately for the Yanks from start to finish. I can't wait until the new stadium opens, but at the same time I will probably cry when baseball's shrine gets taken down.
We got an R68 D train after the game and took it to 59 St-Columbus Circle. It was quick! It helped that we skipped 155 St due to a GO, and it helped even more that the T/O seemed to ignore the timers, barely slowing down for them. The only time we went slowed down to a crawl was between 72 St and 59 St, and that was because a damn A train crossed in front of us just before we got there.
At Columbus Circle we walked to Fiorello's Cafe on Broadway and 63 St, where I had a delicious linguine pasta with clams, mussels, and shrimp in a light tomato sauce and my father had veal parmesian. Dipping that focaccia bread in that brothy, flavorful tomato sauce really hit the spot. For dessert, we shared a slice of NY cheescake that was smothered with strawberries and warm chocolate sauce. It was to DIE for.
After dinner we walked all the way back to our hotel, picked up our bags, and walked to Penn Station to catch the 6:55 train (Amtrak Vermonter #57) back to New Carrollton. When we got there we saw on the departure board that the train was an hour and ten minutes late! Instead of sulking, my father and I high-fived each other and decided to do one last fun thing. We got a cab and took it to Niketown on 57 St between 5 and Madison Avs. My father bought a pair of shoes while I just enjoyed looking at the various merchandise. We got a cab back to Penn Station and changed our tickets to the 7:55 train (Amtrak Regional #165), which was on time. The train stopped at Newark, Newark International Airport, Metropark, Trenton, Philadelphia, Wilmington, Baltimore, and BWI Airport before letting us off at our stop, New Carrollton, on time. We had an amazing trip, but unfortunately, all great vacations have to end.
We left the house at around 10:40 to catch the 11:36 am train (Amtrak Regional #88) from New Carrollton to New York Penn Station. There was no traffic at all on the beltway, which gave us auspicious signs about the rest of our trip. At New Carrollton was where we experienced the only setback on our trip: a few minutes before the train was scheduled to arrive, a PA announcement told us that our train had not yet left Washington, DC and it would arrive 25 minutes late. My guess is that the delay occurred while changing locomotives at Washington Union Station, as the train originated in Richmond, VA. The train ended up arriving closer to 40 minutes late. It was pulled by an HHP-8 engine and it was 8 coaches long; despite the length of the train, we couldn't find two open seats next to each other; the train was full. We were forced to sit separately. Our coach had one of the newer interiors with blue seats and LED displays. Excluding the 40-ish minute delay, the train arrived in New York with no further delays. The train made stops at BWI Airport, Baltimore, Wilmington, Philadelphia, Trenton, Metropark, Newark International Airport, and Newark along the way.
After arriving at Penn Station we walked to our hotel on 44 St between Broadway and 6 Avenue. Our hotel was called the Millennium Broadway Hotel. We had stayed there before and liked it a lot, and it had a good location, so we decided to stay there again. This time we had a smaller room than last time and we were on a lower floor (21st as opposed to the 49th floor last time), so we didn't enjoy it as much. My guess is that we were given a smaller room on a lower floor because we payed a special promotional discounted rate. We still enjoyed it as it was perfectly fine for one night, and we spent a minimal amount of time in the hotel anyway. We actually didn't check in until 2:00 am because we didn't have time between arrival and dinner to do that, so we just stored our bags and left.
We decided to eat dinner at Lombardi's (BEST PIZZA IN THE UNIVERSE, HANDS DOWN) in the East Village, so we headed to the subway. We walked over to 42 St/Bryant Park at 6 Av and got an R32 F train (woo-hoo!) which we took to Broadway-Lafayette St, where we transferred to an R142A 6 train that we took one stop to Spring St. The F train got good speed on the 6 Av local. From there it was just a two block walk to the restaurant. We had a long wait so we walked around Little Italy before eating.
I've dedicated a paragraph of this report to Lombardi's because it EARNS IT! This pizza was meant to be eaten by gods. The crust stayed crispy and fresh and never got soggy. There was so much flavor packed into the homemade meatballs and the clams on the famous clam pie tasted like they were just taken from the ocean. Lombardi's is like a whole different level of pizza than almost every other pizza in the world.
After the pizza, we walked back over to the subway to go to the US Open, the highlight of our trip. We got an R142A 6 train that arrived while we were entering the turnstiles (in fact, with the exception of the 6 train from Bleecker St to Spring St, we never had a long wait for a subway train the entire weekend) and took it to Grand Central-42 St, where we transferred to an R62A 7 train that we took to Willet's Point-Shea Stadium. I was very surprised at how uncrowded our 7 train was. There were plenty of open seats throughout the whole long ride.
The US Open is such a fun place to be. I was disappointed that there weren't as many matches that night as usual for some reason, but the matches we did see made up for that. Unlike the last time we went, when we walked around the grounds and saw matches on all the courts, we stayed at Arthur Ashe Stadium the whole night. Our seats weren't great but not terrible either. The first match we saw was a women's singles match between Nicole Vaidisova and the Israeli star Shahar Peer. Although Nicole Vaidisova was a lot bigger and more powerful (6' to Peer's 5'7"), Shahar Peer countered her pace with deep and well-placed shots and upset the favored Vaidisova by a score of 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (7-5) in an extremely close and thrilling match. In the second match that didn't start until after 10:30 pm (!), James Blake, my favorite professional player, defeated Stefan Koubek by a score of 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (7-5), 6-1 in a sloppy match that featured a lot of missed shots. My father and I had so much fun that night.
It was around 1 in the morning when we left to go back home. Luckily an R62A 7 train was sitting at the platform and even more lucky was the fact that we were able to get seats, because I don't think I could've survived standing on a crowded subway train for such a long, local ride that the 7 is from end to end after 1 in the morning. The C/R opened and closed the doors extremely quickly at the intermediate stations between Willet's Point and Grand Central, where most of the passengers got off. We stayed on the train all the way to the end, 42 St-Times Square. By that time it was almost 2:00, but many passengers were still entering and exiting the station. We didn't get back to the room until after 2, but we fell asleep as soon as our heads hit the very comfortable pillows.
We woke up at around 9:30. We took showers and left at around 10:30 to go eat breakfast. We wanted to eat at Norma's in the Le Parker Meridien hotel on 57 St between 6 and 7 Avs,, but it was a 2 hour wait. We found a little restaurant called Cafe Europa to eat at instead. I had delicious fruit-garnished pancakes while my father had an omelette. After breakfast we walked over to Madison Av and then down Madison to 42 St, stopping in the Brookstone and Sony stores along the way. At 42 St we headed down into the subway at Grand Central-42 St. We got a very crowded R142 4 train after a 3-4 minute wait and took it to 161 St-Yankee Stadium where we would attend a New York Yankees game. Kudos to the great T/O of this train who hauled a$$ on the Lexington Av Express. Is it just me, or are the R142s incredibly smooth? This is the second time riding the Lexington Av Express this year on an R142 and noticed how smooth the ride was. I could tell a number of ways that we were moving quite fast, but it was so smooth that it sure didn't feel like it. It's only on the R142s that I feel this; the R142As bounce around like the other cars in the system. I could be just crazy. The ride from 42 St to 161 St was very quick.
Every time I see a Yankees game I love the Yankees more (I've now been to 3 home games). I've rooted for the Orioles before the Nationals came to town and I've rooted lightly for the Nationals since they've been here, but it gets clearer to me that the Yankees are the team I was meant to love. The history is endless and the atmosphere is electric. The Yankees have the most diehard fans in all of baseball, and being a part of that, even if just temporarily, was the most amazing feeling. I know that I can never be a pure Yankees fan because I didn't root for them growing up, and that causes me a lot of pain, but I'll make sure to raise my kids as Yankee fans. I try to like the game of baseball but often times it just gets too boring and tedious, but now I blame that on the fact that my hometown is not a baseball town and it is just not appreciated here. Yankee Stadium is the contrary; it is the only place I've ever watched a baseball game and truly loved the sport. I know my friends criticize me for being a "fairweather fan", but I call myself a Yankee fan, and have been ever since my first game last year. The Yankees got embarrassed yesterday 8-2 by the last place Tampa Bay Devil Rays, but I was still cheering passionately for the Yanks from start to finish. I can't wait until the new stadium opens, but at the same time I will probably cry when baseball's shrine gets taken down.
We got an R68 D train after the game and took it to 59 St-Columbus Circle. It was quick! It helped that we skipped 155 St due to a GO, and it helped even more that the T/O seemed to ignore the timers, barely slowing down for them. The only time we went slowed down to a crawl was between 72 St and 59 St, and that was because a damn A train crossed in front of us just before we got there.
At Columbus Circle we walked to Fiorello's Cafe on Broadway and 63 St, where I had a delicious linguine pasta with clams, mussels, and shrimp in a light tomato sauce and my father had veal parmesian. Dipping that focaccia bread in that brothy, flavorful tomato sauce really hit the spot. For dessert, we shared a slice of NY cheescake that was smothered with strawberries and warm chocolate sauce. It was to DIE for.
After dinner we walked all the way back to our hotel, picked up our bags, and walked to Penn Station to catch the 6:55 train (Amtrak Vermonter #57) back to New Carrollton. When we got there we saw on the departure board that the train was an hour and ten minutes late! Instead of sulking, my father and I high-fived each other and decided to do one last fun thing. We got a cab and took it to Niketown on 57 St between 5 and Madison Avs. My father bought a pair of shoes while I just enjoyed looking at the various merchandise. We got a cab back to Penn Station and changed our tickets to the 7:55 train (Amtrak Regional #165), which was on time. The train stopped at Newark, Newark International Airport, Metropark, Trenton, Philadelphia, Wilmington, Baltimore, and BWI Airport before letting us off at our stop, New Carrollton, on time. We had an amazing trip, but unfortunately, all great vacations have to end.
