Blading The Big Apple

Day two of my New York City trip started with inline skating from our hotel in Long Island City to Manhattan. The most fun part was just skating over the Queensboro Bridge. I loved the view and feeling like just a regular New Yorker.

Then my boyfriend and I went into Central Park which is amazing since it gives you a sense of nature in the middle of the city. There’s a lot to see including a small castle and an ancient obelisk. There’s also a lot to do from just relaxing on a green somewhere to paddling a boat in the pond. We chose to do the paddling as I’d seen this in many movies and it looked romantic. It was relaxing, offered great views and was even a bit romantic but nothing like the movies. The water was a putrid green toxic looking substance. There was a sign stating “no swimming allowed” …as if this was necessary. But it was still a fun touristy activity and relatively cheap too. After our paddle we bladed the whole park with lots of stops for lunch, pictures or just to take it all in.

We were over Central Park after a few hours since it seemed to have a Disney feel to it and we get enough of that in Orlando. I was double dog dared by a friend on Facebook to skate Times Square so that is what I did next. Skating down the street with all the taxis and through the crowds was a blast. Thankfully it was a weekend so it was not overly crowded. With so many lights and so much going on I don’t think anyone even noticed me even though I pulled out some of my best skating tricks. There were several people in costumes who charge you a dollar to take a picture with them. While it was just a buck this just seemed crazy to pay to take a picture with someone. I get lots of pictures taken of me every Halloween...just think of the money I could make!

We went back to the hotel to rest and I switched to my bike for the evening's transportation needs. We took the subway with the bikes to Chinatown. When we got on the subway it was light but it was already dark when we walked up to the surface in a new part of the city. I was looking at my map trying to figure out which way to Chinatown when my boyfriend said “I think we are in it”. After looking around and noticing lots of signs in Chinese I realized he was right AND a lot more observant than me.

We biked around looking for a good outdoors place to eat. When we didn’t see any we headed toward SOHO thinking they would have some nice outside areas. Then we found a cute street full of people and places to eat. I was only finding Italian restaurants and wasn’t really in the mood for Italian so I kept looking. It took about six Italian restaurants before I finally realized we must have crossed the line into Little Italy...duh! It’s amazing to me how close these different communities are to each other. We ended up picking one of the many Italian restaurants. It was tasty but the best part was we met the couple next to us and they were locals and bikers too. They were a great help and gave us lots of advice for the remainder of our trip. They told us to go to DUMBO! That sounds mean but it was a cool spot and I will talk about it in a blog coming to you soon!

Cat ‘City Slicker’ Cathy