A TOURIST IN YOUR OWN CITY

You live in a place like New York City and yet, you rarely venture out to do the things tourists do: Broadway shows, the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, museums, Central Park, etc. It's not just New York. I didn't do anything touristy in San Francisco, San Diego or Denver when I lived there either. I live vicariously through my guests and especially my parents.



Two weekends ago, they came to Brooklyn for a few days and I've got to tell you, it's fun playing tourist once in a while. In fact, it's been well over a decade since I went to the top of the Empire State building, which is one of the trips we made. It was cloudy, so you couldn't see very far, but the close-in few was fine. It's worth about 30-minutes of your time.



After exiting the building, we stumbled into a Starbucks and had a few drinks in their basement lounge of sofas and coffee tables. Instead of walking through the rain, we decided to cut through Macy's to get to the 7th Avenue Subway line. We all marveled at all of the great sales and promised we'd be back to buy everything in the store. We never made it back.

Next, we hoped on the 1 train to the Ferry Terminal, where we jumped on one of the boats that takes you to Liberty and Ellis Islands. We skipped the Statue, because we did that before. But, we had fun tracing our family history at Ellis and just admiring the beautiful lawns, views and all of the history stuffed into that museum. It's a must do, even though I fell asleep during what was ballyhooed as a really good film about immigrants arriving in our country.



Then, it was back to Brooklyn, where we decided to eat dinner right away. I picked CHANCE, an Asian-French fusion restaurant on Smith street. I had eaten there before, but never had any of the big bites. This time, it was on me and we splurged on some wonderful food. The place is sleek and modern and the servers were fun and knowledgeable. That night, we watched a few movies. The next morning Dad bought breakfast at Joe's on Court street.

We packed a lot into just two days, but it was well worth it. I now look forward to these get togethers with my parents, not just for the family bonding, but because it allows all of us become tourists in our own cities.