A Tourist in My Own City

My friend Ian came into town today and wanted to do something different.  So the two of us got together and did something that I had never, ever done before.

No, not THAT--I've done THAT before, you silly goose!  (In fact, I did it twice last night with the guy who delivered my Chinese take-out.)  

[Ba-dum-BUM.]

No, no, what Ian and I did was go up to the 86th Floor Observation Deck of the Empire State Building.  

Wow, what a view.


Ahoy--I see the promised land ahead!  Oh wait, no, that's just New Jersey.

Ian has only been to New York a handful of times, so one would expect him never to have been to the Empire State Building.  I, on the other hand, have lived in the City for almost six years and must have visited the City dozens of times before I moved here.  And yet I had never been to the classic Art Deco structure that adorns our fair City's magical skyline like a trusted, gracious old friend.  (Unless you count watching that scene in Sleepless in Seattle where Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan meet up at the Empire State Building as "being" there.  Or, wait a minute, didn't they actually miss each other?  Oh, whatever.  I hated that movie.)

Anyhoo, being up there felt like flying over Manhattan.  The light was so bright and, on a clear day like today, you really can see for miles in every direction!  It was breathtaking.


The endless views obviously make me very, very happy.  Almost catatonically happy.

Given how beautiful it was, I wondered why I had waited all this time to have the experience.  I suspect it's for the same reason I've never done so many of the things in New York that are the iconic experiences that everyone who doesn't live here wants to experience when they come, like taking a horse-drawn carriage ride in Central Park, or ice-skating in Rockefeller Center, or having a meal at The Russian Tea Room--the fear that it just won't live up to expectations.  

Oh, and also, I hate foreigners.