New York City Adventure: The Best Way to Spend 20 Hours

Greg and I were talking a few weeks back about going to New York this weekend to see the Blue Jays play the Yankees. Unfortunately, I was committed to work at a curling camp in Oakville for Saturday and Sunday, and he couldn't make it anyway. So on Thursday, I sent him an email saying "Are you aware that there is a Monday afternoon game?" For the following two days, wheels turned, the internet lines were burning; passing tickets, flights, maps, car rental rates, and lineups between their home in the WWW-Cloud and our computers. By Friday afternoon, we had a plan, we had all the necessary pieces booked. I coached in Oakville on the weekend, spent some time with Tai on Sunday night, went home and threw a couple things in my man-bag and went to bed. The following is a timeline of what happened next...

 

5:30am - I wake up and have a shower. I dig through my drawers to find the shirt I was looking for, throw on some clothes, take my camera battery out of the charger, check a few things on the internet, and put a couple more things in my bag.

 

6:10am - Greg picks me up in his mother's car. We discuss which Tim Horton's to stop at and opt for one off the highway, just in case we get caught in any sort of rushhour congestion. We drive down Jarvis to the Gardiner and head west. There are already a lot of cars on the road, but not enough to slow down traffic.

 

6:30ish - We stop at Tim Horton's in Oakville for a coffee and breakfast sandwich. We take it to go and get back on the highway, still heading west but starting to bend south around Lake Ontario.

 

7:40ish - After making the arc around the lake, we've spent the last half hour heading east, driving directly into the sunrise. We hit the border, where we're held up in line for about 20 minutes. The Border Patrol Officer seems impressed by our ambitious plan for the day.

 

8:00ish - We finally finish with the border and enter New York and think, "Hey, there's an 8:45 flight we might be able to catch if we hurry." Our flight is at 9:45, but we've already done the online check-in and we have no luggage... hmm.

 

8:35am - We park the car at the Buffalo Airport. We each grab our bag and hop on a shuttle which drops us at the terminal.

 

8:40am - We clear security with little excitement and hustle for Gate 8, where the 8:45 is boarding. As we arrive, they're pulling the jet-way away from the plane.  We decide another coffee is in order. We find a coffee and waste an hour or so, wondering if what we're doing is awesome or stupid.

 

9:45am - JetBlue Flight 113 to JFK is airborne, and we're on it.

 

10:45am - After over shooting New York City by about 100 miles, we take a big turn over the Atlantic Ocean and swing in to land and JFK, still 15 minutes ahead of schedule.

 

11:00am - With no luggage to wait for, we're already on the SkyTrain to Jamaica Station, to the E Train, which takes us all the way from Queens to Manhattan. We switch to the Number 4 Train, headed up town, and ride that all the way to the Bronx, getting off at 161st Street-Yankee Stadium.

 

12:10pm - Convinced we should consume some of the local charm, we head into a bar called Stan's right across the street from Yankee Stadium. It is roughly noon on a non-holiday Monday, and the place is packed, wall-to-wall with people in Yankees gear. Many of them have been here a while. Greg and I walk in, still wearning civilian clothes (minus the Blue Jays ha t, but nobody seems to notice or care), and order a beer.

 

12:30pm - After chatting with a couple of locals about the fate of the American League East, they decide we're probably safe to put on our Toronto jerseys. They just asked politely that we don't do it anywhere near them. We pulled the Jays shirts out of our bags, put them on, finished our drinks, then left confidently.

 

12:45pm - Apparently Yankee Stadium only had two gates open for this game. That's all we found, anyway. So there was a bit of a lineup at Gate 2, which ended up taking quite awhile. Somebody near us said "Well, thank god they're singing two anthems today!" He was right. If not for the extra few minutes, we would have missed more than the first batter (We were in the building though, we heard that Reed Johnson had grounded out to short on the radio broadcast as we navigated the narrow dingy councourse of the upper deck).

 

1:12ish - We find our seats in the 2nd row of the upper level. The face value on them was $65. We got them on ebay for $55. Although, they're a bit pricier than we were accustomed to, the upper deck is far closer to the field than it is in Toronto. We decided to move back one row, because a poorly placed handrail was directly between us and the plate.

 

1:12-3:52pm - The Yankees look lazy, the Jays look only slightly sharper.  At one point, while I was calling my parents to have them look for me on TV, a foul ball landed almost exactly two seats behind us. Greg claims he touched it after a bounce or two, but only has a scrape on his arm to prove it.It was amazingly hot out, and the black jersey and wool fitted ballcap struck me as being poor choices as I baked in the New York sun. However, after a very good ballpark hotdog, and a few riduculously pricey beers, Greg and I leave the park absolutely giddy as the Blue Jays knock off the Yankees 4-1. We each took a lot of pictures, both of the game, and on the way out.

 

4:15ish - We were back on the #4 Train back towards Manhattan.

 

4:40pm - We walk by Radio City Music Hall, NBC Studios, and a film set for "Sex and the City: The Movie." And we walked around some more.

 

5:20ish - We enter the Heartland Brewery and Chophouse. We have some amazing nachos and some of the Heartland brews.

 

6:10pm - We walk a few more blocks to Penn Station, where we find the Long Island Railroad, grab our tickets, and find our track. As we approach the train, there is a beer kiosk. $2 for a domestic, $2.50 for a import tall-boy. And you can take it with you and drink it on the train. How about that?

 

6:42pm - The Long Island Railroad leaves for Shea Stadium. We're on it.

 

7:14pm - We get off at Shea, and stare at it from across the 12 sets of railroad tracks and barbed wire fencing.

 

7:20pm - Over the bridge to the ticket kiosk, we pick up our $5 tickets from a machine, then circle the stadium to find Gate A.

 

7:25-8:45ish - After buying a Mr. Met hat and a big pretzel, we watched the Mets play the Nationals, not really caring about the outcome, but adopting the hometown Mets as our own. I cheered very loudly for Carlos Delgado. The  Our $5 seats were worth much more than that, but suffered from a somewhat obstructed view from the overhanging 2nd deck. You could see the whole field, but missed out on the scoreboard and anything above eye-level. We moved up to the 2nd deck and took enjoyed a much nicer view, took some more pictures, and watched a few more innings. Mets were down 4-1 in the 6th when we had to leave to catch our train.

 

9:06pm - We were on the train back to Woodside (even though we had misplaced our original tickets, we ponied up the $5 for another ride). We switched at Woodside and headed back out to Jamaica Station, where we caught the AirTrain back to JFK.

 

10:00ish? - I really don't remember what time we got back to JFK, I know I was getting tired. We had lots of time to grab a slice of pizza and a cup of coffee, before boarding the plane. The TV at the airport showed the Mets were down 11-3, late in the game.

 

10:55pm - Flight 112 was leaving for Buffalo. We were on it. I was asleep before we were off the ground. We had been in New York almost exactly 12 hours.

 

 

12:00am - I wake up when the plane touches down on the runway. We walk off, directly to the shuttle, and get in the car.

 

12:10am - We leave the Buffalo Airport and head back to Toronto. I do my best to keep Greg company, but doze off for bits and pieces. The lady at the Canadian border didn't seem nearly as impressed with our adventure as the guy in the morning.

 

2:05am - Greg drops me off at work. I had to be there at 5am, anyway. No point in going home!!

 

2:10am - I doze off on the couch in our office, unsure if that had been a great idea, or a stupid one, but 100% thrilled that we had pulled it off.