Adventures with my nephew

My tablet is broken and I'm swamped at work, but I'm finally getting a little vacation blogging done... Spending time with an ornery teenager is never easy, but I had a great time with my mom and nephew when they were here!  We toured a couple of sites I've always wanted to see and we saw Blue Man Group again!  It was terrific and we had a lot of fun.  Maybe the trip ended on a sort of unfun note, but...what can you do?

Saturday, we went to see the new Pixar flick, Inside Out.  I really loved it, my mom liked it and my nephew tolerated it, lol.  I was sobbing like a crazy person and my nephew said we had to wait to leave the theater until I got myself under control.  I'm a crier, what can I say?  I just thought the movie was so smart and poignant - I'll admit, at the beginning, I didn't know where it was going, but pow, it sure packs a punch at the end.  And it definitely gave me some things to think about in my own life.  Thumbs way up.  I wanted to head to the Socrates Sculpture Garden after the movie, but of course it started to pour the rain, so we went to a diner and Target instead.  Sometimes, you just bring the Midwest to New York with you.  That night, we looked at what was On Demand (for free) and my nephew selected Here Comes the Boom, starring Kevin James.  It was ok, I guess.  Silly.  Sort of sweet and Henry Winkler was terrific.  It was a fine first day.

Sunday, we did a little walking tour of the Lower East Side and stopped to look at the Eldredge Synagogue (I'll have to go back another time to tour the museum myself) and Economy Candy.  Economy Candy was awesome!  So much stuff - I'll definitely have to go back.  I was also hoping to eat at Lombardi's, but my nephew was feeling a little under the weather, so we decided to head to the Barnes and Noble in Union Square instead, to wait out the hour or so we had to kill until Blue Man Group.  Of course, I forgot that Fifth and Sixth Avenues cross when you head uptown on the F train, so we got a little trapped at the Pride March.  But no worries.  We took in a little of the fun action, found a place to cross over, and took a little break at B & N.  I bought a new walking tour book because I can't seem to find my old one.  Mom and I will be trying some of those walking tours when she's here in August (unless it's beastly hot; please cross your fingers that it won't be).  Blue Man Group was just as fun as the last time - my mom giggled a lot throughout and my nephew thought it was great fun again, too.  The box office gal upgraded our seats to the main floor, which was terrific, and I even got a super shot of my favorite Blue Man after the show, AND my nephew got a cool t-shirt.  We decided to go back to my place for a little dinner and I'm happy to report that, for once, my nephew enjoyed some food from a local Queens restaurant.  That generally doesn't happen.

After years of talking about it, we finally made it to the Intrepid Museum on Monday.  It is surreal how massively large that place is.  I just didn't have a real concept of it before.  When you go up to the hangar deck, you see a dozen or so OTHER PLANES!  Amazing!  It was fun to have my nephew tell me about the planes (not that he learned about them in school, mind you, but from his video games).  We also toured the space shuttle Endeavor exhibition (A SPACE SHUTTLE FITS IN ONE SMALL SECTION OF THE INTREPID. Incredible).  The whole exhibit, which also had a Hubble Telescope section, was amazing.  I took so many pictures.  There was also a fun interactive section that showed samples of the size of the ship's amenities when it was in use.  My nephew and I played checkers in a room that was supposedly the size of the ship's game room, and he tried out some other space activities.  We saw a lot and really enjoyed it.  Oh, and they have a Concorde jet on the pier.  Hello.  A JET.  Clearly, I had no idea what we were in for when we went.  :)

I had wanted to go to the Boat Basin and maybe St. John the Divine, but we instead had a picnic in Hudson River Park and just sat by the water for most of the afternoon.  It was terrific.  I got into a little trouble with my nephew on the subway ride home - he was looking the pictures I'd been taking on my phone and when he saw how many stealth photos I take of him, he was annoyed.  Oh well!  I love him!  :)  When we got back to my apartment, we again checked out On Demand and my nephew selected Grown Ups.  Well, my review of that movie is: yuck.  I thought it was sexist and dumb.  My nephew thought I was being sexist for thinking it was sexist.  Uh, ok.

Tuesday, we went to another museum I have always wanted to check out, the Hall of Science in Queens.  We had another great time!  The exhibit 'Seeing the Light' on how we perceive light and color was really interesting and had a lot of hands-on, cool stuff.  My nephew also enjoyed going through the exhibits on math, animals and space.  He began to get frustrated with the little kids running around, especially in the exhibit about life on other planets.  And once my nephew gets frustrated, ugh.  I wanted to see the new 'Connected Worlds' exhibit, so we went, but I was the only one who walked through it.  I liked it.

We decided to do the Rocket Mini Golf before leaving.  It's a cute area, with nine holes and a space theme.  We did the first three holes and then all hell broke loose.  Kids were running around unattended everywhere, running up to the holes while we were still trying to golf, standing on top of us and we started to be afraid we would hit one of them.  It was chaos.  I couldn't believe the parents were just letting these kids run around like crazy people.  Finally, we couldn't take it any more, so we left and demanded our money back.  I told the manager they needed to be more explicit with people that this isn't a playground and kids have to follow the rules, but I think it went in one ear and out the other.  And it was too late.  My nephew was just done.  Ticked off and done.  Again...teenagers.  It ended the trip on a rather sour note; we packed it in, went back to my apartment and waited until it was time for Mom and Nephew to head back to the airport.  Ah well.  There's always the next trip.  But it was fun to see new places all the same.  And I love spending time with my nephew; he is, after all, a pip.