Made my first trip to New York just before my new cocktail of chemo. It was a struggle for me at first. I missed my family and I couldn’t relax, but slowly I came around about 24 hours in.

Eight guys all descended upon the big apple for superbowl weekend. We looked at superbowl tickets, but for the price, it was tough to justify. For that kind of money we could do another vacation somewhere else! Still, we thought being in New York for the event would be pretty electric.

Got in Thursday night and had a nice dinner at a place called Becco. We stayed at the Belvedere hotel (48th st/8th Ave) so it was just around the corner.
During the days, we were generally split up doing our own sightseeing, but we all converge for the evenings.
Friday, we made it to The Met. Loved it here, some beautiful pieces and having Jason with us was like having a personal tour guide. Definitely would go back and spend more time here.
After The Met, we headed to a place called Keen’s Steakhouse for dinner. It was also good, but we were in a hurry to make it to the NYR/NYI game at MSG. What an awesome arena. And just a different group of people. Everyone WANTED to be there. I don’t think I saw one suit the whole night. Rangers won BTW.

Saturday we did a good walkabout. Through Times Square, past Bryant Park and down to Grand Central Station. Times Square was pretty much shut down for all the Superbowl activity. I have never seen that many people on the streets and no two languages were similar. It was crazy! And Grand Central Station was almost surreal with the amount of times I have seen it on TV.
Saturday night we headed to New Jersey to see the UFC at the Prudential Center. Between the Prudential Center and MSG it only made the Saddledome look that much worse. Embarrassing actually. These places were beautiful!

Sunday we took another long stroll. Started out at the Chelsea Market for lunch and then walked the Highline for a little bit. Then made our way to Washington Sq. Park and Union Square. Washington Square was very interesting; we watched some chess games, observed some colorful characters and enjoyed a guy playing a piano in the middle of the square.
Sunday night was Superbowl and we had reservations at the Brickyard. Good local pub with craft beer and higher end food. Had a good time here making stupid side bets and then off to Mickey Spillane’s after the game. This place was hilarious and cool spot to be.

Monday we were headed home, but we awoke to a huge snowfall, foggy sky and an email saying our flights were cancelled. After some grumbling we decided to just try for the next day and spend another day in New York. None of us wanted to sit in the airport and MAYBE get out at some point. So once we got our flights re-organized and booked another night at the hotel, we headed out for lunch and then to the Museum of Natural History. Glad we had an extra day to see this place, it was impressive. No where near enough time (Like The Met) to see everything, but saw enough and we were pretty gassed from the weekend. Decided to go back to Becco for dinner that night and then off we flew back to Calgary on Tuesday. Because of the flight delay I had to push chemo back a day to Thursday. I will follow up that on a health update soon.

On a separate note, I finally got the hockey pool re-draft done for those in the pool. Ryan is still going to win though…

Off to dinner with my girls tonight. Feeling good enough for our local mom and pop Italian place Hanni’s  Check it out if you have never been. They do take-out too!