I got a call from a friend of mine the other day asking if I would like to go to two baseball games in New York City. I didn’t jump on the opportunity at first, because of the amount of money it was going to cost, but realized I wouldn’t have another chance at this in my life. Both Yankee stadium and Shea stadium are in their last year, and never again will they both play in the same night (with one day game and one night game…to go to each) and have the phillies play at one of them in these stadiums. So I went.
The day started off with me waking up early to pick people up (went with two friends) and driving to Trenton. The first “problem” of the day occured there, because the train didn’t show up on the platform we were told it would. It went to the next one, and we figured this out in time before it left, so we dodged our first bullet there. After arriving at Penn station and ascending up the stairs to look upon New York City, we decided to look for a place to print out tickets. The tickets were bought the previous night, so they weren’t emailed to us in time to print them at home, so we were in NYC without tickets and without a computer. We searched Starbucks and bookstores before we saw a Burger King sign that said “INTERNET! INTERNET!” and under it had a sign saying they had internet, computers, printing, etc. We jumped at the opportunity and paid two bucks to use the internet and print out multiple copies of our tickets, just so each person had a set in case. BK’s second floor saved us, and we dodged another bullet.
With our tickets in hand, we wandered about NYC for a while before taking the subway to the Yankee’s stadium. We goofed around and had fun there and then found out where our seats were. You probably wouldn’t believe you unless I showed you (and I can), but our seats were in Box 1, row B, which is directly behind home plate. You could even see us on tv we were that close. We could just order food without going to wait in the super long lines (I didn’t because the food is ridiculously expensive) and we were as close as anybody can really get. The Yankees won and the game was amazing. It is safe to say I will never ever get seats that good again.
From there we went back to Times Square to find a place to eat. We chose the ESPN Zone as our first pick and boy was that a good choice. We waited about 20 minutes to be served, and when we got to the server, we were very confused, because she asked if “recliners” would be fine. We hesitantly said yes…but we weren’t sure what she really meant. Turns out, we got literal recliners (called Dreamchairs) in front of HUGE sports screens. The entire wall was multiple sports TVs with every sport that was on, and we were in incredibly comfortable chairs leaning back, getting much needed rest and watching recaps from the game we were just at and watching other games going on. I got a delicious smokehouse burger with a side caesar salad, and was quite suprised at the cost (decent for any restaurant, let alone NYC) and taste of the food.
After that awesome meal, we headed over to the subway again to head to Shea Stadium. I didn’t like this stadium as much, but there were lots of Phillies fans, since it was a Phillies game after all, so that was a plus. Obviously our seats were not as good, but they were still good. The Phillies lost, but we still had a good time. The crowd to get on the subway was crazy, but we managed to get a spot on one. Soon after, it started POURING outside. It was a huge storm and we just missed it. We found out that NJ Transit had a power outage, so we were hoping it would be fixed by the time we got there. The subway ride was quite long, but it seemed to go by fast and it was enjoyable for me.There was a girl, about my age I would guess, on that train that I cannot get out of my head, and I definitely couldn’t while on the subway. She was probably the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen, and she seemed very nice from the way she was talking to her friend. I didn’t catch her name or even get to talk to her, but I think that makes it all the more fun. No words were exchanged, but the locking eye contact we had several times was enough to make my day, if the baseball games didn’t already. I wish I could’ve told her how beautiful her deep green eyes were, but I didn’t, so she will be the mystery girl that I will never see again for now. *sigh* It is times like these where I wanna punch myself for not taking those small opportunites that can never be had again.
From there we got on a train, but we JUST barely got on in time. we were full out running in the train station to get to our train and we got on, but even while we were on, it didn’t seem right. It was very different from the last train we were on, but it turned out to be the right one. It seemed brand new and had two stories to it, while the first one we were on was super old and not good. We got back to Trenton and searched the car garage for my car. What should’ve taken a few minutes took forever. It was six stories tall but the layout of the place was horrible. We searched the whole thing several times, even though we were sure we were on the fourth floor (checked before we left). I still have no idea how we missed it, and we even split up to find it! It was right there, but if you are just walking in the garage you would miss it due to the horrible design of the building. You can only get back to this area from a certain area and it was just stupid. Anyway, we drove home and I finally got to sleep after a long, eventful day.
I’ll remember that day for a loooooong time, if not my whole life. I spent a lot of money, but, even coming from a very frugal person, it was worth every penny.
~SK
