Saturday: It all started with the fact that a nice lady from the NY Aquarium came to the hospital on Friday and taught Eli and another boy about jellyfish. I thought, “Hey, the aquarium would be a great place to take Eli. They just had a new baby walrus and everything!” I checked out the subway map (paying attention now to those little blue men in wheelchair icons) and saw that a stop 10 blocks away from us actually went RIGHT to the Aquarium on Coney Island. Stop shuddering, Barbara, yes we went all the way to Coney Island in Brooklyn on the subway.
Let me take a second to point out that we are ALL wearing masks through the duration of the subway trip and immediately sanitize our hands after leaving the station. So after our 50 minute ride from the Upper East Side Manhattan to Southern Brooklyn, we grabbed a quick bite to eat at Popeye’s across from the original Nathan’s Hot Dog joint and walked to the aquarium.
We were greeted by a sign that read “Our walrus exhibit is closed, sorry for the inconvenience.” I thought, “That would have been nice to mention on the website since all Eli can talk about is seeing the baby walrus!” Oh well, we weren’t deterred, we went anyway. Did you know that the great majority of the NY Aquarium is actually outdoors? Did you also know it was 35 degrees in NY this weekend? 🙂
Actually, we only had to be outside for a little while to watch a sea lion show and sea otter feeding that Eli absolutely LOVED. I’m working on uploading the video of Eli dancing at the sea lion show even though it was very cold outside. He was so happy. We also caught the shark feeding which he thought was awesome (as did we). They also had HUGE sea turtles there that were swimming and eating with the sharks.
Overall, it was definitely worth the trip. Even considering the fact that on the way back we had a drunk guy stagger onto the subway train and put his hand on Eli’s head to pray for him. Then he told us that he had a lot more to say, but he couldn’t stand very well since he drank too much and took his medication at the same time. He proceeded to fall into the nearest seat and pass out. Let’s call that a “cultural experience” in NY. 🙂
That night we went to the Zobian house and Barbara cooked us spaghetti. It was funny seeing a Barilla box on the counter. Another reminder of Ames! Oh yeah, and Ristorante Zobian is a MUST if you’re visiting the city. It’s definitely our favorite restaurant. 🙂 Here are a few shots of our time at the NY Aquarium.
Click next to read about our day Sunday…