In the movie Serendipity, Sara, the female lead said she liked the word Serendipity because it means “fortunate accident.” Dictionary.com gives one definition for the word as an “aptitude for making desirable discoveries by accident.” I think I like the dictionary’s definition better, because I almost think that is how things happen for Bobby, my husband, and me. We often find things by accident.
Well I guess I shouldn’t say that our trip to New York City was an accident, because we actually went there for of a conference I was speaking at for work. But by making it a combination work and pleasure trip, we accidentally made some fun discoveries. Some we had planned, but turned out better than we could have imagined. Others just sort of happened.
- Godiva MIlk Chocolate Trufflelata — When we arrived at our hotel (the Waldorf-Astoria), we had no idea where anything was. We only knew that we had tickets to a show near Times Square. So we head off in the direction of Times Square. Bobby wanted to find a pizza shop to get a slice of New York style pizza. We couldn’t find the place, even with GPS. (Turns out it was in the lower level of Rockefeller Center.) While we were trying to figure out where to go, we stopped out front of a Godiva Chocolate store. One of the chocolatiers, Ana, was working on dipping strawberries into chocolate. Mesmerized by the chocolate, which I’m sure is no surprise, I had to watch. She pointed to a sign that showed it was still “Happy Hour.” Which included a buy one, get one 50% off of their Trufflelatas. This is a frozen drink made with Godiva truffles. Needless to say it was delicious with little chunks of truffles. While we were there, I asked a chocolatier if she knew where the pizza shop was that we were looking for. She directed us through a door and told us to take the stairs down to the lower level.
- Tri Tip Grill — Something funny happened on the way to the pizza shop. After the help we received from our chocolatier at Godiva’s, we found the pizza place Bobby had been looking for. However, it turned out to be more Sicilian style than the New York style he wanted. We were getting hungry and when we passed a restaurant that had this tremendous aroma of char-broiled meat, my stomach said to stop, so we did! The Tri Tip Grill serves Certified Angus Beef, which is Bobby’s favorite brand of beef and happens to be based in Wooster, Ohio. We ordered a bacon cheddar burger and the tri tip platter with roasted vegetables. This food was terrific. The Tri Tip Platter was a substantial meal that included a variety of fire roasted vegetables as well as smashed potatoes. The burger was one of the best we’ve had–and we’ve had some really great burgers. We hadn’t planned on eating here, but we were really glad we did.
- Staten Island Ferry — My friend, Shannon Green, who is from New York City, told us that we could ride the ferry and get a decent view of the Statue of Liberty for free. (The ferry is free to ride.) So after Bobby and I visited the One World Observatory and Ground Zero Reflecting Pools, we took the subway to Whitehall Street to catch the ferry. We had no idea where to go on the ferry to see the statue, so when we started to get on the boat, with the hundreds of other people, we just kept climbing up. I figured if we could get to the top deck, we might be able to see something. Turns out they have much of it roped off at the very front — I figure for safety reasons — so we got as far forward and high as we could. We had tried to get seats on the starboard side (that’s the right side as you face the front of the boat), but the seats were already taken. So we just moved on. We finally ended up on the port side of the boat (that is the left side as you face the front of the boat). Although there weren’t any seats where we were, it turned out that was the best place to see the Statue of Liberty. (Plus it was much cooler there than anywhere inside the boat.)
We had to disembark once we got to Staten Island. We were on a deadline to get somewhere later, so we just got back in line for the next ferry heading to Manhattan. On our way back, we decided to go to the lowest level we could–mostly because not many people were heading that way. We ended up where if they had been letting cars on, the cars would have been there. The bottom was all open and though we still didn’t get to sit down and the very front of the boat was roped off, the view of the New York City skyline was amazing. Again, we had no idea what we were doing when we got onto the boat either time, but we had made desirable discoveries by accident–serendipity!
- The Shake Shack — Due to the fact that understanding the Subway system in New York City takes more than a quick, cursory look at a subway map on the wall, we ended up getting off the subway earlier than we should have on our way back to the Waldorf Astoria. However, because we made this slight detour, we ended up at Madison Square Park, which is the home of the original Shake Shack. Bobby had heard about this place and I think we might have even saw something on TV about it, but it didn’t click with me until we were standing in line waiting to place our order. While we were waiting, we were able to enjoy the music of Frank Sinatra sung by a street performer. He was pretty good. He had a sound system and microphone and accompaniment CDs playing the music. We ordered our burgers and fries and lemonade and waited, along with a whole host of other New Yorkers and tourists. And then it started to rain. While we didn’t get to enjoy our meal at the tables or even when it was hot, the burgers were pretty good. But we wouldn’t have even been there if it hadn’t been by “accident.”
- Serendipity 3 — As we were getting close to the end of our trip to New York City, we still had not been able to manage a trip to the restaurant Serendipity 3. This restaurant is featured in the movie, Serendipity and Bobby had wanted to make sure we got there (for my sake). It didn’t appear like it was going to happen, but after Roni (from Midtown Manhattan Movie Tours) had dropped us off at our hotel on our last night in the city and we had a chance to sort of rest, Bobby insisted that we take a cab over to the place. Once there we got a frozen hot chocolate (which is the same drink they got in the movie) and also a “Can’t Say No” Sundae. When we were finished we went outside and tried to figure out our best option for getting back to the Waldorf-Astoria. There is a bench outside of the restaurant, presumably for people who are waiting in line to be seated, but we sat down while Bobby was trying to figure which way we should walk to get a ride home. Neither one of us noticed a taxi pull up to the curb. I just “happened” to turn my head and there it was! I asked if he was accepting passengers and then we had a ride home.
As you can see, we had plenty of “fortunate accidents” all through our time in New York City. There were more, but this post has already gotten too long. We could get into a philosophical debate on whether these are accidents, coincidences or something more divinely orchestrated, but let’s just agree that however these things come about, Bobby and I have a knack for making desirable discoveries no matter where we go, even in New York City.
