I hadn’t visited New York City in over a dozen years. My brother and I went with my grandma and my two aunts. I recall going to the top of the Empire State Building, walking through Central Park, and going to Staten Island to see my grandma’s childhood home. Then, we spent most of our time outside of the city and even in Cooperstown, NY, to check out the Baseball Hall of Fame.

I visited New York City again just a couple of days ago with Kevin. It was his first time ever being there. It was a dream. I watched as he admired everything around him and got excited about the Chrysler Building in particular. His eyes were glued to the window, gazing at the buildings and streets outside as we progressed from Harlem to Manhattan. We were dropped off at Bryant Park, where a local market was set up. I geeked out over the main branch of the New York Public Library, which was more beautiful than any movie ever made it; my jaw dropped not only at the staggering number of books there, but also at the marble architecture and glorious paintings. We headed toward Broadway and walked through Grand Central Terminal and Times Square, too.

Kevin seemed taken aback by Times Square. That made me appreciate it even more. When you see a loved one experience something for the very first time that you’ve already experienced, you see that something in an entirely new way. I kept having to ask myself how Times Square has that many screens and how they make screens that big! They’re kind of amazing. We had lunch there (some pizza and delicious gelato), snapped some photos, of course, and took in our surroundings. Overall, Times Square looked much better than I remember it being.

The whole reason we went to New York City this past weekend was to see Wicked at the Gershwin Theatre. It’s maybe a block away from Times Square, so we arrived at the show fairly early. I saw Wicked once before with my dad and stepmom back in Albuquerque at Popejoy Hall; again, this was Kevin’s first time seeing it. Man, was it worth going to Broadway to see it! Wicked is already a fantastic musical, yet obviously, the production value ended up being much higher and adding a lot to the show. I mean, I’d hope so for a Broadway run. I’m so glad that Kevin saw such a great, high-quality performance. Once more, I think that because he was seeing it for the first time, I loved it that much more on my second.

Wicked ended after the sun had gone down. We skirted along the edge of Times Square, and wow… it is something else at night. The whole city is! On our way to Battery Park, we went to Rockefeller Center. Workers were only starting to put the enormous Christmas tree up, so we’ll miss witnessing that in all of its glory. However, seeing the rest of the plaza, the statue of Atlas, and St. Patrick’s Cathedral was absolutely incredible.

Plus, we had time to go over to the National September 11 Memorial. That entire complex, which includes a museum and the North and South Pools, is just beautiful. It’s a stunning memorial. White roses and mini American flags were left on some of the names of the victims. The white lighting in each pool made the water glow. One World Trade Center stands tall nearby, and having never seen the original two towers, it gave me an idea of how high those buildings really were. One World Trade Center is even higher than that. We reached Battery Park and saw the Statue of Liberty off in the distance, illuminated against the night sky and dark water.

There was some confusion regarding the charter bus we took and the infamous subway system, but despite getting home super late, that didn’t take away from our trip. Ultimately, New York City was wonderful! We did more than I thought we’d have time to. Yet we’ll be back to do even more in the future.