13 Oct, 2009
Road trip to Syracuse NY
Posted by andrea tomkins in: Giveaways and product reviews|travel talk
Our mini-getaway to Syracuse has been in the works for a few months. But before I get into the nitty gritty you should know that our accommodations in Syracuse were covered by the Syracuse Convention & Visitors Bureau. We were also given a $50 gift certificate to put towards dining at Dinosaur BBQ, free tickets to the Rosamond Gifford Zoo and the Museum of Science & Technology, as well as a $20 gift certificate to redeem at the Carousel Centre.
I am under no obligation to post a positive review (or any review for that matter!) and my thoughts are totally my own.
As you know, my goal is always to be genuine and absolutely honest about everything I write about here at the Fishbowl. I hope you know (and I hope that my track record speaks for itself) that my loyalty is always with YOU, my readers, and I always give it to you straight. Ok?
So let’s begin:
I’ve been curious about Syracuse for some time. I’ve known a lot of people who head down there to shop, especially in the months leading up to Christmas. Mark has been to Syracuse to golf so I knew he could give me the inside scoop. So when I first got the email about Syracuse I turned to him for advice:
“Hey Mark, what’s in Syracuse,” I asked.
“Um, nothing. Why?”
Oh dear. That’s not what I wanted to hear.
Mark golfed in Syracuse in the early Spring when the courses here in Ottawa were still soggy. It’s cheap to stay, cheap to play, all in all a pretty good trip for a gaggle of guys who crave a good game after a very long golf-free winter.
So when I sat down to meet with the kind folks from the Syracuse Visitors Bureau and their PR agency I was already thinking of framing my experience as a golf widow’s guide to Syracuse. But then we decided that it might be interesting to time our visit for the fall to coincide with an art exhibit at the Everson Museum of Art (I will get to that later).
Based on our conversations, my Syracuse contacts drew up an itinerary and made suggestions about some activities they thought we might enjoy. It was a long list. And I quickly discovered that we weren’t going to have time to cover everything. As it turned out we stuck with a lot of indoor activities due to the weather… which was too bad, because there are some really pretty parks and trails in that part of New York.
If you’re able to catch some sunny weather, fall is a great time to visit New York State. It’s quieter, all traces of oppressive heat are gone, the leaves are turning and there’s still a lot to see and do.
We arrived at the Sheraton Syracuse University Hotel & Conference Center early Friday evening. It was drizzling and grey, not exactly “get outside and explore” kind of weather, so we checked in to our room and went to the Carousel Center. This is the mall that everyone talks about.
The first thing we had to do was eat. Sarah and I shared some food-court Chinese food – which featured a handful of the very few vegetables we’d see during the whole weekend. I was a little disappointed in our choice of eating in a food court, but our timing was bad. We had to eat and we were all too tired to explore the options.
The main feature of the Carousel Center is the carousel. It’s a gorgeous 100-year old antique, only a dollar per ride on a hand-carved horse which travels at a satisfyingly quick clip. I wish I had more photos of it!
We poked around a few familiar stores (Banana Republic, Children’s Place, Old Navy) to comparison shop. I’m not a professional shopper, so I can’t tell you if the prices were markedly better but many of the things we looked at seemed to be a few dollars cheaper. We bought the girls some Christmas dresses at Old Navy and I bought myself an amazing pair of cozy slippers.
The big draw for me, as a shopper, isn’t necessarily saving a few bucks in stores I already know, it’s shopping in the stores we don’t have here in Ottawa.
As much as I love to support our local businesses I can’t tell you how much I love Pottery Barn and Pottery Barn kids. (I’m still hoping someone will develop a Pottery Barn Tweens.) There’s a Macy’s and a JC Penney at Carousel too, among many other stores to which we poor Ottawa folk don’t have easy access.
Totally exhausted and shopped out, we later fell into our beds (the rooms were very nice, the beds were awesome) and slept. The next morning we awoke to a hubbub in the hotel. We walked into the elevator and a kindly lady looked at the girls and asked, “are you here for the game?”
Uh, what game?
At breakfast I asked an older couple wearing Syracuse sweatshirts at the table next to us “what kind of sporting event was going on today.” I think they got a good chuckle out of that one.
It was college football weekend, who knew? (Mark was mortally embarrassed, but I had to ask, didn’t I?) Ha. Go Orange!
American enthusiasm for college sports totally fascinates me. We just don’t have the same rabid excitement here in Canada. There were babies wearing orange, toddlers with orange ribbons in their hair, people young and old all festooned with orange. The couple we spoke to at breakfast had a son who went to Syracuse and a daughter who went to West Virginia (the opposing team) and there they were, supporting their children’s college teams. Wow. Where does all this excitement come from?
Oh, and the hotel was setting up a tailgate party right outside the front lobby.
We escaped to the Everson Museum of Art:
… to catch a special travelling exhibit of a group of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century paintings collected between 1908 and 1923 by sisters Margaret and Gwendoline Davies. Apparently they had quite the eye for art. By 1914 the Davies sisters had assembled one of the finest collections of European modern art in Britain which included works by Paul Cézanne, Edouard Manet, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Joseph M.W. Turner, Vincent van Gogh, and James Abbot McNeillWhistler. And I think Syracuse is one of five stops on the U.S tour.
The girls were interested to see the painting of the “blue dress” and Monet’s water lilies. I think they liked the children’s area the best, where they had an opportunity to sit and draw, sculpt with clay and play dress up while their parents got their bearings:
Afterwards we took the opportunity to explore a bit of the city. Syracuse has some amazing architecture. I found myself wondering if there was a special bus tour of Syracuse which highlighted the historical buildings. I would have really liked to hear more about what we were looking at:
Syracuse is an interesting city on many levels. The mix of grand old buildings, stunning contemporary ones and the occasional abandoned one with boarded up windows was rather telling. I found myself wondering if this is a typical American city, and if it’s on the rise or on the decline. (According to Wikipedia its population is on the decline.)
The downtown core was very quiet, I’m guessing, because life moved out to the ‘burbs and there’s nothing going on here during the weekends.
What’s the solution? This trip reminded me of how important it is for a city to find the right balance of residential and business interests. It takes long-term planning to make a city walkable, develop partnerships between the city and private businesses, introduce mixed-use buildings which include resident-friendly businesses like butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers, as well as bike lanes and great public transportation. The heart of the city requires care and nurturing.
But there I go getting off track! What you need to know is that (a) there is stuff to see and do and (b) although everything you’ll want to see and do is fairly close together you will still need a car to get around.
Lunch on Saturday was at the Dinosaur Barbeque. It is a must – sticky and delicious – and we left feeling happy and ready to take whatever Syracuse had to offer.
Here’s the take-out side, where we picked up some famous Dino sauce for the in-laws:
In the afternoon we went to the Rosamond Gifford Zoo, a sweet little place that was totally manageable for our poor tired feet. Happy news, the sun came out and we had the place nearly to ourselves:
We enjoyed the aviary and the penguins. I just wished the lions had more room to roam. Here’s a close-up:
And THEN we went to Target, where we dropped $450 dollars on what we declared to be “assorted household goods.” (I can hardly believe it. We went a little crazy.)
We spent so long shopping that we lost track of time and left dinner a little too late AGAIN. So we grabbed a pizza at Domino’s and brought it back to our room.
The pizza was so cheap compared to what it costs here, only $7.50 for a large pepperoni, but that seems to be true for a lot of fast food and chain-restaurant meals.
Our late lunch at Cracker Barrel on the way home, for example, was absolutely massive and only cost $28.00. It’s clear that the way to stay slim here is just to avoid eating out. Anywhere! It’s practically cheaper to eat out than make it at home. But that’s a whole different post altogether.
Sunday we had breakfast at Starbucks and explored the Syracuse University campus, which was regal and gorgeous and had it been a little warmer we would have hung out a lot longer than we did:
We spent most of our last afternoon in Syracuse at the Milton J. Rubenstein Museum of Technology (MOST):
… located in a cool little neighbourhood called Armory Square:
MOST is a great example of how Syracuse is slowly reinventing itself as a city. By repurposing heritage buildings for contemporary use they are holding on to their history as well as making something out of it for everyone to enjoy. I wish we could do more of that here too.
We misjudged how big the museum was and found ourselves finding more and more stuff to look the farther we went along.
The girls loved it. One of the highlights? Introducing our children to the first computer game we ever played:
I am not sure the girls were very interested in this particular exhibit.
They spent a lot of time in this:
Once again, we totally messed up our own lunch plans – entirely because of poor planning on our part. Not only was it way past lunchtime by the time we left the museum (it was around 1:30) but we quickly realized that all of the stores and restaurants in the neighbourhood were closed on Sundays (mental note!) and so we slowly made our way homeward, stopping only to fill up our tanks along the way.
Looking back, I can totally see why so many people head down there sans children to shop and why the guys like to go to golf. My perfect long weekend getaway would probably include a parenting switcheroo in which Mark plays golf for a half day while I hang with the kids at the science museum, and then the next day he could take the kids for half a day while I shop at Carousel (because it is entirely possible to spend half a day just shopping).
All in all another good road trip!
As for my next trip is coming up rather quickly and it’s something a little different. Tomorrow (Wednesday) I’m be heading to Disney World for the day with an organization called Dreams Take Flight. But more about that later. :)
Right now: laundry calls.
