NEW YORK 2004

This was so last-minute, it was - like - last 20 seconds.

My husband announced a 4-day trip to New York for work training and I hinted at being able to go.  When he said, "Sure, come on." I was like..."Oh crap...do I really want to go there?"  NEW YORK, for pity sakes.  It's not Vancouver.  It's not even San Francisco.

I knew my husband would be working the whole time so I'd be pretty much on my own.   I debated and debated and finally said, "Don't be such a loser, Mel, this is NEW YORK.  You've never been there.  Just go for Pete's sake."

So I said, "Yes, please.", begged work to let me off for three days, and paid my own airfare (dirt cheap through Jet Blue at 199 bucks RETURN!).

We headed off to Target to buy new carry-on luggage because ours was falling apart at the seams, zippers were missing, and - well - I'd left it in the garage and it had yucky dust and cobwebs and stuff all over it.  Ew.  I'm not going to use that!

Packing, of course, was done very last-minute - as in...the night before.  So I was extremely concerned that a) I'd leave something hugely important (like my underwear) behind or b) I'd leave something hugely important (like my tickets) behind.  As luck would have it, neither were left behind, but I was woefully short on shirts.

DRESS WARM!

Why?  Because it was about 20 degrees Fahrenheit in New York and they have this little thing called WIND that shakes you to your BONES!  I, of course, love the cold and since it's t-shirt weather here in California right now, it was a nice change.

Anywho...the flight was unremarkable.  Oh wait, the plane had Direct TV, so when I wasn't trying to sleep - not sure why I try since I can never do it - I was either reading or channel surfing.  Just like home!

Except for the fact that we had to get up at, like, 3 a.m., the travel part wasn't too bad.  Yuck!  We had to be at the airport early so it felt like five minutes after my head hit the pillow I had to get up again.  That was sort of not fun.  But no worries - I was on my way to the BIG APPLE! 

I'm not sure why they call it the big apple since I didn't really see any big apples, nor any apple trees anywhere in New York.  Lots of garbage on the streets, but no apples.  So maybe someone can explain that to me.

Since we're brilliant travelers with no checked luggage (took feats of willpower not to bring a full-size suitcase), we strolled off the plane and outside to a nice long line of waiting cabs.  But not before some guy standing in front of the Krispy Kreme vendor steps up and asks us if we need a ride.  We shrug because we're - like - novices at this so we begin to follow him, thinking well it's five bucks less than that long row of yellow cabs.  And off we go, dragging our matching carry-on luggage on-wheels behind us.  And off we go some more through another concourse.  And off we go some more as he leads us well past the entrance and begins to make way to the parking lot.

So now the spidey senses are tingling and my husband asks, "Uh...why should we follow you when there is a load of cabs right in front of the terminal?"  He goes, "Luxury car."  Yeah right, luxury car right to the morgue!  Off he goes to retrieve his Bentley and off WE go back to the safe row of Yellow cabs waiting at the terminal.

Forty-five dollars and an hour later we pull up to the Jolly Madison Hotel on 38th and Madison.  Twenty minutes later and we're at our hotel room, dumping everything.  A quick change, and we're off to get some chow. 

Jet Blue is cheap for a reason.  They don't FEED YOU!  Yeah, that snack is really gonna fill me up for a SIX HOUR PLANE RIDE!!!  Especially since I'm eating low-carb and pretty much EVERYTHING they serve is off limits.   So I got to watch my husband eat chips and cookies and drink pop and I simply enjoyed my tasteless protein bar and drank heaping gulps of water.

So we tossed on a sweater and our warm jackets and headed out to find some dinner.  As luck would have it, there was a restaurant right across the street called Moonstruck.  The waiter was I have no idea what -- possibly Russian.  He moved like the WIND.  We ordered a grilled plate and he gave us so much food, I had no idea where to put it all.  It wasn't filet mignon, but it was lightning fast so I wasn't going to complain.

After eating, we went off for a brisk stroll to a) check out the city and b) buy some gloves, scarves, and hats because frost bite was setting in quickly.  I felt like a dork in a hat, but I figured it was better to look like a dork than have my ears snap off and hit the ground beside me.  We walked and walked, marveled at how much it DIDN'T smell like pee (I hear that's a summertime issue) and were dazzled by how un-dirty it was.  Sure, they had garbage right on the sidewalks, but the next morning it was gone.

It was cleaner than San Jose, for Pete's sake.

That sort of blew us away and then some.  We picked up some souvenirs for family and headed back to the hotel.  Ron had to get up early the next morning and I was pretty beat.

The next day, I rolled out of bed at around noon - cut me some slack, that's 9 a.m. California time!  By the time I'd showered and dressed it was closer to one so I called my sister, said, "Hey, I'm in New York!" and then swallowed some courage to go walk around - alone!  Imagine.

I wandered the streets near my hotel for a while, then headed towards the Empire State Building.  Who knew Ron and I were right next door the night before?  We sure didn't.  We didn't bother to look up.

So I enjoyed the long line-up for tickets, then went to see the New York Experience (kind of like Soarin' Over California at Disneyland, but for New York) and the Observatory.  From there, I tried to call my mom, but she'd just left so I talked to my step-dad, Rob, instead.  Great reception on the top of the Empire State Building, by the way.  I'd neglected to mention the trip to my family in Canada so I started my call with, "Hey, Rob, guess where I am?"

He replies, "I dunno, where?"  He probably thought I was in jail or something - I don't know.

I say, "On the top of the Empire State Building!"  And off I went into the tangent about how I got to New York.  We chatted a while longer and off I went.  I bought a hop-on-hop-off pass to a GrayLine tour (very much like in London!) and traveled to famous touristy sites like:

- United Nations (lots of flags)
- Trump Tower (Donald has a bunch of buildings in New York - how many does one man need?)
- Greenwich Village (trendy)
- SoHo (artsy)
- Times Square (bright lights, big city!)
- Financial District (incredibly boring because I'm in no way financially inclined)
- Central Park (awesome - I made a mental note to wander there again during the week)
- Broadway (I'd be going there later that evening for a play)
- Upper West / East side (homes of the rich and famous)
- Ground Zero (I didn't actually want to see this, so I just stayed on the bus)
- Courts (Martha Stewart trial!  Major camera crew vehicles parked on the curb)
- Statue of Liberty (off in the harbour - by this time I was a human ice cube and running out of time so I didn't get much closer)
- Brooklyn Bridge (I think it was that one - it was a bridge, so I wasn't overly impressed)

After the tour, I got off at the Waldorf Astoria stop and ran-walked back to the hotel.  Which happened to be, like, 12 blocks away.  It's the middle of winter, I'm not exactly dressed for the weather, and I was sitting on the top of a double-decker bus with wind blowing in every crevice.  Needless to say, by the time I got OFF the bus, walking was a bit of a chore.  My toes were frozen and my legs felt like iron.  However, by the end of the day I'd certainly mastered the fine art of walking against the light and not meeting anyone's gaze.

Quick change and Ron and I were off to see Mamma Mia! at the Winter Garden Theatre.  It was FANTASTIC!  I happen to love ABBA so I was in heaven.  Ron, unfortunately, sat beside an truly obnoxious couple.  The man thought it was perfectly fine to talk during the performance.  Ron pretty much leaned over and told him to be quiet.  But did it end there?  Noooooo.  His female companion felt it necessary to sing EVERY SINGLE SONG from the show.  So Ron's left ear suffered the caterwauling of the woman and his right ear enjoyed the music from the show.  I, of course, was blissfully unaware.  This was a Valentines Day present and he didn't want to ruin the show for me.

Personally, I would have leaned over and said, "Honey, I paid a hundred bucks for this seat to hear HER sing, not you.  Can it!"  (Well, maybe I wouldn't have said that, but I WOULD have given her a really harsh look!)

Before the show we stopped off at Texas Texas for some - well - Texas food?  I had Brisket and Ron had Rib-Eye.  They knew we had to make an eight o'clock show so they moved pretty fast to get our food to us.

The next day was pretty much spent sight-seeing the Upper area of Manhattan and taking a nice breezy stroll through Central Park.  I can only imagine how beautiful it is in the springtime.

After that,  I decided to take in a massage.  There was a place just down the street from my husband's work so I thought, why not?    And other than the fact that the woman spoke NO ENGLISH and kept forgetting to put the towel back on me while she invited other employees to talk about our language barrier, or just left the door open to chat in the HALLWAY, and rubbed me raw with her Swedish massage technique, and pretty much hopped on the table and STOOD ON ME....it went pretty well.

After that, I went to get my hair styled and met the nicest woman from Morocco.  I only slightly got wobbly on my knees when they charged me THIRTY DOLLARS to wash and style my hair.  It's not like she styled it one strand at a time, but when she was done I had some pretty gorgeous looking New York hair, sleek and long and perfectly straight down my back.  Trust me, I couldn't do that to save my life.

Oh, at some point we went out with Ron's co-workers to a Kosher Italian Restaurant.  It was a cheese-less Italian Restaurant.  So that was interesting.  I ended up having chicken anyway and blew my diet entirely for the Chocolate Mousse.  It was worth it!  Besides, I'd walked my arse off that day.

Back at the hotel, I did something I haven't done since I moved to California.  I had a long hot bubble bath in a tub that was taller than my hip bone.  I stayed in that thing until the water was ice cold, my skin was pruney, and I'd finished my entire novel.  My husband had to check on me periodically to make sure that I was breathing.

So mostly I did a lot of walking.  I walked all over the place.  I also went to a bakery and had New York Style cheesecake.   Yum and a half.  I took pictures, too, which I'll try and post on here at some point.

Oh!  The night before we left, Ron took me to Frankie and Johnny's for an amazing steak.   When I say amazing, I mean STUPENDOUSLY good.  I was full at three bites, but I ate for pleasure for the rest of it.  AND I managed to scarf back - with the generous assistance of my husband - some apple strudel.  Then we rolled ourselves out of there and headed back to the hotel to digest and fall asleep.

The ride back sucked big time.  It felt like it was six times as long as the ride there and other than some wind current explanation, I can't imagine why.   Maybe if I hadn't chosen the most boring book in the world it wouldn't have been so bad.   And every once in a while, the soft odour of feces would creep through the air vent, which was a little disconcerting.  My initial reaction every time was, "I hope no one thinks that was me!"     So I don't know how the bathroom is connected to the breezy air that comes out of those tiny little holes in the turnable tubes, but dang....they need to add some air freshener!

But other than that we had a blast.  ;)

I'd go back in a heartbeat. 

Love New York, too: