Home Sweet Home

Our last day in New York was pretty hectic.  Our only objective was getting to the airport and getting home.  I was dreading the trip to the airport after the trip from the airport to our hotel was so hellish.  Ross, master of the subway system, assured us that he had found a better way to the airport, which was quite the relief.  Not blaming him in the slightest, but it was still 5 different trains and a buttload of stairs.  I was so excited to get to the airport so I could just get on the plane and not move for the next five hours.

Getting to the airport took longer than we anticipated, and when we got to the counter to check our bag in they told us that we were too late checking in.  The lady helping us was nice and said she was going to see what she could do for us but said, "I don't want to give you false hope, you don't have a prayer." She took off with Jordan's ID and boarding pass in search of a supervisor.  This was stressful 'cause we didn't know what would happen if we didn't make the flight, if we would be able to get the next flight and who knows when the next flight would be.  Our flight was boarding, and every minute she was gone I could feel our window closing.  She came back and said that she had to get a higher up supervisor, and eventually her supervisor came back saying they will be able to get the bag, and us, on the plane.  But they left Jordan's ID elsewhere and had to go track that down.

We hurried through security and to the gate, only to find that the flight was delayed.  I was never so happy to for a flight to be delayed.

Then the flight got delayed several more times due to a mechanical problem they were trying to fix. It was supposed to leave at 11:20, and by 1:30 they simply cancelled the flight.  We got in line to get onto another flight, and the person that was helping us apparently knew nothing about the original flight being cancelled.  Once she figured out the situation she was able to help us get on a later flight, making sure that our bag would go with, but the flight didn't leave until 7:00 pm.  We met up with my sister and her husband and they said they were getting on a flight that left at 2:30.  Which was interesting that we weren't put on that flight in the first place.  So, we got our tickets changed to that earlier flight, making sure she put our bag on that flight and not the first two. I had a stack of tickets that were piling up.

Then an announcement was made over the PA system that they were going to get a whole new plane, and the original flight was uncancelled.  So, we had to get our tickets and bag changed right back over to that flight.  By this point I had said goodbye to everything in our suitcase 'cause I was sure there was no way it was going to survive all the changes and make it on the right plane.  Our new flight was delayed a little bit, which at this point was just par for the course.  I didn't let myself believe I was getting on that plane until I was actually in my seat.

When we pulled out I wanted to cheer.  I guess that only happens in the movies.  That cheer would have been premature though since we spent an hour sitting on the tarmac taxiing along and waiting for our turn on the runway.  When it was finally our turn I got a look at the line behind us and there were 8 planes behind us waiting for their turn.  I know there were 8 because the guy sitting directly behind me was narrating everything out the window to the person who was sitting next to him.  That person was also asleep.

"I see the Delta building, and a person standing on the runway, I see 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 birds behind us.  I see the yellow lines on the pavement..." And so forth until we took off and he began to describe the different kinds of clouds he was seeing. No joke.

When we landed I got to hear, "I see the Great Salt Lake, and big mountains topped with salt.  Or it's snow or salt, I don't know which."

Ah, but I was so happy to see those salt-covered mountains.  More importantly I was overjoyed to see that our bag made it to Utah with us.  It had just as hellish an ordeal getting on the plane as we did.

I love going on trips, and I love coming home.  Being in crazy different places really makes me appreciate home.

Now, to figure out where I'm going with the flight vouchers Delta gave us for cancelling our flight that ended up being uncancelled...

My Butt & The Bum That Handed It To Me

I got my butt handed to me by a homeless man. 

After spending some time at FAO Schwartz we set off to find a bite to eat before we needed to head to Lion King.  We found a delightful little deli just up the street and popped in there for lunch.  If you're curious, and I know you are, I got a grilled chicken sammich with avocado.  It made my heart sing.

I was out front by myself waiting for the rest of my peoples as they were buying cookies for the road.  As I was standing there a homeless man approached me.

"Do you have any change?"

"I don't, I'm sorry."  Which was very true.

"Well, you have a credit card, you can go in there and buy me a sandwich."  This wasn't even said as a request, it was like it was the obvious solution to the problem of me not having change.

"I'm sorry?"  I asked because I both couldn't believe I'd heard right, and because I could barely understand him through his thick mumbly accent.

"You can take your credit card, and go buy me a sandwich."

"I don't think I want to do that, I'm sorry sir."

"But, I'm hungry."

"I'm sorry, sir." Was all I had to say.  I began to understand that he wasn't going to leave me alone, and my cavalry wasn't coming out of the deli anytime soon.

"So, where you come from you just let people go hungry?"

I have to admit at this point I was getting pretty defensive and annoyed.  "Where I come from, people just have jobs."

"But, what am I supposed to do?"

"You should probably just get a job."

"But what am I supposed to do if people won't hire me?"  I wanted to ask how this was my fault, but just shrugged and apologized again.

At this point a swanky dressed man walked up to the deli.  The homeless man turned his attention to the newcomer, and asked him to buy him a sandwich.  The man shook his head and went into the deli.

The homeless man turned back to me and said, "Rich guy won't buy me a sandwich, what's wrong with you?!"

Does that make sense to anyone else?  I just rolled my eyes, "I'm not rich."

Finally as Jordan came out of the deli the man sauntered off to accost more people.  Jordan handed me a cookie and as we walked down the street we passed the guy, who was now harassing another woman.  I looked at him and pointedly bit into my cookie.

Maybe I am heartless, but I have a hard time giving handouts to people that don't help themselves.  I'm more apt to give change to street performers rather than a guy that gives me the 3rd degree about buying him a sandwich.  Jordan is a lot kinder and gave his change to anyone that asked, if he had it.  If fact, we were at Coldstone and there was a guy that was begging off the line and Jordan told him he didn't have any change, but would give him his change once he paid.

What do you think?  Would you have bought the guy a sandwich?

The City That Never Sleeps

I'm sure you're sick of hearing about my trip.  But, I'm just not finished.  Semi-colon, parenthesis.

Lion King
Wow, what a show.  I have wanted to see this since it first came out, and with seeing a Broadway show on my Bucket List, it was an easy decision to see Lion King.

People have told me how amazing the animals and costumes are, and I've seen previews of them, but seeing it in person absolutely makes a difference.  I enjoyed every minute of this, and definitely recommend it. 

What I don't recommend is a matinee.  It was full of kids, and there was a group of teenagers behind me that were obnoxious.  They sang along, kicked my chair, talked loudly and just were teenagers.  We encountered a lot of teenage groups seeing sights and it made me think back to myself as a teenager and I acted the exact same way.

Central Park
I absolutely loved Central Park.  In a sea of cement, crowds and buildings the park was like heaven.  We ended up walking from one side of the park to the other to get to the Museum of Natural History, then through it again, taking a different route, to get back.  So we spent a lot of time in the park.  I really liked sitting on a bench and just people watching.

There were so many horse drawn carriages.  I would have loved to have taken one, but they were really expensive.   One guy was so pushy trying to sell us on it that he followed us half a block and kept trying to get us to buy a tour even after we said, "There's no way you can change our minds." I finally had to say that they only way I would go was if he charged us $20, which made him laugh and then he left us alone.  That and we walked faster.

There were a ton of statues throughout the park.

Bethesda Fountain

Jordan's French Stuart impression, it's like they're twins.  He must have been looking into the sunlight.

Next I'm going to tell a jovial tale of the altercation between myself and a homeless man.

The Big Apple

Golly, I don't eve know where to begin.  I'm just going to list what all we did and my general impression.  By the way, my camera was acting funny, and I'm not a big picture taker in the first place, so all the pictures are from my phone and aren't the best quality.  Except, when it looks like the Statue of Liberty is tiny, that's because she is.

Times Square
Absolutely amazing, and crazy all at once.  We went there several times since a lot of the places we wanted to see, or shop at were there, but I never got a picture, and I'm bummed about that.  We went there the very first night after we dropped our crap off at the hotel.  When we came out of the subway station I was really disoriented because it was about 9:00 pm, but it looked like it was the middle of the day because of all the lights.  No joke, I wouldn't joke about bright lights.  It reminded me a lot of the Vegas strip, but on crack.  Which was fitting, since I'm sure there were a lot of people there on crack.

Madame Tussades
Total tourist trap, and completely overpriced.  But, it was part of the New York Pass we bought, so it didn't cost anything, so we figured why not?  The level of detail was incredible.  When I was face to face with the figures they are so realistic that I felt bad for staring, and was really afraid that they were going to come alive, or that the actual celebrity was there playing a joke on everyone.  I had to look at their hands before I would get close because their hands did look fake.  Jordan was trying to get a picture of me with Brad Pitt but I couldn't approach him 'cause his hands were behind his back and I was 87% sure it was the real deal.  Again, no pictures 'cause that's when my camera went funky, and not the good kind of funky.  There's a good kind of funky?

Statue of Liberty

Boat ride to Liberty Island

Britney had been there before and said that it was smaller than she expected, so in my head I was picturing it smaller than what I thought it would be, but I was still surprised at how small it actually was.  I felt like big joke had been played on me.  In movies, TV shows and pictures they make it look humongous, but when I saw it I thought "Aw look at the cute little statue!" rather than thinking it was impressive.  Another tourist heard me say I was surprised it was so small and she got really defensive, for some reason.  Maybe I had just built it up in my mind, and sure when it was first erected it was a vision.  It was still really cool to see though.

From Liberty Island, in front of the pedestal

Skyline from Liberty Island

Ground Zero

We went to Ground Zero right after the Statue of Liberty and I was floored when I walked out of the subway and saw the new World Trade Center building before me.  I didn't know that they had started building it yet, and it was pretty inspirational to see The Land of the Brave plugging forward. 

It should be a pretty impressive building when it is finished.  Though it may not be appropriate for me to point out that having it so reflective creates an illusion, and the last thing we need is to make the building difficult to see from the air...

Bodies
I have been interested in seeing Bodies for a while, but I wasn't sure how I would react; If I'd get queasy or find it interesting.  Turns out it was pretty interesting.  For those of you who haven't heard of it, Bodies is an exhibition that displays actual human bodies.  When a person dies and is donated all of the bodily fluids are removed and replaced with plastic, then molded and displayed.

There are a couple different kinds of exhibitions, one is medically informational and the other is more artistic.  I would have liked to see the artistic one, and while this was informational I still found it to be pretty artistic.  One thing I liked was they show the lungs of a healthy person and a smoker, then left a bin for you to throw your cigarettes in.  The bin had a healthy (or unhealthy, if you will) collection of cigarette packs, some even unopened.  The thing that saddened me was I couldn't help but look at each of these people and wonder what their story was, how they had lived their life, and how they had died.  I found out that these people were all unclaimed people from Asia.  I was sad to hear that.

China Town
We went to China Town and I have to admit that I was really testy at that point.  We had done a lot of walking and my feet were exceptionally sore.  When we got off the subway we were disoriented and lost, and spent some time just walking around trying to find a specific section of the town. The more we walked the more my feet hurt, and the more my feet hurt the angrier I got.  Then, the clouds opened and before me was a little basement spa.  I like to think God wanted me to relax.  Me and Britney ducked in, ditched the guys and got a foot massage.

Then I was happy.  Over the moon in fact.  I didn't know if I was happier to be lying down, or having my feet rubbed.  The only downside was when Jordan came back to meet us after the massage we were waiting for Britney to use the bathroom Jordan mentioned he was thirsty.  I thought I was being helpful when I bounced up on my new feet and filled up a paper cup from a water jug in the spa.  Being thirsty myself I down the first glass, refilled it for Jordan and gave it to him.  He looked into it and said "Nice, that's real nice." and handed it back.  I thought that was pretty rude, I got him a cup of water and he responds that way?  Well fine, I'll have the water then. I drained half the cup and looked down into it.  Then a piece of my soul died.  There were floaties.  Really bad floaties.  Orange floaties that looked like brine shrimp.  So, if I get a disease or parasite, I know it was from the water jug in China Town.  Not sure what I was thinking trusting that water in the first place.

Little Italy
To complete the cliché' of getting a massage in China Town, we decided we wanted pasta in Little Italy.  We found a little restaurant that had a cute little backyard veranda, and ate there.  Jordan got Fettuccini Alfredo and I got Lasagna.  Half way through we decided we liked the other's dish better than our own and switched.  Mostly, it was just nice to relax with my husband, sister and bro-in-law and enjoy the evening.  Afterwards we got some gelato from a street vendor, and that confirmed my suspicion that God wanted me to relax.

Rockefeller: Jimmy Fallon & Top of the Rock
Being a huge couch potato I was excited to go to 30 Rock because I love a lot of NBC's line up.  We went with the intention of taking an NBC Studio tour.  While perusing the NBC store an employee approached Jordan and I and asked if we were fans of Jimmy Fallon.  I answered with a resounding yes.  He then invited us to Jimmy Fallon's monologue rehearsal, where he practices the jokes in his opening monologue for Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.  If that already wasn't self-explanatory.  He tries the jokes out on a small audience, and based on our laughs decides which ones to use in the show that night.  It's safe to say we were pivotal in shaping late night television.

So, we got to go into the studio and sit right up front.  Just us, Jimmy, his writers and a few other inconsequential audience members.  It was neat to see Jimmy Fallon all casual and unscripted...Except for that time he read from the script.  I gave my best guffaws as an oral wink to tell Jimmy he was A-OK to use that joke and then he invited us over for dinner.

Wait, I think that last part was only in my mind.  We're still best friends though, whether he knows it or not.  It was a pretty cool experience, and even more so since it was such a small audience.

Ground view of the 30 Rockefeller building

That night we went to the top of Rockefeller.  We went at dusk, and then watched all the lights come on in the city.  What an amazing view it was, and right across from the Empire State Building.  We didn't go to the top of the Empire state building if you're wondering, 'cause it's the same basic view from both buildings, and we would rather be at the top of the Rock looking at the Empire State Building, than looking at the Rock from the ESB.  Yes, I abbreviated 'cause I'm that lazy.

Empire state building from the top of the Rock.

Empire State Building from the street

American Museum of Natural History

I have to admit that I was excited to see this because of The Night of the Museum.  We decided that the movie took a lot of liberties because it looks nothing like the movie, and didn't have any of the same exhibits save one.  It was still cool though, and huge.  They had a lot of stuffed animal exhibits, and I couldn't help but think, why would I want to see dead animals when I could go to a zoo and see them alive?

Velociraptor!  With a Brontosaurus in the background.

Easter Island statue.  A.K.A. Dum Dum.

Yikes, sorry again for the length, but what can ya do?

New York

I'm back from New York and I have been putting off writing about my trip 'cause to write about seven days of intense awesomeness is a pretty daunting task and I didn't know how to go about it. So, I'm just going to talk about various aspects of the trip, and if I get bored I'll save the rest for another post.  Sound good?
Subways
Because the cheapest mode of transportation is the subway we each got a week pass and used the subways to get around everywhere we went.  My sis and her husband had been to New York before and knew what they were doing, but Jordan and I got a rude awakening.  We got off the plane and had to take the subway to our hotel which didn't strike me as a big deal.  What I didn't realize was that we would need to train hop, and lugging our luggage (pun intended) through the subways was sucky to an absurd degree.  I also didn't know there were different levels of subways and we would get off a train and go down a level to a different train, then at one point had to climb about three flights of stairs, again all while carrying heavy suitcases and trying to keep up with my brother-in-law Ross, who is long-legged and a speed walker.  I believe we took five trains to get to our final destination.

Then there is the smell and general rankness of the subway.  Everything is unbelievably dirty and I was confident I was going to contract some sort of rare disease if I touched anything.  Me and antibacterial hand sanitizer became well acquainted and when I used it I just covered my arms for good measure.  The smell was like 300 people lined up and peed onto the subway track.  And they were all dehydrated.  The thing that really amazed me was by the last day I hardly noticed the smell.  I was terrified that I had the capability to acclimate to such a raunchy smell.

The people of course are another matter entirely.  Every person on the subway had soulless eyes.  Like they were all sitting there trying to forget who they were.  Staring off into nothing and trying not make eye contact with anyone.  I thought it was funny how similar everyone was, while being so different.  The majority of people had headphones in, and when they ate they ate out of paper bags.  Literally out of the bag, they would stick their face in the bag to take a bite, rather than pull whatever they were eating out.  Weird stuff.


Eats & Treats
We ate at some pretty amazing restaurants.  To me Hard Rock Cafe is a given, and we ended up going there twice. We went to Planet Hollywood, which isn't as much of a whoop de doo, but we went the first night and none of us had eaten anything since breakfast and we were starving.  Any food at that point would have been amazing.

Some of the best food was actually from the street vendors.  The hot dogs were so amazing that I dreamed about them that night.  One time Jordan was getting a hot dog for both of us and the guy asked if we wanted small or large.  Jordan said large figuring it would be a bigger hot dog, but the guy put two dogs in one bun.  Interesting.  There were ice cream vendors everywhere, which we took full and perhaps obscene advantage of.

My favorite restaurant we went to was The Chip Shop.  We had seen it on the travel channel before and definitely wanted to try it out.  They deep fry everything which sounds gross, but it was amazing.  Jordan and I got deep fried pizza, and deep fried mac and cheese.  It was like having a scone with a pizza inside of it.  Sounds gross, but it was divine.  For dessert we had a deep fried Twinkie and deep fried Reese's.  The Twinkie was good, but it was the Reese's that was heavenly.  Heavenly, I say.  The chocolate and peanut butter was melted and it tasted like love.  Fresh, puppy love.  I dreamed about that place too.  If you're ever in Brooklyn do yourself a favor and go there.

We went to Carlos Bake Shop in Hoboken NJ, and I was really excited for this because I'm a big fan of the show, Cake Boss.  The pastries look so amazing on the show and I was excited to be able to try some.  We got there and had to wait in line, and overall it took a little over an hour from the time we got there to checking out. 

I got a lobster tail, a cannoli, and a cream puff.  Jordan got a couple of cream filled pastries that looked like bite-sized pies and a chocolate chip cookie.

And the verdict?  It wasn't that great.  I was sorely disapointed and couldn't finish most of the stuff that I got.  Same with Jordan, but he did say that chocolate chip cookie was the best he has ever had.  I suppose that's just one opinion, and maybe I had hyped everything up in my mind.

Geography

Jordan is going to kill me if he ever reads this.  One big thing I learned from the trip, is that our kids had better not learn geography from Jordan.  As our plane was on its decent and circling around to land I pointed out the window and told Jordan to look.  He asked what he was seeing, and I said water, we were above the ocean.  He said, "New York doesn't touch any water, does it?"  I had to explain that Manhattan is an island, and he said "They don't have beaches though." Then, I explained that Coney Island was a big ol' beach.

The next day we were in New Jersey and he was asking questions like, "Is New York big?" and what all New York City encompasses.  He asked if that was where Jersey Shore was filmed, and I said it's filmed in Jersey, but not this part of Jersey.  I wish I remember exactly how he asked this, 'cause it was priceless.  He asked how Hoboken could be a part of New Jersey, while New Jersey is a part of New York.  I was confused, and it dawned on me that he thought New Jersey was a city in New York. He couldn't figure out if we were in the city of New Jersey then what does that make Hoboken, a sub-city?  Which explains why he was dead set that the Jersey Shore was filmed there, since we were in New Jersey city.  Ahhhh, needless to say he got crap about that for the rest of the trip.

Ok, I'm bored, and this is getting lengthy.  I think next I'm going to talk about all the amazing attractions we got to see.

MOM

In honor of Mother's day, I thought I would reminisce on a few memories of my mom.

When I was in Kindergarten each student had to read a story in front of the class.  I decided to do The Little Red Hen.  If you've never heard it before it was about a hen that grew some wheat and eventually used it to bake bread, all while her barnyard friends wouldn't help her.  I'm sure there is a magical morale mixed in there somewhere.  My mom made miniature loaves of bread for each kid in my class to have.  All the kids thougt that was really cool that they got their own loaf of bread, myself included.  I was the coolest kid in class that day.

*****

My mom has always said she has ways of knowing things we think she couldn't possibly know, and if we ever do anything wrong, she'll know about it.  She had a rule that we couldn't go downtown by oursleves, and I suppose it was a little dangerous.  One day me and my friend decided we were going to bike to the local library.  Yes, I realize how nerdy this makes me look that I would risk getting grounded to sneak to the library of all places.  We biked down there, perused the library, went to the drugstore to buy some candy, went back to the library and read our books while eating our candy in the most sneaky of fashions to hide it from the librarians, and biked home.  I thought we were home free (pun intended) until my mom came home from work that evening and asked how the library was.  She was at work all day!  She is a magician.

***** 

When my friends called the house and my mom answered the phone, it went something like this:

Friend: "Is Bre there?"

Mom: "Physically, but not mentally."

Classic.

***** 

One day my mom mentioned how much me and sister looked alike.  We don't, and I mean we really don't.  With my prowess in rhetoric I jumped to the first comparison that came to mind.  Bugs, of course.  "But mom, Brit is like a Walking Stick, and I'm like a-a Potato Bug!"

I should add that I was about 21 at that time.

I was in between apartments, and was crashing on my parents couch in the basement while I was waiting for the current tenants to move out of my apartment so I could move in.  I had several friends over, and we were sitting in the basement when my mom started yelling down the steps:

"POTATO BUG!  POTAAAAATO BUUUUUUG!  OH, POTATO BUG!"

My friends stopped talking to listen to my mom holler down the stairs.  Of course I tried, in vain, to ignore it. 

"Is your mom saying 'Potato Bug'?"

"Ummmmm yeah, I guess she is."

"Wait, is your mom calling you Potato Bug?"

"Ha ha, no."

Then my mom chirps in with, "Potato Bug?  BRE!  Potato Bug, c'mere!"

She knew my friends were there, and knew exactly the effect it would have.  Of course, my friends started calling me Potato Bug.

***** 

Jordan and I were freshly dating, and were still in the transition from friends to more than.  I was again living in my parents basement, but this time I was occupying the only bedroom downstairs.  Jordan came over to hang out a lot, so she was used to him there, but I guess she had sensed the change.  I had a TV in my room, and we were sitting there watching a movie when she burst through the door with my dad's old shotgun and shouted "What are your intentions with my daughter?!"  Except, she barely finished her sentence before she bust out laughing, and continued to laugh so hard she cried.  She laughed the rest of the evening, she was so proud of herself.  Jordan however, didn't find it as funny, and it took a while before he wasn't intimidated by my mom.  I personally look forward to doing the same thing to my daughters' boyfriends.

I should probably make it clear that the gun wasn't loaded.

*****

My mom has a fear of water, and when we were planning our trip to Lake Powell we were desperate for her to come, even though we were planning on staying on a houseboat.  It took a lot of begging, canoodling and bribing, but she eventually agreed to go on the trip.

Once there we joked about how we were going to get her out on the tube behind the speedboat.  One morning we were all outside getting the boat ready to take out when she stepped out of the houseboat in her swimsuit, zipped up her lifejacket and said she was ready to go.

All our jaws dropped and we stared, unable to believe she was really going to get on the tube.  Despite her fear she hopped on that tube.

Smiling or grimacing, you ask?  I think I little bit of both.



While she didn't exactly conquer her fear, I was so proud that she kicked it in the butt a little that day.

******

My mom playing guitar hero.  And if this awesomeness isn't self-explanatory, the look on Jordan's face in the background should be explanation enough.

My mom is the greatest mother I could have asked for.  I feel so lucky to be her daughter.  When I grow up I want to be just like her.  

5 Days To Go, Commencing Freakout

I leave for New York Saturday, and I'm unbelievably excited.  I have wanted to go to New York my entire life, and have been planning this trip since January. 

As excited as I am, I'm also a little panicked.  My stress list consists of the following.

-I am so out of shape it's not even funny.  We are doing a lot of walking, and I know I am going to die.  I take great comfort that my sister is super pregnant and will be walking at the same pace. 

-Everything in New York is super expensive.  What if I didn't save enough money and we find ourselves broke on the fourth day?

-I ordered the Lion King tickets Apr 5th, and still haven't gotten them yet.  I called the website I ordered them from and must have efficiently conveyed my panic 'cause they are sending them via Fed Ex, and I should get them in two days.  I suppose I could have just said I would pick them up at will call, but I have a deep seeded fear that the web site I ordered them from is a scam, and I'm going to get to will call and they have no tickets for us.  I'd love to have them firmly in my paws before I leave.

-Now that Osama Bin Laden is dead I'm sure security is going to be amped up in case of retaliation.  I'm convinced I will get a cavity search at the airport.  I'll have to remember to wear a decent pair of underwear... Jordan figures it will take about a week for OBL's peeps to formulate a plan of revenge, so come Saturday they will be prepared just in time for our flight to NYC.

Other than that I'm pretty excited.  I've got a long list of things that I want to do there, and Jordan is really just hoping we get into the Cash Cab.