New York

My trip to New York was filled with interesting events and memorable moments. Although, the first funny story happened even before I left Edmonton. My father took my mother, my aunt and I to the airport. After we had suffered through the self check-in, we went through customs, (I thought that happens at the other end but okay), where I was asked if I had any citrus fruits?...no ... lemons? ...no ....oranges? .....no ....grapefruits? ... no - when I said I have no citrus fruits sir, I wasn't lying! Do you have any meat products? ...no ....any beef jerky? no ....any sausages? ... no ....any corned beef, roast beef, hamburgers? ... no sir I'm vegetarian... Oh, I'm sorry but that's your choice. Welcome to The United States. Realize here that I am still in the Edmonton Airport. Then it's through ....the machines. I walk up to the x-ray machine. Where a lady tells me that she will be patting me down and searching my bags more thoroughly. Since I don't have anything to hide I say Sure. I walk through the machine, which beeps and the lady with the magic wand asks me to step over here so she can use her wand. While she is scanning me she comes to the zipper of my one piece jumpsuit, which she asks me to unzip and take it off. If I did that, I would be naked ... so I look at her as if she has asked me to strip in public, but she repeats her request ... I again give her the look to tell her she as asked me something indecent.... but she tells me to do it with even more insistance and growing annoyance. So I do! then she sees my skin and realizes that it is my clothing not a jacket and hurriedly tells me to zip up and apologizes all over herself.... too little too late, dear. Then I get my pat down.... I've been undressed and fondled even before I'm on the plane. This is going to be an interesting trip.
Now travelling with my mother and my aunt Sherry(her sister) is like travelling with the giggle twins. I don't even need to see them to know where they are .... he he he .... ho ho ho ... ha ha ha ..... Oh they are over there. It's very entertaining and sometimes you can't help but get suck into it. I now believe that the most hilarious people are the people that you have grown up with and known all your life. Because when we met up with my sister Tara in Minneapolis. We started to joke and laugh, and didn't stop for the entire trip.
Once we had arrived in New York and caught a taxi to our hotel, deposited our things. And just after midnight we went for a walk around Time Square. Since both Sherry and Tara where hungry we went to a pub that was still serving pub called 'the Playwrights Lounge' .... I thought of my friend Trina, a brilliant playwrite. An order of Mozza sticks and potatoe skins later coupled with a few drinks and glasses of wine, not me I'm the soda/lime juice girl. We went back to the hotel and crashed at 3 in the morning ..... to catch 3 hours of sleep before we awoke at 6 in the morning. Needless to say the next morning was interesting. But we all jumped up at 6 and began the day. It was a busy day .... we were to; walk down Wall Street,go to Trinity Church, see Ground Zero (the site of the World Trade Center), go see St. Paul's and St. Peter's, then finish the morning with some shopping at Century 21 discount. We went on the subway for the first time after buying week-long unlimited passes .... my sister misplaced hers and we had to find it in her purse. Wall Street was very non-descript little road .... with a few banks and of course the New York Stock Exchange, which you can no longer go in since 9/11. In fact you can't even get near the door. Oh well .... At the end of Wall Street is the very beautiful Trinity Church.

It's a big church with a spire and arches ..... stain glass windows, an organ and beautiful wood doors. I sat down to take a few pictures and enjoy the atmosphere as the piano tuner started to get the piano ready for Sunday's Mass. Out behind the church is the graveyard .... in the middle of downtown Manhattan.... Spectacular ..... amazing some of the most expensive realestate in the world is still reserved for the dead to rest in peace. It provides a peacefully serene area to go to in the middle of downtown. As I walked around, most of the gravestones have been washed clean but a few are readable and I found one of a little girl named Elizabeth Rose, an adopted girl that died at the age of nine. What was so interesting to me however was that she died on my birthday more than 300 years ago. It was a little surreal since it was 2 days after I had my birthday. We decided that we needed to a little shopping and stopped at Century 21 Discount, a 2 hour shopping stop .... and may I say that it was 2 hours well spent. I bought a fantastic pair of boots that go up to my knees ... YEAH!!! We decided to walk by St. Peter's ... it was nice inside but there was some kind of service happening so we just looked around quickly and then carried on to City Hall. Then we caught the subway to Soho, to do some shopping and looking around before we were supposed to get back and get ready to see Wicked. My sister had some problems locating her subway pass, so we missed the train but finally managed to get everyone on and then promptly missed our stop. Oh well, it takes some time to get it right and get used to the Subway. We shopped ourselves silly ..... seeing every possible shop they had in the area, at least that's what it felt like .... some of the more memorable ones were Victoria Secret's, Bath and Bodyworks, Crate and Barrel .... then for those into fashion we went to Prada, D&G, CK, DKNY, ..... it was really great. After we finished our window shopping mixed with actual purchasing we went to catch the train back to the hotel so we could get ready and eat dinner before we went to Wicked. But my sister's problem with the Metro pass continued and we spent a few stressful minutes while she turned her wallet inside out before she found it. At this point she forfeited her right to carry her own metro pass, and Aunt Sherry was assigned to guard it for her. We finally made it back to the hotel and got ready, went to dinner at a really nice place beside the theater. We only had appetizers as we didn't have time for much else, we shared a plate mussels and a glass of wine (for the winos). Then we went to the theater.The show was fantastic, the acting was good and the singing suberb. I enjoyed it but I had a small problem with the script, since I have read the book, I was very disappointed that thet Hollywoodized it and gave it a happy ending where the book stays very true the original story. I was a good show for my first on Broadway, I hope that I will see many more. Here is a look at the sets that they have .... I kept thinking of Trina and Clinton .... all my friends that are in theater and I wondered what they would have thought and picked out as critism and what they would have extolled. After the show we tried to find 'Hell's Kitchen' the restaurant not the area for a dinner proper, but to no avail, so we settled for a nice Brazilian restaurant that was still open. Aunt Sherry and Tara ordered so much food that they we full by the time their entrees made it to the table. So ends our first full day in New York. The next day after we ate something, don't ask me what, we went to Rockefeller Plaza, we walked through the NBC gift store and asked to get the tour but we would have gotten in at 11 o'clock at night. That's was a no. But we did get to see them put up the Christmas Tree in Rockefeller Plaza, with the cranes .... and all the men crawling in and out of the tree .... and the ceremonial driving in of the stake. It felt like a real special event ... the kind you see once in a lifetime. We stood there for some time while they hoisted and lowered the tree, teasing us that they were putting it up. But they weren't.

So we went up to the top of the Rockefeller Plaza, 'The Top of the Rock' and got a great view of all the buildings in the daylight. It was wonderfully clear and we could see for 25 miles or more in any direction.

As much as I would have loved to see the tree being raised we were on a strict schedule and didn't have time for such foolishness. We rushed off to Grand Central Station for a tour, only to discover it wasn't a tour of Grand Central Station but of Midtown Manhattan, our schedule didn't allow for that either so we went back into Grand Central Station to look around on our own and then go for lunch at the famous Grand Central Station Oyster Bar. Of course, we went at lunch time and the place was packed. They put us in the lounge area and there were only seats for two of us. On a trip to the bathroom I saw quite a few empty seats and went to procur them .... met up with a small difficulty in navigating a large pole, but the bartender and what I can only assume is a regular helped me find 4 seats for us. We ordered ..... of course blue point oysters on the half shell, which were fantastic and even my dubious Aunt Sherry tried one and survived. Sherry ended up with a huge plate of mussels that we all needed to help her finish. Tara had white clam chowder. Mom and I shared clam chowder and fried oysters. The food was fantastic and the bartender was sweet and entertaining.From Grand Cental Station we went to the famous Chrysler Building, you can no longer go up to the top of the building, so we only looked around the lobby. It's a stunning building though and everytime we saw it from any angle it was strikingly beautiful. Next we walked up 5th avenue, window shopping as we went all the way to Central Park. My Aunt decided that we needed to take a horse and carriage ride through Central Park .... we found an Italian guy went in and were off .... the driver was a little short on details of the park ..... but being Italian he flirted non- stop with me the entire time and even serenaded me while he drove. This did nothing to impress Mom, Tara or Sherry but was a huge ego boost for me and will give them something to tease me about for the rest of eternity. We then went through Central Park .... at a pace as our next tourist destination was a restaurant called Tavern on the Green. We walked part the skating rink, it looked like it so much fun, but we had no time ... no time. When we got to the restaurant, it was full but Aunt Sherry and Mom opted to have a glass of wine in the upstairs bar and Tara and I went for a walk in search of bike rentals. New York was full into fall and it was wonderful to see Central Park decked out in autumn colors. Gorgeous!!!