That's why, this past spring when my mom and sister came to visit me, I jokingly kept suggesting that they come back in September. I had plans to visit Ohio in both June for my wedding and in August for my cousin's wedding, but nothing after that had been nailed down.
I'm OK when I know when I'll see my family again. It alleviates the loneliness a little bit.
So I was pleasantly surprised when my mom called me out of the blue in early September and said she was planning a visit to New York "just because." She said she had talked to my dad and they decided that her coming out here twice a year would be OK.
Little did I know when I went to sleep the day before she arrived that it would be the last time I'd sleep in a LOOOOONNNGGGG time.
Among the highlights in our crazy whirlwind of a five-day trip are:
- FINALLY having an excuse to use the fondue pot that Brent and I received for our wedding. Y-U-M!!
-Deciding AGAINST going to the NYC Wine & Food Festival because we didn't want to pay $40 per person to rush from business establishment to business establishment in the three-hour-time-period allotted to wait in line to get a sample of wine and take the chance that there might just be food samples. Instead, we went across the street from the festival to eat outside where we could still watch the street performers, shared a bottle of wine, and followed up dinner by going to two crazy trendy bars in the Meatpacking District of NYC.
- Meeting up with some of her cousins and their older kids to wander around the city looking for a place to get cheesecake after the well-known restaurant, Serendipity, told us they were "too busy" to give us takeout. We later were turned down by TWO taxicab drivers, one of whom yelled at us because we asked him to drive in a direction he wasn't currently heading.
- Complaining about how terrible Serendipity REALLY is when, a few days later, we later sat down in the restaurant for dessert. Our plans to split their famous (and trademarked) Frrrozen Hot Chocolate (yes, it's as stupid as it sounds) were derailed when they told us each person had to spend $8.50 apiece. So my mom ordered their drink (which was stale-milk-chocolate flavored) and I ordered a chocolate mousse that was as thick as butter, richer than Donald Trump, and topped with cardboard-flavored whip cream. Needless to say, it was a waste of $20.
- Realizing that we spent nearly an entire day simply riding NYC public transportation. In just one day we rode the subway, then took the cable car to Roosevelt Island, hopped on a bus that drove around the two-mile-long island between Manhattan and Queens, and finally boarded the boat that travels between Manhattan and Staten Island for an evening view of the city from the water. But hell, it was fun.
- Relentlessly teasing Brent when the football team of MY alma mater, The University of Toledo, kicked the ass of HIS alma mater, The "mighty" University of Michigan.
- Spending three hours on bicycles seeing everything we could see in Central Park, including the castle, gardens, and ponds.
- Getting extremely irritated one morning attempting to understand the newfangled coffee/espresso machine that Brent and I received for our wedding so we could finally have cappuccinos even though I work at a freakin' coffee shop and we could have just got drinks there.
- Attempting to see a good part of The Met even though I knew ahead of time that its collection has reached the two million mark.
- Laughing at ourselves for actually bel
ieving the Roosevelt Island bus driver who said it was a MUST to see the island's "famous" lighthouse, which supposedly would illuminate the fish in the water. So after walking quite a ways to find the lighthouse, which wasn't even lit up, we realized the only reason he was so excited about it was because it was the only remotely exciting thing on that damn island.
- Laughing at ourselves for actually bel
ieving the Roosevelt Island bus driver who said it was a MUST to see the island's "famous" lighthouse, which supposedly would illuminate the fish in the water. So after walking quite a ways to find the lighthouse, which wasn't even lit up, we realized the only reason he was so excited about it was because it was the only remotely exciting thing on that damn island.- Touring Brooklyn before walking across the Brooklyn Bridge to see the art exhibit that features the man-made NYC waterfalls soaring 90 to 120 feet in the air. At night, the four waterfalls were lit up and gorgeous!
- Being diverted away from a park near Brooklyn because they were filming an episode of 30 Rock.
And all this and tons more in five days. I need a 48-hour nap.
1 comment:
I didn't realize how much Brent liked our fondue dinner. That picture says it all....
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