Execution

We have been gone for 5 weeks now and our trip is finally winding down.  Before the journey began, as I was planning and booking I had a lot of anxiety about how well our plans would be executed. Every time we’ve reached a new destination I’ve been tickled and a little shocked that we actually made it.  I like to keep my expectations low and that way I’m never disappointed.  There was really no reason to do that in this case but it has helped with some of the punches we’ve had to roll with along the way. 

One of the biggest punches that we had to roll with on the trip was the NYC subway.  I now see why it is the butt of so many jokes.  I usually left the logistics of traveling by subway for John to figure out.  But on two different occasions I ended up having to buy subway tickets myself because John was either trapped on the other side of the railing or in a different location.  What New Yorkers do so frequently that they don’t even have to think about was a terrifying ordeal for me.  To the credit of New Yorkers, all I had to do was slightly furl my brow and some nice man would come to the rescue. The first time this happened I am ashamed to say that I was skeptical and I really thought he was trying to take my $5.00.  That mind set comes from being in tourist Europe where everyone is trying to hustle money from you.  I guess New Yorkers are understanding because a lot of them know what it’s like to be new to the city.  New York City was almost more foreign to us than some of the cities we visited in Europe and I think they get that.  I feel kind of sorry for all those people who go there to visit because they want to see what it’s like in the U.S..  While NYC is a good place to start, they’re not really seeing the whole picture.  We sat with an English woman at breakfast one day who “politely” trash talked the U.S. as only an English person can.  I didn’t give away any of our secrets though.  I just nodded my head politely and listened. 

On Sunday morning we traveled about a mile or so to go to church.  Church in NYC is about the same as anywhere else in the world except that the building blends in with all the others and it is combined with a temple.  The only thing that was kind of comical about it were the tourists I watched come in and peer at the congregation that met after ours.  Undoubtedly having seen The Book Of Mormon musical, they seemed put out that we didn't have more entertainment to offer.  They soon left, seemingly disillusioned.  Sorry guys.  You get what you pay for.

After church we decided to take the Subway to the Staten Island Ferry to see the Statue of Liberty.  Liberty Island is closed due to the hurricane and won’t be reopening until July 4^th (how conveniently symbolic) so we had to settle for a drive by.  As you can imagine, it was hard for us to hide the fact that we were out-of-towners.  We don’t look anything like New Yorkers.  So when we boarded the Subway with slightly furled eyebrows, a loud man from New Jersey with a heart as big as his stature enthusiastically took us under his wing.  He started asking us about places we had visited and any time he mentioned a place that we hadn’t seen his eyes would get big and he would grab his head like he was being plagued by the mother of all migraines.  At one point, the train stopped and unexpectedly started heading in the opposite direction.   He was as surprised as we were but he lead us off the train and onto another one that was sure to bring us to our destination.  When this train suddenly emerged from its subterranean state to go over a bridge it gave us great views of downtown Manhattan and the Brooklyn bridge.  Despite our gladness about the unexpected sight seeing tour he once again assured us that this was the wrong direction and once again lead us off the train and onto another.  He was becoming increasingly more embarrassed with each mistake and I felt bad for him.  He clearly wanted to help us out and should have been an expert at the Subway because he takes it every day to work in Manhattan.  The problem was that it was Sunday and we failed to see the 8.5 X 11 papers that had been posted sloppily on a few of the walls about the train schedule being completely different on the weekends.  He apologized to us emphatically and I felt so bad for him that I wanted to come up with some sort of lie that would appease him.  “Actually, this is where we wanted to go all along.  How did you know?  What would we have done without you?”  Knowing we couldn’t get away with it, we did our best to reassure him as we stepped off the train, headed up to the street and hailed a cab.

View from the ferry

WTC. Amazing how the light shining up is just a reflection of the sun.  

It's so bright up here above the earth!

Oooooh.  Ahhhhh.

One thing that concerned us about being a large family in NYC was the Taxi problem.   No Taxi is allowed to carry more than 4 passengers at a time.  We learned quickly that that’s really more of a “guideline” and the cab drivers kind of follow a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.   We started off trying to be secretive about it.  John would distract the driver while 5 of us piled in the back seat.  We got bolder as time went on until we realized that they just plain didn’t care.  We got pretty good at hailing taxis.  It made us feel really cool too.  We were in different locations each time we decided to get one and each time it took us about 30 seconds.  It’s kind of empowering in a Fonzi sort of way knowing that if you want a ride all you have to do is snap your fingers and a car will immediately come screeching to a halt.

If the NYC Taxi's "anti family" policy could not deter us, the hotels were certainly no match for us either.  Throughout the trip, we all had our own individual beds but once we got to our tiny hotel room in Hell’s Kitchen, New York City we had to get creative.  It came with two double beds and no room for a roll away.  John, who is nothing if not resourceful, pushed the two beds together and we slept sideways, 3 by 3, legs overlapping.   This we did for 4 straight nights.  I am acutely aware of the hilarity of the situation but, honestly, no one missed any sleep over it.  Roll with it baby.