Mama Mia Chronicles

We had such a lovely time in NYC. I am beside myself that I got to experience it, and with my dearest friends to boot. You can't get much better than that.

I do wish to remember this trip, so bear with me for trying to write down as many details as I can remember, and please ladies feel free to fill in if I have forgotten or missed something.

I have had but a few days to plane this trip, so I was very stressed out and just plane confused in the days coming up to the trip. Of course, the fact that I had two journals due had nothing to do with that:-).
Anyway, my first obstacle in planing this trip has been finding a place where to stay. I was just appalled to see the prices of hotels, and once I tried to find a privet apartment I was faced with lots and lots of rejections. I have been rejected so many times that it was starting to affect my self esteem :-). The reasons for rejections were primarily that "they were full", but also everyone got cold feet when they learned that I only needed to rent for two nights. Apparently, they don't do that in New York. Aside from being said "no", I was even more annoyed by the people who did not even care enough to send me a "no". I have not received response from 3-4 people, and there were only 2 who actually gave me some direction after telling me that "they were full".
So, all depressed and feeling like a worm, I tell my husband to find a place. So he calls this hotel in New Jersey, and they have opening and price is in our range, and if we want to reserve via email or phone. That was IT!
Next thing I do is write my journals the last possible moment and we are off. Wait, that would be too easy.
My husband comes home early and we decide to run a few errands. We don't leave this place until six o'clock and takes us 4.5 hours to get there. Next little surprise for me was the amount of tolls you need to pay on the way there. I've never done this before so dishing out close to $20 just for tolls was a surprise. On a way there, my freshly potty trained child refuses to ware diaper, and he happens to have this frantic fear of public rest rooms. Things could not have gotten any more interesting. So here I am trying to get the poor thing to go, I even offer to take him to go "pee a tree", but he refuses because it is dark and he is "scares". So I put diaper on him, but he does not want to pee in his diaper so he is scream "help me, go home potty", and this is just breaking my heart. We finally make it to the hotel and we have this lovely room with two queen size beds, and my baby finally gets to go!

The next morning we get up at 6 am to get ready and go into our adventure.

First we need to figure out bus and subway system to get to Ms Buffy's apartment. This of course entails its share of drama, but we finally manage to get somewhere and for the best of us we can't figure out how to find this apartment. We are on 56th street but according to MS B's dear husband, who happens to answer the phone, we have gone too far. I was like, please, just don't make me go back. I'll just stay here at the Trump tower and you all just go and do your thing. So I ignore what he told me, and I go the other way and you know it there is Mr Buffy coming towards us. He was gonna send us the wrong way, and I was gonna step on his foot right there and then, but I had to sustain myself, Buffy will need someone to haul kids around.

When we got to the apartment, Mr Buffy made me a cup of coffee and all was well with the world again.

Then we got joined by DD and her clan, and off we were to the Empire State Building. First we had to take subway, and our kids just had to touch every trash can on the way there, I was starting to dream about decontamination rooms and such. The only thing that gave me some hope was that little bottle of hand antibacterial cleaner strapped to my purse. I'm not going anywhere without that thing ever again.

So, here we are at the ESB. Security is kind of crazy and they just make you go in line and off you are through the mase. And we went, and then some more, and at this point nausea sets in, and then we got to the elevators.
The thing catapults us to the 80th floor, and DD and Buffy talk about what if it opens and shoots us into space type of things. At the 80th floor we have to go to another elevator to the 86th floor observatory. So we get there and we have magnificent view of everything New York. That view just makes you feel really, really small, and that you can fall down really, really hard. It took us about and hour and a half just to get to see that view, but it was worth every second of it. It just gave me an incredible feeling that I can touch that plane flying above us:-).

After ESB we are off to eat something and then go to Liberty Island. We find some pizza place (anyone knows what was it called?), and we have pizza, and after that no one can imagine eating pizza for few weeks. Except, now we have to get onto boat that is rocking quit a bit, and you can just feel that pizza rocking inside you.

I forgot to mention that the day was beautiful and we couldn't ask for better weather that day. So, we wait in line, get on the boat, and off we are to see Lady Liberty. She looks magnificent from the water and so does NY skyline. This is the point where we take a gazillion pictures and try to prevent children from jumping into the water. Once we get to the Island we stroll around a bit. Mr Buffy gets a present from pigeons (that is for that phone call earlier in the day), and we also get to witness Ms Buffy herself running after her little one. I took a picture but it is all just a blur, she was running THAT fast. Then we take some more pictures and kids play some more. Then Buffy and DD's families go to see the inside of the monument, and my boys and I go to chill and have some ice cream, because we didn't get to buy thickets on time. We also needed to chill for a bit, lots of walking wares you down. Not to mention that I had to carry my kid for the most part as well.

After our visit to Liberty Island we gut suckered down by street vendors and I had my kid's names written out in animalese and DD had her family's last name done as well. I am glad we did it, but carrying that thing around was not very cool. Buffy decided to remain the cool one of the bunch and not do it, and her foot hurt. Now I just throw that in, didn't I.

So off we went to see sight of World Trade Center. Now, there is something about that place I just couldn't put my finger on. Maybe it was the dusk that did it, but there was some leeriness in the air. We couldn't see much except the empty space, but I know it gave me the whole new perspective on the size of the event. I think that everyone should see this place, just to realize how horrific it really is, and it puts things into perspective.

After visit to WTC we were ready to call it a day, but we had to eat something, so we went to Madison Square and saw it from distance and found a little diner (can anyone remember the name of it?). My little one fell asleep in there, so I had to carry him to the subway and buss and all the way to the hotel. My older baby was tired too, and he fell asleep in the buss. My husband almost fell asleep, too, and I had to nudge him a few times. I needed someone to carry some stuff.

We came to the hotel room so tired and exhausted and HAPPY! It was a really nice day. We got to see most of the things we planed to see, and it was really fun. And my baby got over his fear of public restrooms.

Ms D.