Celebrating Sixty in New York City

New York City

On my 60th birthday we traveled to the Big Apple. We have been before, but there is always something new and different going on in New York. My friend from high school, who happened to marry one of Jim's fraternity brothers, was turning 60 three days after me, so they joined us for a long weekend. We have gone on vacation with them several times before, so we knew that we would have a good time.

Air travel is always an adventure these days. We arrived at the airport in a timely fashion only to find out when checking the bags that our American Airlines flight was delayed. They kindly called me with news of the delay when I was standing in the security line. Thanks for nothing! Of course the line was short since time was of not of the essence. Not wanting to start the trip on a negative note, we headed to a restaurant at the airport for lunch and beverages. Happy birthday to me!

Cheers!

The airline, of course, blamed the delay on LaGuardia Airport traffic. Really? You didn't know about the air traffic there when you selected the flight time for your plane? Any way, we finally boarded the sardine can - my name for the planes with one seat on one side, two seats on the other. After another small delay, we pulled out onto the Tarmac. Things were looking up! Nope - false alarm. There we sat. But it was all good because the flight attendant brought us each a mint. Then we all got a cup of water. But I knew we were in trouble when she announced that due to the "length of the flight" (2.5 hours), she was offering us each a snack. You know, the ones where you pay $2 for five potato chips? I knew we were not going anywhere soon.

We finally took off and ran into some pretty bad weather for the last part of the trip. There was a lot of turbulence, and the view outside my window was that of the proverbial pea soup. When the pilot announced that we were sixteen minutes away from landing, we both sighed in relief. But then sixteen became thirty, which became forty-five, all with no further updates from the cockpit. That is when I became nervous, which frayed Jim's nerves because I never get nervous on planes. Just as we were beginning to wonder if the 10:00 news was going to be carrying our story, I saw lights down below. Whew! Once on the ground, things moved quickly and we were in a cab on our way to midtown. After a harrowing cab ride, we arrived at our hotel several hours later than planned.

The Court Hotel

We were delighted to find that we had been assigned a corner room on the 9th floor, which gave us a nice view of the Chrysler Building. It was playing peek-a-boo through the fog the first night. The down side of this room was that it faces a busy street that was teeming with traffic 20 hours of each day. And the horn honking! Oh my! All hours of the day and night. What in the world bothered drivers so much that they had to lay on the horn at 4:00 in the morning? They were awake, so we should be awake? New Yorkers are very impatient. Waiting in your car for fifty pedestrians to cross the street when they have the Walk sign? The cars behind you won't like that. Honk, honk, honk! Cars standing still on the road because there is nowhere to go? Hooooonk! There - that will get them to move! Unbelievable...

Our friends had arrived early in the day, and shared their stories of schlepping around New York in the rain. The hairdryer in their room got a workout as they attempted to dry clothes and shoes for later use. They had waited for us to eat, so we grabbed a nice dinner at the Italian restaurant across the street from the hotel. It was a good time to catch up and make our plans for Thursday. More on that in the next post...