The never ending journey

It’s 4pm and I’m at 16,000 steps and it’s 82 degrees without the humidex.

We got up this morning and Jay and Steve went for a run. I can downstairs and was writing the blog from yesterday and texted Maria because she had texted me a photo last night, my photo of the place in NYC from Instagram, so I asked why she sent it to me. She texted back she meant to send it to someone else and did I want a Starbucks on her way back?  I was like “where are you?” I thought she was upstairs. So I put in my order for a grande decaf non-fat flat white and a grande chai tea latte for Juls, who was still in bed. 

Maria came back with the Starbucks haul and we chatted about her dinner last night. When Jay and Steve got back they were SO sweaty, Jay looked overheated and I told him to go up and have a shower because he was disgusting. Apparently in addition to being hot he was cranky because I got some flack for that. 

We decided to go down to the 911 memorial today and debated walking vs subway and ultimately decided to walk so that we could see different sites along the way. 

The townhouse is at E 62nd St and 1st Ave and Central Park is at 5th Avenue so we walked over to the park and then across to go past Radio City Music Hall. 

From there we continued on to Time Square. 

It is HOT out!  See Old Navy on the left there?  Sophie wanted to get in, I wanted some AC, so we went in!  The girls got a couple of $3 t-shirts and back out. 

Did I show you where we have to walk today?  Let me show you. 

That walk took us 5.5 hours today. 😂 😭  This wasn't our exact path because we walked over to the park first, but it gives you an idea of how far we went.

We were walking along Broadway and past a bakery, Jay stopped in his tracks to go in for a chocolate croissant. We went in and they served lunch so we got a table. I ordered a ham and gruyiere baguette with creme fraiche and it was amazing. There wasn’t too much for the kids so none of them were super impressed but the adults loved theirs!  The kids got chocolate croissants so they were fine.  A friend of Maria’s recommended a couple of restaurants to her so we booked a reservation at a Mexican place not too far from our house. The only photo at lunch I took was of my drink. Lol. 

Well that’s blurry, it was strawberry apple basil cold pressed juice, it was delicious and refreshing.

About 30 mins later on our walk the girls saw a little park where they could cool off and had a blast!

What an amazing way to cool off!

Sophie had mentioned one of her classmates told her you can get cookie dough in a cone. So we did some google investigating and found it’s pretty much on our way. We go through Washington Square Park and Dō is right there.  The girls all cooled off in the fountain again!  God I wish I were 10 sometimes!  It’s so friggin hot!

Cookie dough in a cone is good in theory, in practice its way too sweet. So we had the cones tipped into cups with lids and plan to bake them into cookies when we get back to the house. 

I would like to say the girls are leading in thought and remembrance, but in reality the metal with names inscribed is cooled by the water feature to about 65 degrees so all leaned on it to cool down a bit.

From here we could get an UBER back home and it was a 49 min drive or take the subway at 32 minutes.  Maria ordered an UBER XL and 7 of us could fit in, so all the 7 girls piled into the SUV and left the 2 boys to decide if they wanted to UBER it or take the Subway.  They made the right choice for them...





They got home in 32 minutes and were enjoying a beer and we were over an hour because of the traffic.





When we got home we had about an hour and a half to relax, cool off, have a couple of drinks and get ready and walk a few blocks to dinner.  We went to Rosa Mexicano on 1st Ave.  Dinner was SO good.

Maria had fish tacos with street corn and a strawberry margarita.

In front of the girls is guacamole for 2 people, mild (no jalepenos).  We had an order for 4 of medium that had a jalepeno in it, it was amazing.



Maria's first drink was a regular margarita - I had 2 Cadillac margaritas that were SO good.





They made the guacamole right at the table for you with a little cart, like at the Octagon with the Caesar salad.



We walked back to the house, full and happy.  The girls all disappeared upstairs to their room to watch some iPad and chill out, it was a long day.  We sat in the living room and shortly after we got back Jim arrived, his flight had been delayed - so I think it was somewhere around 9:30pm when he arrived.  We headed to bed around 10:30pm again.  The plan for tomorrow is to take the Ferry to Ellis Island, which goes past the Statue of Liberty and then in the afternoon see if we can get cheap'ish' tickets to go and see School of Rock at the matinee today at 2pm.

NYC

We have about 4 more hours to go before we reach NYC.  I rented a nice 3 bedroom, 1 bathroom, medium budget apartment that would accommodate 10 of us (6 adults and 4 kids) to try to make the weekend affordable.  12 days before we were to arrive I got a message from AirBNB that simply said "Your apartment in New York has been cancelled by the Host"...WHAT?!?  So, being the reasonable person that I was, I emailed Alon to ask him what was going on...no response.  AirBNB also said that they would give me a 10% credit if I rebooked with AirBNB.  So I went on the site, emailed 10 different apartments asking if they could accommodate us last minute - the other thing is that a lot of these places only accommodate 8 people and we are 10...so each one I explained that we are 10 and asked if that would be ok.  For most it was.  Originally we had paid about $2500 CAD for the 4 nights (not bad in NYC with 3 couples splitting the bill)..we got a $250 CAD credit added to that.  To add to the complication I had pre-paid for parking in a parking lot a few blocks from the original apartment, which was $160 USD for the 4 nights.  I was able to find an AMAZING apartment 7 blocks from the parking lot, in the same general area as the first, for $3444 CAD - so we each chipped in another $200 bucks and are now staying in a 4 bedroom, 3 bathroom townhouse.


The forecast is still for rain today, so we decided to go for breakfast at the hotel, which is a buffet but they'll make you pancakes, French toast, eggs, etc.  We have breakfast, which is ok, it was our waitress' first day so every question we asked she had to check, but she did a good job anyway (for a buffet waitress).  After breakfast we packed up the room and decided we would try the hike so drove to the Park.  It wasn't raining so we did a little walk to the base of the waterfall, which has a swimming area.  

It started to spit rain and we couldn't find the trail head for the hike, which I had assumed would be at the base of the waterfall or near, so we got back in the car to start our drive.  By now it was about 10:45am and the GPS says we'll get to the apartment around 4 pm, check in time.  We'll make up some time but then stop for a quick lunch, so hopefully we will not get stuck in too much traffic and arrive right around 4pm.  The Faust's left Uxbridge this morning and are meeting us at the house, they did a straight drive through today because Avery had her Grade 8 Grad trip to Montreal and her bus arrived back to Uxbridge last night at 8:30pm.  They're ETA is about 5pm.

We arrived on time, hit very little traffic - just 2 spots in the 4 hours and delayed 10 minutes each.  The biggest issue was Paige and her attitude..and though its more a punishment for us, she lost her iPad for the last 2 hours of the trip.  We told her to read but she didn't want to, so she made a list of people and how much she liked them "at this moment" and scored them from 1 - 10.  She gave me a 3..so I took back my pen.  Have fun with your paper sweetheart.

We found the apartment and pulled in a block away in a commercial loading area, the girls and I loaded ourselves with most of the bags and walked down the block to the apartment while Jay waited with the car, once I got the door to the townhouse opened and got all the bags inside the door I called Jay and he came down the street, stopped in front of the place and then I unloaded the cooler and remaining bags onto the street and then he took off to find the parking garage.  I got the rest of the gear all into the house and the girls came running down saying "this place is so cool, there are like 4 floors!". 

The way that its set up is that the door is on street level with a hallway and stairs up to the 1st floor which has the kitchen, dining and living rooms.  

Then the stairs up to the 2nd floor have 2 bedrooms, a bathroom and the laundry room.  

Then the stairs up to the 3rd floor have 2 more bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. 

Then the stairs up to the roof just go to the roof.

Paige and I went to the Market across the street to get ice and some chips - we ordered pizza for dinner, the Faust's are running late due to traffic.  The ice maker had some ice, but the dispenser isn't working so I took it out, thawed it out and put it back, we'll see how it works tomorrow - but just in case we now have ice.  Pizza was delicious, but the cheese pizza for the kids had too much sauce on it and too much cheese that wasn't quite cooked enough so pizza was a bust for them.

We had brought a cooler so I pre-made blueberry mojitos and brought some soda, some juice boxes, sprite, candy, hummus, cream cheese and black garlic jelly, pita chips, pretzel thins and some fruit - we were pretty well set up for snacks.

The Faust's arrived just after 6pm, they timed leaving the parking garage with when there was a break in the rain.  The girls all did their nails and toes.  My girls and I were going to get Pedi's before we came but didn't have time, so instead we went to Shoppers and bought some polish.  Some of the colours were only $2 and so we bought 8 colours and 2 top coats for $57 and we saved $83 from the original price.  The polish is really nice, its thick but smooth and goes on so well.  Its a gel polish and the top coat cures it to make it stronger but without needing a UV light.  The colours are also intense.  I would recommend it.  I did my nails on Wednesday morning and they still look great.

Maria flew in to Newark and it took her an hour and a half to get from the airport to the house, she had a quick drink (guzzled a mojito) and then went out for dinner with two people from work.

After dinner we went for a walk and found a park about 5 blocks away so the girls played for a while and then we walked back.  

Juls, the girls and I played yatzhee and we all went to bed around 10:30pm.

PF CHANG'S Here I Come!

For a few months we’ve been planning a trip to NYC at the end of the school year, ironically for the Canada Day long weekend. The girls keep saying we’re going to Donald Trump land and I keep saying to them we probably shouldn’t say anything if we have nothing nice to say!

We’re travelling with Steve, Juls, Avery and Myah and also Jim and Maria. We’re all arriving separately though. We’re driving, as are the Faust’s, leaving Wed afternoon, picking Jay up at his office and driving half way to Ithaca, home of Cornell University, to break up the drive.

The girls and I got out of the house right on time and got to Jay's office at 2pm, he was ready shortly after and we made our way to the border.  Originally, I had plotted in the Whirlpool bridge in Niagara because its the Nexus only bridge, to get over faster, but as we approached the Queenston Lewiston Bridge I asked Jay to look up the wait time for that and it came up as No Delay, so we went across there.  There were only maybe 5 cars ahead of us, it was perfect.  I handed over our Nexus cards and there was an error, which reminds me, I have to fix that!  Anyway, there was an error so we had to go into the office.  When I renewed the girls and my Nexus cards and we received them in the mail, I was supposed to have "activated them" on the new Trusted Traveller Program website, but I didn't.  So the officer gave me instructions on how to do this.  In the process, he told Jay that he was the only one who did it right - when REALLY he had to go down to the airport for a second interview because he didn't renew his Nexus until AFTER it expired, as opposed to me, as Paige said "Who did the responsible thing" and renewed before it expired.  Anyway, before the trip back I have to remember to activate our cards online.  Apparently flying they don't check the RFID chip, which they do when you drive over the border.

Because EVERY time I go to the States I HAVE to have PF Chang's for dinner we stopped in Victor, NY, literally 3 minutes off the highway.  Again, I had originally thought we would stop at PF Chang's in Syracuse but when I saw the sign for Victor I said to Jay "There's a PF Chang's here" (one of 3 in New York State) "check and see how far it is off the highway".  Because was about 5:30pm by this time and we had been in the car for 3 hours we stopped early in Victor.  I knew there was a PF Chang's in Victor because I'd been there before!  About 6 years ago, maybe more, I arranged a Girls Weekend to the Finger Lakes and I booked our B&B around the location of the PF Chang's, lol.  For real.  There was some drama during dinner, the girls were tired but also stir crazy.  Both pouted when their dinner arrived..until Paige tasted hers and loved it, Sophie tasted hers and hated it, tasted Paige's and loved it so I just ordered her a lo mein too and we boxed up her fried rice - crisis averted.  I, of course, got lettuce wraps to share with Jay and my own order of Mongolian Beef.  Jay got Mongolian Beef too and then a Kung Pow Chicken..too much food - rookie mistake.

After dinner we got back in the car to drive the rest of the way to Ithaca, about an hour and 45 minutes left.  So far I've driven the whole time, which is fine by me.  We've had no incidents and very little traffic so its been great.  The new truck is very comfortable to drive in and we have a tonne of space in it.  The border officer was asking about it when we pulled up - he's looking at buying one so wanted to know if it was a nice ride and how good on gas it is..its not great on gas but its not horrible either - slightly worse than the Explorer at 14.0L/100km.

Several times on the drive I would say "Look, that's pretty" and Jay would look up from his book and the girls would keep their eyes glued to their iPads.  They have headphones, so its hard for them to hear me anyway - but I definitely know what Mom and Dad felt on that drive up the California coast when I was about 14 and had my nose in a book and didn't appreciate, or see, any of the beautiful scenery.  We saw a couple of deer at the side of the road on our trip, drove along a wide river, saw some waterfalls, a very nice drive.

We arrived in Ithaca around 8pm I think, parked across the street from the hotel, checked in, got up to the room and got the girls changed into swim suits to wear off some of their pent up energy in the pool.  We had bought a nerf style football and the girls threw that around in the pool for a while before we headed back up to the room.  Jay and I finished our beer, the girls had got us some ice from the ice maker so that we could cool them right down while they were in the pool, and then we went to bed.

The plan for the morning is to get up, go for a hike and head to NYC.  There is a nice hike at Robert H Treman State Park with 8 waterfalls or something like that.  But, the forecast is calling for thunder storms in the morning, which is better than earlier today when it was calling for storms all day long, so we will have to play it by ear.

No photos today!  Not even of PF Chang's, too busy eating...