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.